| On
the Fringe
 Braving
the Frozen Links
By Ryan Patrick
If you think you
have trouble finding your tee shots in the fall as the
ever-cascading blanket of leaves seemingly hide every ball, try
playing in the snow.
Believe it or not,
while most sane individuals are curled up by the wood-burner
sipping hot chocolate and watching shows like “America’s
Smartest Model,” there are a few diehards who ignore the
annual Arctic blast in search of glory on the ivory-covered
fairways.
I’ve played in
103-degree heat, torrential downpours, in tournaments where you
could only use one club, speed golf, marathon golf, an array of
scrambles, and even in a night tournament using glow balls.
However, playing on the frozen tundra of a wintertime course had
always eluded me. Until last year.
That’s when, for
the first time, I, along with dozens of other morons, stomped
along a frozen course in the dead of winter, the snow crunching
beneath my feet. When I teed up, the wind stinging my face, icy
gusts taking my breath away, stiff fingers trying to hold onto
the club, I remember cursing myself for agreeing to this
torturous endeavor.
But, to my surprise,
it turned out to be fun. You see; dead-of-winter golf can be
quite an experience, but only if you have a good sense of humor.
For as the green grass disappears from a golf course, so does
typical golf course protocol. This is especially true when
playing in a foursome of men whose strategy for keeping warm
involves a flask of Old Granddad. Before long, your drunken
playing partners may decide that it’s funny to secretly pour
water onto the head of your putter as you approach the green.
When you go to pull your putter out of the bag, much like that
kid’s tongue in A Christmas Story, the metal will stick to
your hand, creating a laugh for everybody else involved and a
real annoyance for yourself. It also seems to be acceptable to
pelt, pummel, and pulverize your new playing partner with
snowballs every time he tries to take a shot. An initiation of
sorts. Another constant source of hilarity among veterans of
this sport seems to be, upon finishing the hole, filling it with
... ahem ... yellow snow for the next group of players coming
through.
A few novices, such
as myself, always make the rookie mistake of showing up with a
bag full of white golf balls — a tactical error that yields
many penalty strokes as they disappear into the snowy fairways.
Orange or yellow are pretty much standard.
You’ll also find
that snow golfers rarely throw their clubs in frustration. This
is partly due to the less serious nature of the play, but also
because a 7-iron thrown into a snow-covered course may be lost
until the spring thaw.
As silly as the
games get, it’s nice to think that there is a subculture of
golfers who refuse to allow fairways to be wasted simply because
of a few feet of snow. And the phenomenon is not limited to the
United States. In Canada, some duffers partake in a different
form of winter golf. Instead of golf balls, they use tennis
balls, play on a frozen lake, and for the hole they use a
deflated, rimless bicycle tire.
Using more
traditional rules, enthusiasts of the sport flock to Uummannaq,
Greenland each year for the annual World Ice Golf Championships.
Some golf
traditionalists take it to the extreme by going to the most
uninhabitable place on earth to be part of the annual McMurdo
Golf Tournament in Antarctica.
The key to a
successful round is simple. Don’t worry about your score and
just enjoy the ride, because it is a unique experience.
The origins of snow
golf are somewhat murky, but some sources suggest it was created
by Rudyard Kipling when he was living in Vermont in the 1890s.
The British author was reportedly so taken by the sport that it
was said he would play in the winter with balls that were
painted red. |
