I may have mentioned before that when I was in college I used to live right on the edge of a golf course. Basically, when you looked out our sliding glass back door you could see our small backyard, then a fence, then the second hole of a major golf course in Tallahassee, Florida. While this usually just resulted in a lot of middle-aged white men hopping the fence every weekend trying to fish their balls out of our yard, often times we ingenuitive college students managed to find ways of using what we had to our advantage, and I don't mean just the time my friend Matt had sex with his girlfriend out there but got caught in the sprinklers or when he and I almost accidentally nuked Earth by filling a hollowed-out pumpkin with gasoline and setting it on fire.
The fact that the golf course closed at 6pm was pretty useful to us, since in Florida it usually stays light out well into the 8 o'clock hour. Matt, The Admiral and I would often walk the grounds at about 6:30, collecting golf balls and either taking them to the driving range to practice playing shitty golf or saving them in the hopes that one day we could trade them in to Play It Again Sports in exchange for three full sets of martial arts sparring gear so we could settle house differences by gearing up and wailing on each other. Sadly, that plan fell through since we only got like ten cents for each ball we returned and used sparring gear cost like thirty bucks for one set. But that's a tale for a different day.
Anyways, one day Matt decided that he was going to try to play a hole of golf when he was really drunk one night. It was probably about three in the morning and he took one of our golf clubs (we only had three clubs... all Drivers) over the fence and out to the second hole for a little Friday evening tee-off. Well I just so happened to be a little intoxicated as well, and decided that it would be funny for me to climb onto the roof of our two-story apartment building with my pump-action BB rifle and take potshots at Matt while he tried to play the hole.
As a result of my being heavily drunk, the golf course being completely unlit and pitch black, Matt wearing a dark green army jacket and the general inaccuracy of a BB rifle, of course I was unable to hit him as he sprinted across the fairway trying to take his next shot before being pasted in the eye with a tiny chunk of metal. Luckily, he was so drunk that he believed being hit by a BB was a distinct possibility so he tried to play the hole as quickly as possible, which combined with his inebriated state resulted in him swearing loudly, falling on his ass several times and finishing a Par 3 in about eighteen shots. It didn't help that he was trying to putt with a Driver while I was yelling "Eat lead, copper!" and throwing butter knives at him from about fifty yards away.
Matt later mentioned that it was incredibly difficult to play a hole of golf when you're under that sort of duress, to which I probably replied something to the effect of, "that's just because you suck". That little comment started a heated debate which resulted in the creation of the most X-treme sport this side of lava surfing: BATTLE GOLF.
Overview:
Battle Golf is a four person game designed to be played on a single hole of a golf course at night during a period of extreme drunkenness. There are two teams comprised of two people each, and each team is given a golf ball. The objective is to advance your ball as quickly as possible while preventing the other team from advancing theirs and ultimately be the first team to get your ball into the hole.
Required Equipment:
In order to play a game of Battle Golf the way it was meant to be done, you will need to procure the following items:
- Four people
- One golf course
- One full shitload of booze
- Two golf clubs (any kind, preferably Drivers)
- Four golf balls
- Four pairs of protective eyewear (optional)
- At least two loaded BB Pistols
- Something to protect your nuts (just in case)
- Other assorted weaponry, i.e. butter knives, ninja stars, water balloons, etc. Non BB Pistol weapons must be deemed mutually acceptable by both sides.
