Pasture Pool -- The Desert Edition

The Captain had a small problem:  He was addicted to golf, but as captain of a ship assigned to the North Atlantic Squadron, it was hard to find time to be able to play.  Though his coal burning ship was frequently in port, many of the places he visited lacked a suitable golf course. 

Several factors had made golf popular recently:  The fondness of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert for Scotland, the availability of gutta-percha balls, and the extension of commuter trolley lines out of the cities into the countryside.  All of these had made golf popular around the world.  But, in all of the United States, there were only 250 golf courses, most of them built in just the last two decades of the nineteenth century.

Since most of the courses were owned by private clubs, the Captain and his officers could not be certain of obtaining an invitation to play, much less one that was offered when it was possible to leave the ship. 

However, the Captain was resourceful, so he decided if he couldn’t get to a regular golf course, he would just build his own.  Using a lathe, the ship’s carpenter fashioned him several golf balls out of cork and soft pine.  After each was painted white, the Captain found that, after a hard swing, the balls would travel, at most, about 50 yards.   On a windless day, the cork balls traveled further, but were more susceptible to being carried by a breeze.

After a little experimentation, the Captain discovered that his new improvised balls would loft like a regular ball, but the distance the balls traveled was about a quarter of what the gutta-percha balls did.  This meant, that the entire nine hole golf course could be laid out in any five acre meadow.   Each hole of the par 36 course ranged from 35 to 75 yards in length.

Unfortunately, that is about all of the story that I can tell you.  History doesn’t record exactly how long the captain and his crew played their diminutive version of golf.  Perhaps they were still playing it when the World War I started.  Certainly, there would be little need for such an informal golf course today, the captain would probably have a choice among several military private courses.

Exactly how many military golf courses there are is a little confusing.  The Pentagon claims to have 234 such courses, but lists only 194.  No, the discrepancy isn’t because the missing 40 are secret.  I checked, and both the courses at Area 51 and the one at  Guantanamo are on the list.  The course at Guantanamo is a little challenging—all nine holes are part of the driving range.  While the official name is Yantera Seca, it is popularly called the Lateral Hazard Golf Course.

Just as confusing, the Pentagon claims that the number of holes on those courses is 2874—a number not divisible by either 9 or 18.  Somewhere, there is a 12 hole golf course.  (I checked, we don’t have a course in France.)

The Pentagon’s list of courses includes sites from the Caribbean to the Middle East, and just about everywhere in the United States where there is a military base.  In New Mexico alone, there are five military courses.   Most are 18-hole courses, though the monster course at Andrews Air Force Base sports 54 holes.

Don’t misunderstand me, the courses generally break even on operating costs, and are not nearly good enough for our military.  Not only do I sincerely hope the military builds more of them, but I will eagerly accept an invitation to play on any of them.

The story of the Captain’s impromptu courses did inspire me, however, to try my own hand at creating my own version of pasture pool.  New Mexico is a little short of empty meadows, but we have a surplus of empty places.  I don’t think anyone in the Southern half of this state is more than a five-minute drive to an empty desert area.  In my case, it is less than a five-minute walk.

I used empty soup cans for cups, The Doc fashioned flags out of scrap cloth and dowel rods, and I substituted plastic whiffle balls for wooden balls.  (I did discover I had to substitute a real ball for putting.)  Since my course was sort of a bastard cross from the world’s largest sand trap and a gravel parking lot, I decided not to use my good golf clubs, but substituted a few “practice” clubs I bought awhile back for $5 each at a local pawn shop. 

After a little experimentation, I learned that the only clubs I needed to play “the course” were a five wood and an eight iron.  Coincidentally, those are also the same two clubs I use most often on a “real” course, so this may say more about my game than about what anyone else would use.

My course has a few “house rules”.  Each player is required to bring a cooler of beer to the course.  A pickup truck may be—and always is—substituted for a golf cart, and it is conveniently parked—with the beer—in the exact middle of the course.  Any lie can be improved by a club length to avoid creosote bushes, cactus, or the occasional snake hole (or snake!).  To avoid making the course a continual sand trap, you may tee the ball up on any shot.

My version of a golf course also has quite a few benefits that a regular course does not.  First, there are no green fees.  Holes are almost never closed due to the sprinklers.  You do not need to play in a foursome and tee times are always available.  And any golfer may, at his discretion, suspend play briefly to shoot at the jack rabbits.  If you hit one, you’ve automatically “shot par” on that hole.

I’m pretty sure they don’t allow that at Andrews.