Park golf
A player about to swing at a park golf course in Eniwa, Hokkaido.
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| Presence | |
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| Olympic | No |
| Paralympic | No |
Park golf (パークゴルフ pāku gorufu?) is a form of golf played in a park that was invented in Makubetsu, Hokkaido, Japan in 1983. Aesthetically, it resembles a sport somewhere between golf and croquet. The competitive object of the game is to hit the ball into a hole with a club in the fewest number of strokes. At the same time, there is also a strong emphasis on harmony with other players (players of park golf are referred to as parkers) and the natural setting of the course.
The founders of the sport wanted to keep it simple so that people of all ages could become parkers easily. A single ball and club are sufficient for a game of park golf. Courses are relatively short and the physical strain of the game is low. The cost of playing is also low and the rules are simple. For this reason, it is a good sport for children and families. Despite this, the majority of the 700,000 parkers continue to be of retirement age.
A "round" of park golf is 9 holes. The International Park Golf Association has set upper limits on the length of park golf holes and courses. The maximum length for an individual hole is 100 meters. A 9-hole course is limited to 500 meters or less. Because there is no lower limit, courses can be found in small corners of parks or in the fringe around parking lots.
It is played using a club similar in appearance to a standard golf driver with a thicker, shorter shaft. The head on a Park Golf club is rarely varied, but the length of stick can change according to the height of the Parker. The club is flat, and only the most skillful Parker can hit the ball in the air.
The durable plastic resin balls are bright-coloured so they can be easily distinguished from a distance. They come in many colours but are all 60 mm in diameter and less than 100 grams. Balls may be made of a single or multiple components and individual manufactures' balls all perform slightly differently. It is not unusual to see players with several balls for use in different conditions.
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Wikipedia