Pasture golf

[Paul Payne]

Anyone ever played any real pasture golf? I thought about this a while back when the Thread about the infamous Sheep Ranch was getting some attention. There are probably more places to have that experience than you think.

I came across a course once while looking for somewhere to play around Lawrence Kansas. It was called the Lake of the Forest GC and was not near any lake or forest.

It was essentially somebody's back 40 where they had carved out a decent sized 18 hole course. The fairways were what I would describe as a dense closely cropped stubble. The greens were a sort of soft mossy turf but they rolled pretty well.

One hole I remember simply played right down a dry river bed between the trees on the banks. The tee was on the right bank and hit into a tricky winding dogleg left until it ended at the green perched again up on the right bank. Probably plays hell in the rainy season.

I was the only one on the course so after a while I could pick and choose my routings anywhere I wanted to go. This made for some good holes that played up and over or around small bunches of Cottonwood that were meant to define the regular routings.

To be honest when I first pulled up I almost turned around but it was late in the day and I had to get  my fix. As it turned out it was a great memorable experience and probably the most value return on six bucks I ever got golfing.

Anyone else ever played a course similar?

[ForkaB]

In 1981 I brought the rest of my old 4-ball over to Scotland, and we did the Grand Tour.  After Muirfield, the Old Course, Carnoustie, and Dornoch, we were on our way down to Turnberry when a couple of my buddies got itchy and needed a golf fix, so we spotted and stopped at Fort William Golf Club.

The course was just recently opened, and while the greens were good, the rest of the place was just a plowed field, with tractor ruts, hoof prints and cow patties, and only enough grass to keep the sludge from flowing downhill. Unfortunately, for the first week or our trip I had been a Rules Nazi, trying to get these guys form Boston to play by the rules, including playing the ball down, and they chose to become converted just before we teed it up at FWGC..........

The best part of the day was getting back into the clubhouse and enjoying the celebrations when Scotland beat England in football.

Anybody played Fort William since?  The routing looked nae bad......

[Ron Farris]

Paul, I grew up in the Sand Hills of Nebraska as the son of a greenkeeper.  My brother and I learned to play golf in our back yard and our neighbor's pasture.  The most feared hazard was the huge bull in the pasture.  We used old soup cans as cups for our makeshift course.  Many golf courses in the Midwest started out as sand green courses in donated pastures.  It is a special experience to play pasture and the hazards vary.  The airport at Arthur, NE has a sand green course around the runway.  Last I checked the greenfee was $3 for nine holes - drop box with the honor system.  A lady was bit by a rattlesnake on a sand green course converted to grass in SD last summer.  That is a hazard to be avoided albeit at a Paster Golf course, the Sand Hills GC, or the upcoming  Prairie Club.

[Bill_McBride]

In 1961 I was working on a survey crew in SE Washington State, near Walla Walla.  I had my clubs with me but didn't play much all summer, working 60 hrs a week and not much in the way of golf courses.  Finally, desperate, I spotted a little flat acreage in Walla Walla with what looked like dead flat greens (mowed out of the fairways with a lower cut!) and nine yellow flags.

My buddy and I stopped and played twice around, nobody there on a Sunday to collect green fees, and had a ball.  There wasn't much to it, this was true pasture golf.  The major hazard was a concrete ditch that ran right down one side of the property and it was easier to play with that on the right side given my duck hooking propensity in those days!

There is a whole website given to pasture golf:

www.pasturegolf.com

Painswick in England is listed on that website, which is, of course, a base canard!