The Wacky Side of Golf |
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19TH HOLE COMEDY • Today, the blog • Tomorrow, the book |
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TARGET GOLF This entry was posted on 2/20/2007 9:07 AM and is filed under uncategorized. Sometimes I look out the window and
get the feeling I’ve taken up residence in a waste bunker. I live
in the Sonoran Desert. That’s desert, of course, not
dessert. Dessert is Ben & Jerry’s. Desert is sand &
gravel, burrowing animals and cactus, rattlesnakes and. . .drum roll,
please. . .target golf!
Target golf, for the uninformed is different from what you play in Pittsburgh, Buffalo or Rhode Island. Target golf is fairways with interruptions. A game of Jarts. Three-pointers from center court. Hit and hope. Hail Mary! How hard can it be to advance a ball from one grass target to another? What’s the big deal? Not much to it, is there? No, assuming you can hit a line-drive through a keyhole with a 6-iron from 150 yards. Trust me, target golf will have you wringing your hands, warping your body into pretzel-shapes and barking commands like “Hook,” “Slice” and “Bite” on chip shots. There’s a catch: most targets aren’t all that big. And they are surrounded by desert. Taylor Made golf clubs are designed to clip balls off manicured sod. In target golf you need clubs that grind through gravel. Ping manufactures their golf clubs in Phoenix, Arizona. Karsten Solheim, the founder, had a simple business plan: Build ‘Em Where They Wreck ‘Em. On the bright side, scrape marks chiseled into the sole of a club come in handy. They indicate whether your swing path is inside-out or outside-in. It helps to know since a little grip tinkering or a stance adjustment, may be in order. A small grass patch near the pro shop is the first tee. Look for a hunk of sod the size of a door mat. An appetizer for a rabbit. A 50-foot tree lawn has enough grass to sod a dozen target golf tees. The strip of grass yonder, a skimpy landing area about the width of a gang-mower is the fairway. From the air a target golf course looks like a message in morse code. Players enjoy incredible scenery. Many target golf courses are located in the foothills of strikingly picturesque mountain ranges (where a level lie is rarer than steak tartare). The tees and greens are so elevated that you have to take a nap after you scale them. Even the ball washers are uphill -- the water leaks out. A target green is roughly the size of a drink coaster. And made of plywood, or so it seems when you see a chip shot bounce shoulder high. We don’t repair Arizona divots, if we take one we sell it on eBay. Arizona’s annual rainfall isn’t enough to fill a shot glass, In 2006, Phoenix went 143 days without rain. You need a jackhammer to plant a tulip. You are probably used to golf courses with strategically placed trees and shrubs and creeks to penalize errant shots. We don’t have those things, they’re not necessary. The desert is a natural obstacle course of cactus, boulders, gravel and ruts made by burrowing animals. Did I mention tumbleweed? -- we have moving obstacles. My golf bag is part club container and part medicine chest. I carry bandages and medications in case I have to play a recovery shot while straddling a prickly pear cactus. Talk about pain. If a cactus needle splits your inseam you find out how loud you can scream. You may wonder why I live in Arizona. Well, we have 325 days a year of sunshine, a relaxed life style and many wonders of nature from the desert itself to the Grand Canyon. Of course, we also entertain ourselves watching tourists who pay $300 to play target golf. * * * CommentsDisplay comments as (Linear | Threaded)
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