Rules:
First and foremost, drink as much of the booze as you think you can handle. Then have two more drinks. Ideally, you want to make certain that all four players have difficulty standing under their own power when the game starts. Once you're sufficiently wasted to the point where Battle Golf sounds like a good idea, divide into two teams. Each team is comprised of two elements, the Golfer and the Caddy. Their roles are as follows:
The Golfer: The Golfer is the person with the club whose primary responsibility it is to get the ball into the hole. At the beginning of the game, The Golfer is given two balls - one is to be put into play immediately, and one "free ball" to be put into play if at any time The Golfer hopelessly loses sight of the original ball, has the original ball eaten by bears or accidentally slices said ball onto the roof of the Clubhouse. Only The Golfer is allowed to advance the ball any meaningful distance, and the game ends when he first Golfer gets his ball into the hole.The Caddy: The Caddy is tasked with doing everything in their power to impede the opposing team's progress while making sure that his Golfer is allowed to move unhindered down the fairway. The Caddy is not allowed to advance his team's golf ball or touch the other team's golf ball, but pretty much everything else is fair game.
It should be noted that teams are not strictly limited to two players each. Each team may only have one Golfer, but in several cases there have been instances of multiple caddies. The division must be agreed upon by both sides, but can feature two or three Caddies per Golfer or sometimes even two-on-one situations as long as the sides remain relatively fair (i.e., "Me, my girlfriend and your girlfriend against you and your two hundred pound friend").
Other than that, there's only really one rule:
RULE #1: Don't touch the other guy's balls.
Good rule for life, good rule for golf.
(Also, this guy's a pussy)
Strategies:
Now that you've got the basics down, you're ready for some tips and tricks from a Battle Golf expert such as myself. Here are some things I learned that will help you be successful in your next contest!
Challenges: Battle Golf games are always the best when someone's pride is on the line. For instance, one day I asked Matt who would win in a fight between me and actor Ryan Philippe. When Matt told me that Ryan Philippe would "probably beat the hell out of you", I whipped out a twenty pound iron gauntlet, slapped him in the face with it and challenged him to "Golf Clubs at Midnight". We spent the rest of the day recruiting Caddies, getting wasted out of our minds, and ultimately competing in one of the greatest and most epic battles this side of Beowulf fighting Grendel or the Red Sox and Yankees in the 2004 American League Championship Series. So to ensure great games try to use Battle Golf to solve disputes, disagreements or other such things. If nothing else, make the loser wash the huge pile of nasty dishes that have been rotting in the sink for weeks. I guarantee everyone will play their balls off.
Offensive Caddy Strategies: The key to victory in Battle Golf is recruiting a good Caddy and making sure you use him (or her) effectively. There are generally two ways to use a Caddy; Offensively and defensively. If you opt to go on the offensive, it's always a good idea to try and get your Caddy to tackle the other Golfer, steal their club and chuck it into a water hazard. That way, the other Golfer has to decide whether they want to retrieve the club themselves or just try to kick the ball down the fairway. They could even try to send their Caddy after the club, giving your man plenty of time to tackle your opponent and put them in a sleeper hold or pants them or something without having to worry about being clubbed by the other Caddy. It's all in good fun since everyone will be too drunk to feel any pain until the next morning anyways. Just don't blame me when you wake up with bruised knuckles and a cracked rib.
Another good offensive strategy involves having a hot chick as a Caddy. All you have to do is get her to flash your opponent and then you can run up and kick him in the shin or tackle him when he's not looking at you and he'll never see it coming. Did I mention that The Golfer is allowed to get in on the "fucking the other guy's shit up" action? Because he is.
Defensive Caddy Strategies: Sometimes the way to go is to have your Caddy concentrate on keeping your friend BLT from kicking you in the spine and throwing you into a sand trap. The best way to do this is to send your Caddy after the other guy's Caddy. That way, you can buy yourself a little time to get down the course and score while they're Greco-Roman wrestling and staggering around like drunk assholes in a liquor store. However, if you're going to take this approach, you had better be pretty certain that you can beat the other Golfer in an unimpeded run. If you start to get behind, you can always just wing your club at the other Golfer when they're not looking or trip them with it or even just push them really hard and hope they're drunk enough to fall over from it.
