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here ya go Marko, footgolf!
FootGolf is headed to Metro Detroit
Fox Hills owner Sandy Mily celebrates after a FootGolf putt in Florida last month. Mark Runchry, who's holding the flagstick, will help oversee the installation of Michigan's first FootGolf course in Plymouth. (Fox Hills Golf and Banquet Center)
FootGolf seems like a silly concept until you see it played, at which point all doubt is removed.
It’s a combination of soccer and golf featuring players who kick the ball down the fairway toward a hole that looks like a 21-inch-wide ice bucket.
In case that mental snapshot isn’t odd enough, at the championship level, the players wear shorts and knee-high argyle socks.
Yes, there is a championship level, overseen by something called the Federation for International FootGolf, and it held a World Cup two years ago in Budapest.
The winner was Bela Lengyel, a Hungarian, which presumably sent the hometown fans into a frenzy. Maybe there was even a FootGolf riot.
Probably not, though, since FootGolf appears to be a gentle pastime, more Golf than Foot. And OK, it actually looks like fun.
I bring this up partly because Metro Detroit is about to get its first FootGolf course, at Fox Hills Golf and Banquet Center in Plymouth, and mostly because I’m so desperate for a sign of spring that I’ll cling to anything — even argyle knee-highs.
We’re getting FootGolf because Fox Hills owner Sandy Mily and golf director Mark Runchry, both of whom go through life with last names that look like they’re spelled wrong, played a few holes in February at an industry trade show in Orlando.
“It was a lot of fun,” Runchry reports, and since the Plymouth/Canton area is awash in recreational soccer teams, it seemed like a good fit.
You don't kick a golf ball
Just to be clear, the game uses a soccer ball rather than a golf ball. Kicking a golf ball is like kicking a rock, and 18 holes of that might be discouraging.
Otherwise, the format is golf-like. Players count the number of blows it takes to get from tee to cup, subtract one, and mark down their scores.
You can either bring your own ball, or rent one for $4 at the pro shop. Acceptable footwear includes indoor soccer shoes or gym shoes; no soccer cleats, please.
“It should bring a whole different aspect to golf,” says sales and marketing director Julia Grelak. “A new crowd, as well.”
The new crowd will be on the course simultaneously with the old one, playing 60- to 200-yard holes on the par-3 routing known as the Strategic Fox. It’s sort of like skiers sharing mountains with snowboarders, if one of them was sliding down the mountain on their feet and the other was doing a handstand.
The FootGolf holes will sit alongside the golf greens. Hit a golf ball into the FootGolf hole and you get a free drop, and maybe a Kewpie doll.
The Strategic Fox course, which is joined by 45 regulation-sized holes at Fox Hills, typically sees about 12,000 rounds per season. It will open for FootGolf with a kickoff tournament May 10, and Runchry is hoping for 2,000 rounds after that at $10 for nine holes or $15 for 18.
“That’s kind of a guess,” he concedes. It’s hard to predict the response for a sport almost no one has heard of, unless they happened to be in Hungary in 2012.
80 courses in 28 states
Golf rounds have been on the wane nationally, though, so anything is fair game, especially if it might encourage newcomers to pick up a club.
The American FootGolf League, a venerable body that’s been around for nearly three years, says the United States boasts 80 courses in 28 states.
That number would seem to include courses in various stages of development, consideration or off-hand-remark-about-maybe-putting-a-course-here-someday.
Shanty Creek Resorts in Bellaire has a 9-hole course in the works, which might open a few days ahead of Fox Hills and could lead to a fierce north-south Michigan FootGolf rivalry.
It won’t be long after that before someone proclaims the game to be America’s fastest growing sport. Next comes lobbying to put FootGolf in the Olympics, and then a sordid FootGolf scandal.
Sillier things have happened, and if you need proof of that, just go to a course and watch people like me actually play golf.
