In this season of snow the fairways of The Country Club, where the Crimson linksters normally cavort in a sunnier clime, look like so many billowing sheets left out to dry. Each day the linksters awake and pine for the white fastness of Brookline to reveal pristine swathes of Merion bluegrass. Each night they gloomily retire.

The approaching call of spring, however, beckons every golfer from his secret grotto. Yesterday, Harvard golfer Spence Fitzgibbons and I furtively crept out way across the Eliot House courtyard and teed up a Titleist before the banks of the Charles. I performed the functions of Spence's caddy, looking somewhat like a hod carrier for a bricklayer. With only a chorus of quizzical birds watching, Spence unsheathed a nine-iron from his bag and sent the first shot of spring skittering across the Charles. To paraphrase Jos Sedley in Vanity Fair: "Gad, there we were, singing away like--a robin."

Snow is the bane of Northeastern golfers but a number of technological breakthroughs have made even this seeming pratfall little more than a minor inconvenience. For example, this winter the Chili Open Golf Classic was played near Akron, Ohio.

The tourney took place on Nesmith Lake, which was frozen solid 15 inches deep. Two hundred and thirty contestants teed it up on the nine hole course which had regulation cups dug six inches into the ice. In place of greens ice course architect Dale Antram substituted red carpets with all different textures and cuts. Braided oval proved to be the most demanding putting surface. The layout was dotted with discarded Christmas trees, which were plunked into the ice.

Of course, winter golf requires special equipment of a fairly refined nature. One necessary accoutrement is the biodegradable golf tee. This rare accessory was put on the market last year. Instead of hunting for a white tee in the snow, the player simply leaves his tee behind. It slowly dissolves and seeps down to fertilize the underlying turf.

The winter golfer also requires a special ball to combat the elements. At the Chili Open, contestants were provided with balls which they spray painted black, green, red, or yellow.

At the U.S. Open this year, an orange golf ball was conspicuous by its presence. This year's Open was also noteworthy for the USGA's decision to artificially stimulate the growth of the rough by liberally applying a substance known as gibberellic acid.

The coating of gibberellic acid is by no means the first attempt at chemical golf. In 1928 Samuel J. Bens of New York City took out patent #1,664,397 on a golf ball "with chemical pockets dotting the outer skin." When the ball impacted the pockets burst, releasing a miasma of ammonium chloride. This simple method of chemical detection would definitely be a boon to the golfer traipsing his way through a snow bank in search of the elusive pill.

Winter golf also raises the dilemma of how the caddie is best to convey one's clubs. The most satisfactory solution to my mind would be to adopt the method illustrated by the caddies at the Royal Hong Kong Golf Club in Fanling, Hong Kong. By dangling both bags on a bamboo pole across his shoulders, the caddie could avoid setting the bags down in the snow for each club selection without undue physical strain.

The use of bamboo poles, biodegradable tees, and ammonium chloride balls allow the winter golfer to frolic in the snow in relative comfort. Such devices, of course, might alarm golfing traditionalists. Died in the wool golfers would be likely to concur with the judgment of "Firey," the legendary Musselburgh caddie, who when the first golf bag was introduced in Scotland in 1888 remarked that it was "nae gowf."

Still, the coming of spring quickens the heart of golfers of all persuasions, including those undaunted by the snow. The first shot of spring unfurls countless visions of idyllic rounds spent meandering in grassy glades. Bernard Darwin put it best when he wrote: "There is something magical about the first rounds of spring, so that we remember some of them long, long after we have played them, not on account of any petty personal triumphs or disaster, but from the pure joy of being alive, club in hand."