Using the BB Pistols Effectively: I mentioned two BB Pistols and protective eyewear in the Equipment section, but didn't really touch on it too much after that. Well, generally speaking it's good to have four BB pistols so each guy can fire off rounds and mess up the other team's rhythm without all the running, but in the case that you can only come up with two you have a decision to make. You can either keep your team's pistol yourself and use it to fend off the maniacal inebriated onslaught of the other Caddy or you can give it to your Caddy and hope that they can do some damage with it. My personal advice is just to give it to whoever's the best shot and just have them fire it nonstop until the match is over.
The Fairway: There are two primary ways to advance the ball down the Fairway with any degree of effectiveness. First off, you can set it up at the tee-off spot and blast it as hard as you can, sprint to where you think it may have gone (remember that it's pitch black out on an unlit golf course at 3am and your vision should already be blurry), search for it, and then smack it again once you find it. This is an effective method because it means you have to concentrate less on what you're doing and instead just run to the ball. It allows you to keep your head up and watch out for crazy drunk people who are trying to kill you, gives you a chance to chug the beer you brought to the course with you and also cuts down on the number of times you're blindsided and taken to the turf (which often results in drunken barfing). The downside is that you sometimes can't find your ball, and if you're a bad shot you'll often ended up digging through the rough for five minutes before just pulling out the "free ball". Also, if you get spun around a couple of times, you can sometimes forget which direction you were headed in or where the ball went to.
The other strategy involves running behind the ball continually tapping it with the club as if it were a hockey puck. This is a very effective method of moving the ball since you can keep it near you at all times and hardly ever lose track of where it went. The unfortunate part is that while you're looking at the ball, other people are throwing water balloons at you and shooting you in the face with BBs. There's also a good chance that your ball will be "accidentally" kicked off the course, which sucks because it's usually followed by you getting headbutted in the solarplexus by the other team's Caddy.
The Green: This is where it all gets exciting. If you've made it alone to the Green, you can of course just stroll up to the cup and knock it in. However, it never works out this easily. As soon as you're headed to the Green, you can expect to see the other Caddy (and/or Golfer) coming for you like a Mack Truck on PCP. Also, the beauty of the "free ball" is that if the other guy gets really far behind you he can always just fire his ball off the course, sprint down the Fairway and drop the "free ball" right next to the Green (you can't play it directly on the Green... it has to be dropped before the "No Golf Carts Past This Point" sign). Then it's time for the final showdown!
The hole we used to play on had a couple of sand traps right around the Green, which meant that your Caddy could run down there and grab one of the groundskeeper's rakes to throw at the other team, which was usually pretty effective. If nothing else, they could just push the other Golfer with it and everyone's so exhausted (and drunk) from running the length of the course that they'll just fall down right away and possibly even pass out on the course (only to be woken up by the sprinklers in an hilarious fashion). As you're putting for sextuple bogey it also helps to take some swipes at the other guy's club to try and knock it out of his hands and stop him from scoring or at least hit him in the legs in an effort to trip him up.
(Sand traps are nothing compared to your drunk asshole friends)
Matt had the idea one time of having his Caddy (The Admiral) lay down overtop of the hole to block me while he waited for Matt to get near. This sucked because neither I nor my brother/caddy could move him, so we just ended up poking him with our clubs and rakes trying to dislodge him. Eventually we managed to pull him off the hole, but not before he got his hands in the cup and pulled a huge chunk of the turf up and leaving a basketball-sized pockmark in the Green. For this reason, I don't suggest laying on the hole.
Final Thoughts:
Battle Golf is a great game. I'm not sure if it merited an entire update, but one of the downsides of forcing yourself to come up with new and original content every week is that sometimes you can run out of things to talk about. Perhaps that the case was this week. Either way, you're all encouraged to try out this wicked awesome sport as long as you understand that I accept no responsibility for any injuries, destruction, decapitations or other ridiculous shit that happens on the course. If you do try it out, email me and let me know how it went. If I get enough replies, maybe I'll post the stories at a later date. Pictures will also be appreciated.