From The Detroit News: http://www.detroitnews.com/article/2...#ixzz2wtC41xMZ
FootGolf is headed to Metro Detroit
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- Neal Rubin
- 4 Comments
Fox Hills owner Sandy Mily celebrates after a FootGolf putt in Florida last month. Mark Runchry, who's holding the flagstick, will help oversee the installation of Michigan's first FootGolf course in Plymouth. (Fox Hills Golf and Banquet Center)
FootGolf seems like a silly concept until you see it played, at which point all doubt is removed.
It’s a combination of soccer and golf featuring players who kick the ball down the fairway toward a hole that looks like a 21-inch-wide ice bucket.
In case that mental snapshot isn’t odd enough, at the championship level, the players wear shorts and knee-high argyle socks.
Yes, there is a championship level, overseen by something called the Federation for International FootGolf, and it held a World Cup two years ago in Budapest.
The winner was Bela Lengyel, a Hungarian, which presumably sent the hometown fans into a frenzy. Maybe there was even a FootGolf riot.
Probably not, though, since FootGolf appears to be a gentle pastime, more Golf than Foot. And OK, it actually looks like fun.
I bring this up partly because Metro Detroit is about to get its first FootGolf course, at Fox Hills Golf and Banquet Center in Plymouth, and mostly because I’m so desperate for a sign of spring that I’ll cling to anything — even argyle knee-highs.
We’re getting FootGolf because Fox Hills owner Sandy Mily and golf director Mark Runchry, both of whom go through life with last names that look like they’re spelled wrong, played a few holes in February at an industry trade show in Orlando.
“It was a lot of fun,” Runchry reports, and since the Plymouth/Canton area is awash in recreational soccer teams, it seemed like a good fit.
You don't kick a golf ball
Just to be clear, the game uses a soccer ball rather than a golf ball. Kicking a golf ball is like kicking a rock, and 18 holes of that might be discouraging.
Otherwise, the format is golf-like. Players count the number of blows it takes to get from tee to cup, subtract one, and mark down their scores.
You can either bring your own ball, or rent one for $4 at the pro shop. Acceptable footwear includes indoor soccer shoes or gym shoes; no soccer cleats, please.
“It should bring a whole different aspect to golf,” says sales and marketing director Julia Grelak. “A new crowd, as well.”
The new crowd will be on the course simultaneously with the old one, playing 60- to 200-yard holes on the par-3 routing known as the Strategic Fox. It’s sort of like skiers sharing mountains with snowboarders, if one of them was sliding down the mountain on their feet and the other was doing a handstand.
The FootGolf holes will sit alongside the golf greens. Hit a golf ball into the FootGolf hole and you get a free drop, and maybe a Kewpie doll.
The Strategic Fox course, which is joined by 45 regulation-sized holes at Fox Hills, typically sees about 12,000 rounds per season. It will open for FootGolf with a kickoff tournament May 10, and Runchry is hoping for 2,000 rounds after that at $10 for nine holes or $15 for 18.
“That’s kind of a guess,” he concedes. It’s hard to predict the response for a sport almost no one has heard of, unless they happened to be in Hungary in 2012.
80 courses in 28 states
Golf rounds have been on the wane nationally, though, so anything is fair game, especially if it might encourage newcomers to pick up a club.
The American FootGolf League, a venerable body that’s been around for nearly three years, says the United States boasts 80 courses in 28 states.
That number would seem to include courses in various stages of development, consideration or off-hand-remark-about-maybe-putting-a-course-here-someday.
Shanty Creek Resorts in Bellaire has a 9-hole course in the works, which might open a few days ahead of Fox Hills and could lead to a fierce north-south Michigan FootGolf rivalry.
It won’t be long after that before someone proclaims the game to be America’s fastest growing sport. Next comes lobbying to put FootGolf in the Olympics, and then a sordid FootGolf scandal.
Sillier things have happened, and if you need proof of that, just go to a course and watch people like me actually play golf.
From The Detroit News: http://www.detroitnews.com/article/2...#ixzz2wtC41xMZ
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