Is dome golf a brilliant or idiotic idea?

In the era of oppressive heat, is dome golf a brilliant or idiotic idea?

As I sit here writing on a sweltering covered porch in Durham, N.C., I've arrived at the end of summer in two senses. First, it's officially the last day of summer—whoever chooses these things has designated Monday, Sept. 21 as summer's end in 2026, and autumn begins at midnight. This year, they've pretty much hit the nail on the head because it's also the end of summer in a practical sense. At the moment, it's 95 degrees with a "feels like" temp that reached 99 about an hour ago. Starting tomorrow, though, the 10-day forecast is a thing of beauty, with temperatures staying below 82 well into October.

With sweet relief just hours away, this felt like a good time to consider the problem of heat generally. In the context of summer golf, living in a hot climate—as most of us Americans do, these days, even in the northern states—can range from "annoying" to "prohibitive," depending on your tolerance and health. There are tough nuts among us who don't mind walking at 4 p.m. in mid-July in crushing conditions, and at the other end of the scale are those for whom even taking a cart isn't the healthiest choice when the mercury tips out.

I fall somewhere in the middle zone, and last summer I finally created personal guidelines that told me exactly when it was OK to walk. You can read more about it here, but the gist is that by combining temperature plus dew point (please, please, never pay attention to the useless stat "relative humidity"), you can find your own zones of tolerance. For me, I'll walk comfortably anytime that number is lower than 150, slightly less comfortably between 150 and 155, and a lot less comfortably between 155 and 160. If it's between 160 and 165, I know I'm in for a serious sweat and a post-round malaise, and higher than 165, forget it—that's the danger zone, and it's a ...