JANELLE STRAWSBURG
Staff Writer
The thought of spurs sinking into a putting green just doesn’t seem like it would fly at a golf course. However with a name like cowboy golf, the only thought that probably comes to mind is a showdown between Wrangler and Polo.
Cowboy golf is known by a variety of names including Snakes and Ladders, Bola Toss and Monkeyball. It involves PVC pipes made into a ladder, after which a bola, which is a device constructed of two balls, often golfballs, attached at the end of a rope, is thrown and players attempt to wrap the bola around one of the rungs on the ladder.
Each rung on the ladder is worth a different number of points, and at the end of each round players get points for however many bola they have left on the ladder. The name of Cowboy Golf might have originated from the idea of lassoing the bola around the rung.
Bolas that land on the bottom rung, which is considered the easiest, are awarded one point, the top rung is two, and the middle, which is the most difficult, gets three. Players compete until one team reaches or surpasses 21 points.
But cowboy golf is not just a game for a football tailgate in Texas. Sophomore Jordan Holm has started to bring the craze to the beaches of Malibu.
Holm, a Northern California native, was first introduced to the game when a family friend from the Midwest bought his family a set two Christmases ago, and he instantly embraced this fun and simple game.
“The heyday of cowboy golf at Pepperdine was the beginning of this school year when the weather was beautiful; we’d take it to the beach a lot, and popularity soared,” Holm said. “Being a simple yet competitive fun game that you don’t really need a special talent to be able to do it is why it is so fun. People surprise you and can even take down veterans like myself in their first time playing.”
However, Holm does say that while anybody can win at cowboy golf, it definitely is a game of technique.
“There are many techniques,” Holm said. “There is the high arcing lob shot to try and get the three ringer on the top. There is the Randy Johnson fast ball sling where it’s just a straight line and you try to whip it around a rung, and there is the middle route, that I prefer and use, where you just toss it and hope for the best.”
Sophomore Harry Lehman, a friend of Holm’s, doesn’t really have a technical approach in his own game, “There is no real technique for me,” Lehman said. “I just keep my eye on the target and chuck away.”
Curious glances and repeated comments at the beach while playing is what prompted Holm, along with past roommate Erik Engellant, to start their own cowboy golf set business. Holm and Engellant bought pipe and rope to construct the ladders and bolas, and while business operations are currently on hold, with sunny season coming up, business might start booming again.
“Sunny season is cowboy golf season,” Lehman said. “You can’t play cowboy golf unless its sunny so with the return of summer comes the return of cowboy golf and cookouts on the beach.”
But cowboy golf is not for the faint of heart, warn Lehman and Holm. Although games might occur in the peaceful setting of the beach, tempers do flair when the competition heats up.
“It is a fiercely competitive game,” Lehman said. “Once you get in the mindset, you have to win. You’ll do anything. You end up trying to distract the other person. Whatever it takes.”
Yet Holm says that cowboy golf is for everyone, the skilled and unskilled alike.
“If you haven’t found your game that you truly excell at, and you are really longing for some sort of a game to look cool at when you are at social gatherings, I would encourage cowboy golf,” Holm said. “It can be a truly underdog sport, people who have no athletic background or skill for that matter can somehow still manage a victory. So for those people that luck doesn’t fall your way on sporting events I’d say give cowboy golf a try because it might surprise you.”
Weather is predicted to be sunny this weekend in Malibu, so for those adventurous souls who want a fun afternoon in the sun, cowboy golf is a new trend worth chancing some luck at.
04-05-2007