Scott Swanson
Mallard Creek Golf Course is kicking off – literally – a hot new sport with its inaugural FootGolf Event Saturday afternoon, June 14.
Tee times for the Opening Day event will begin at 1 p.m. To sign up, call (541) 259-4653 to reserve a time. Entry fee for that day will be $15 per player for FootGolf, with all proceeds being donated to Special Olympics of Oregon.
Conventional golf will also be played prior to the FootGolf event, and $10 of each greens fee will go to Special Olympics. The event will include live music, free hors d’oeuvres and prizes throughout the day.
FootGolf essentially is golf played by kicking a soccer ball into 21-inch holes, with the winner being the player who finishes nine or 18 holes using the fewest kicks. The rules are largely those of conventional golf and FootGolf uses golf’s basic model including tee boxes, greens, bunkers and hazards. Cleats are not allowed. Turf shoes or indoor soccer shoes are recommended. Participants should bring their own No. 5 soccer balls.
Mallard Creek will also offer practice rounds through Wednesday, June 11, after 4 p.m. Those rounds will be open to those not signed up for the tournament. Cost is $15 for adults, $8 for youths and includes a beverage.
Mark Tunstill, who has managed Mallard Creek since 2002, said he’s been thinking about incorporating the fast-growing sport into his golf course for about a year.
He said other courses have had phenomenal success with FootGolf, which has its own page on the PGA website.
“Ted Bishop, president of the Professional Golfers Association has added a FootGolf layout to one of his courses and sees it as a great opportunity to get new people out to the course,” Tunstill said. “Haggin Oaks in the Sacramento, Calif. area was one of first to do it. They had about 2,000 FootGolf rounds in July in the beginning and you know what the weather is like in July in Sacramento. It just went up from there. As soon as they did it, about seven other courses put in FootGolf cups.”
Though the American FootGolf League has accredited more than 130 nine- and 18-hole FootGolf courses in 31 states since 2011, when the sport reached the United States from Europe, Mallard Creek is one of two certified courses in Oregon. The other is Glendeveer Golf Course in Portland. Glendeveer is hosting the Playworks FootGolf Open Aug. 15-16, the first tournament in Oregon.
Tunstill said he just had a feeling that FootGolf was the real deal.
“I was looking at it when there were about a dozen courses in the U.S. and I could just tell it was taking off. So I bought cups and got certified.”
The sport’s origins are unclear, because it developed simultaneously in a number of countries in Europe at the same time, around 2008, spreading to Argentina (2010) and the United States (2011).
As a game, FootGolf is played throughout the world in many different forms, mostly in Europe and North and South America, but as a sport, it is regulated by the Federation for International FootGolf (FIFG), which was established in 2012. The American FootGolf League (AFGL) is the exclusive member of the FIFG and governing body for the sport in the United States. The AFGL is organizing tournaments throughout the country working with golf courses to bring FootGolf to their clubs as another avenue for revenue and to develop the game further.
Tunstill said Mallard Creek has set up an 18-hole layout on the front nine of the conventional golf course and will initially offer FootGolf late afternoons and evenings three days a week. The FootGolf holes are more in the rough, he said, so FootGolf players won’t play much on the regular greens.
He said if someone wants to play a round of conventional golf during that time, they can play the back nine.
“Eventually we’ll consider letting them go out together,” he said. “The course at Haggin Oaks does that. But we’re going to take it slowly. Sixty percent of people who play FootGolf have never been on a golf course before.”
While that may pose some challenges, it’s also an opportunity, Tunstill said.
Isaiah Blake, also from Sweet Home, takes an approach shot at the 21-inch hole.
“We’ve been trying to figure out ways to get younger families involved in playing golf,” he said. “The cost of play, the amount of time it takes, how hard it is to learn – FootGolf answers all of that. There’s not a lot of learning left if you already know how to play soccer.”
He’s had some local soccer players test out the course and one, Sweet Home’s Blake Roberts, made the first hole in one at Mallard – a 91-yard shot.
“It was pretty amazing,” Tunstill said.
For more information, visit Mallard Creek Golf & RV Resort on the web at http://www.mallardcreekgc.com or on Facebook or contact Tunstill at (541) 259.4653 or [email protected].