A story that emanated from the United States shortly before Christmas has just found its way to my attention. Well, to be fair, it had to travel a long way from the Hampton Cove Golf Club in Alabama to get to me.
You may recall the golfing guffaws that were generated when news emerged from North Korea in 1994 that Kim Jong-il, then the country’s leader, had toured round the golf course at Pyongyang, the country’s capital, in just 34 shots. His score had been achieved with the assistance of 11 holes-in-one. (One might imagine that in a country that wasn’t North Korea a tabloid editor would have thus altered his name in the copy to Kim Jong-11, but no one would be foolish enough to do that there.) His incredible effort had produced a score that was 38 under par. To have your under-par total be represented by a higher number than the score you shot is basically beyond belief. The extraordinariness of the feat was compounded by the fact that this was his first round of golf. I’ve obviously heard of people shooting their age but that is child’s play compared to this… er, cheat’s play.
Back to Alabama. Four gentlemen in a charity scramble attracted some headlines and a ton of social-media abuse when it was revealed their winning score on a par-72 course was a mind-blowing 46, which included four eagles, an albatross and a hole-in-one on a par-four. My first thought was that obviously it couldn’t be kosher; maybe they had, for example, actually shot 64 and then they knocked off a stroke on every hole. But not so. The devil lay in the details of the rules of the competition; specifically, the ‘mulligan packages’.
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Each of the four players on the winning team had purchased one of these, which gave each player two mulligans and a throw to use during the round. Mulligans, of course, mean you get to play a chosen shot again without penalty. A throw doesn’t count as a stroke. Anyhow, this team played the back nine first, saving their most vivid fireworks until the last four holes. One of the group was a big-hitting scratch golfer. On the 6th, their 15th, a 381-yard par-four, his drive finished 50 yards short of the green. They had three throws left. The first of these got the ball to within two feet of the cup. The second throw went into it. They thus had a hole-in-one without hitting any ball into the hole. Their final hole was a (shortish) 444-yard par-five. Their best drive left them 150 yards out. One of their mulligan second shots finished four feet from the flag. Their final throw went in and that was that.
So there you have it. But is that really golf? There is no denying that golf shots were hit, some very good ones, but while mulligans may be sort-of acceptable, surely throws are too much? Having said that, how far would one push the mulligan rule? The marvellous late American golf writer, Dan Jenkins, who was also a pretty accomplished player in his day, said in his latter years he played a game of golf he called ‘hit til you’re happy’. On that basis I might never leave the first tee.
One final thought, on the length of that final hole at Hampton Cove. In 1965, at the fabulously named Miracle Hill golf course in Omaha, Nebraska, a guy called Bob Mitera had the longest-ever hole-in-one. The hole measured 444 yards. And he did it without a throw.
You can follow Robert Green on Twitter @robrtgreen and enjoy his other blog f-factors.com plus you can read more by him on golf at robertgreengolf.com
