Campus Golf

I have no reason to write this post, other than the fact that I’m hoping the phenomenon could catch on around the world, and this is the first step toward making that dream come true. About two years ago, while I was still living at Asbury College, my friend Nathan and I invented a game that would take Wilmore by storm. Hundreds of people (13 or 14) have played since that day.

Nathan and I are both incredibly mediocre golfers, but we still love to play. Alas, golf is an expensive habit — especially when you’re bad — so we took it upon ourselves to find a way to enjoy ourselves for free and gain an upper hand on our friends who constantly embarrass us on the links. We got the idea to see how far we could hit a tennis ball with our golf clubs, and our competitive male nature developed that into seeing how close we could get to various targets around the green where we were playing. From that came Campus Golf.

The rules are just like regular golf. Except instead of dropping your tennis ball into a hole, you hit the pin. And you can only use a 9-iron. And if it lands on concrete, you can take a drop, or you can try your luck and hit it off. And if a wall or tree is in your backswing, you can move the ball a club length away. And you can take a “scoop shot,” which means you put your club head under the ball and slingshot it up in the air. And you can’t get more than an 8 on any hole except #9. So it’s a little like regular golf.

The first hole starts from the library parking lot, and the target is a lamp post by the walkway. This is a pretty straightforward hole — just make sure to not overswing, or else you end up on Jewell Street, and your ball will roll all the way down to the green in front of Hughes Auditorium. The lamp post is one of the most narrow pins, too, so putting (bouncing the ball up with a short tap of the 9-iron) is crucial here.

The second hole (tee boxes are right next to whatever hole you have just finished) goes to the giant tree in the middle of the Morrison green. There are no real obstacles in the way, but there is a large bunker that dips down and to the right into some holly bushes, so if you are going to miss, miss left. This hole was much easier two years ago when that tree was alive and blooming, and you could just aim high. You were bound to at least catch a leaf (those count), but now there are little to no leaves to be had. Regardless, a 2 on this hole is not out of the ordinary.

Hole #3 is deceivingly hard. First, if you are a low-ball hitter, there is a sidewalk that inexplicably has a curb on it — don’t ask why. But since you are shooting uphill, you have to make sure to clear the curb, or the ball is rocketing back toward you. Clear the curb on the first swing, and you’re in good shape. The hole is a utility pole with some lines coming down at a diagonal level. The lines are not part of the pin, though, only the pole. So this is another hole where your putting is very important. Get it within 4 feet on the second shot, and you should be able to tap it in for a 3, but I have seen a lot of people just bat the ball around the pole for three or four shots, so don’t take it for granted.

Hole four hole is long but downhill, and it has the biggest pin on the course — a tree with a huge trunk and very low-hanging, wide branches and leaves. You have to really sail your ball on the first shot and get a good roll down the green — catching the cart path (sidewalk) is a plus. After your first shot, you should be able to aim high and nudge some leaves, but if you happen to miss, you may end up under the archway and taking a drop, since there is no way to get over the wall when hitting off the concrete. Still, a lot of 2s are to be had on this one.

The fifth hole is a tough one. You are looking down a large sidewalk that opens up into a courtyard patio in front of the cafeteria. All the way at the end of the path is a small tree that is just asking you to take a huge swing and try to land within 10 feet of it. However, the smart play (which we don’t often utilize) is to play your ball short and to the right, which is a patch of grass that puts you about halfway to the hole with a long second shot. That puts you at an easy 3, maybe a 2 if you really hit it. But so often we try to make the first big shot to guarantee ourselves a 2, and the ball ends up rolling around the sidewalk, or worse, in the circular planters or the rose bushes. Once you get to the tree, though, a small scoop shot to the leaves (the trunk is too small to count on) should give you a 3 if you played it smart.

Hole #6 is the first hole we come to that has hole-in-one capability. Actually, I say that, but the only person I’ve ever seen make it is Nathan, and he’s done it twice. Although I did put one pin-high but a little right…whatever. Anyway, it’s a short shot over the semi-circle in front of the admin building to a headstone-looking structure with a plaque on it. The exciting part about your tee shot is that there is almost always a car parked between you and the pin, so you are risking hitting a car with someone sleeping in it or dropping someone off.

The seventh hole is ridiculously long and tough. The first shot is between a tree on your right and a building on the left, over the street. If you leave it short or hit the curb, it’s rolling downhill and out onto Lexington Avenue, the busiest street in Wilmore. The second shot heads toward the entrance of Asbury, a stone sign on the corner of Lexington and College Streets. If you have hit your first two shots perfectly, the third shot is your approach at the pin — a bench right behind the sign. Three things tough about this hole: 1.) if you go just to the right or left of the bench, your ball gets stuck in some small bushes, 2.) if you try to putt it up there, there’s a good chance you will roll just underneath of the bench without touching anything, and 3.) if you aim too high and accidentally go over the sign, your ball will roll about 200 yards down College Street, the second-busiest road in Wilmore. If you pull off a 3 on this hole, you have mastered it. A 4 or 5 is more likely.

Hole #8 is the second hole-in-one possibility, a shot over College Street and at a tree that has a huge overhang of branches and leaves. This is almost an automatic 2 and a reasonable 1, unless you do what our buddy Patrick did and hit the power lines that run parallel to College Street THREE TIMES IN A ROW. An unprecedented run of bad luck. Also, if you overshoot too low, your ball could sail under the tree and out into the neighbor’s yard, so you have to be sure you can get that 1 if you are going to swing for it.

The ninth hole is the most unique and hardest hole on the course. From the eighth pin, you shoot across the street and next to the apartment building. If you undershoot that first shot, you have to take a second one to get past the edge of the building. If you overshoot it, you go over a fence, 25 feet down into a loading bay. Your next shot should go down the sidewalk and out onto the Aldersgate green. This shot is narrow, with a fence, bench and bushes surrounding your pathway. Then you see the hole, a 10 X 10 brick planter about two feet off the ground with bushes inside it., surrounded by concrete. The rule is if you hit the brick or concrete, it’s an automatic drop, just like water, so you can’t putt here — you have to sail it into the planter. Plus on top of all of that, there is no stroke limit, meaning I have seen plenty of 10s and 12s on #9. It’s brutal.

The 10th hole is a bench next to Aldersgate where your tee shot on #9 should have landed, and from there you go backward — the 11th hole is the eighth hole, the 12th is the seventh, and so on (we’ve been meaning to set up nine unique holes, but the layout once you get to #9 makes it tough — too many parking lots). Once you finish 18, you are back at the lamp post from the first hole, and you should be around a 68 — we called par 72 because that’s how real golf is, and newcomers will usually be around that number. If there is a tie, which happens more often than you would think, you hit back toward the first tee box where the curb meets the parking lot. The one who hits the closest ball to the curb without going over wins the tiebreaker.

So there you have campus golf — an 18-hole course set up on the beautiful campus of Asbury College. It spans seven buildings and four greens and crosses streets 10 times. My lowest score is a 62, and the lowest I’ve seen is Nathan’s 59. The highest I’ve seen is around 83. I encourage you to set up campus golf near where you live, but keep in mind that it doesn’t have to be a college campus. It could be at a park, at work, at the field behind your house, just somewhere where the grass, hazards and pins are a-plenty. If you do happen to set up a course, please e-mail me at tylerscottyoung@hotmail.com and send a description and pictures. Let’s make this a phenomenon on the level of cornhole and High School Musical.