Course helps new sport get a leg up
At Fairway Hills, a soccer ball is all the gear a player needs to hit the links
Anna DiBattista’s first round of golf featured no clubs, no bag and no golf balls.
Instead, as the rising senior at Wilde Lake made her way around Fairway Hills Golf Club in Columbia earlier this month, her only equipment was an object with which she was much more familiar: a soccer ball.
“I really enjoyed it; I thought it was fun,” DiBattista said of her first round of footgolf. She has played soccer since she was little, but before arriving at the course for her round she had never heard of footgolf, a sport that was introduced in Howard County in April.
“I think it’s a great thing to have because the golf course is kind of daunting, but this is like real casual and fun. I will definitely come back again,” she said.
On a warm afternoon, DiBattista was joined by three other Howard County soccer players — Sydney McNamara (Wilde Lake), Darren Ketchum (Hammond) and Thomas Olson (Marriotts Ridge). All were trying footgolf for the first time.
Despite the uneven playing surface, the lack of cleats and their unfamiliarity with the sport, everyone in the group seemed to pick it up quickly.
Ketchum said he found that the general skill set needed to excel at soccer also served in footgolf.
“I could honestly compare it more to soccer [than golf ], kind of like a free-kick aspect in that a lot of it was placing the ball where it needed to go and kind of knowing where everything else was going to be,” he said.
Olson also saw similarities between the sports.
“It definitely incorporates a lot of the skills that you normally use for soccer — lots of different sorts of passes, long and short, and then obviously the tap-ins,” Olson said.
But a soccer background is hardly a prerequisite to play.
Anyone who is physically able to kick a ball can participate, which makes for a large target audience.
“The great thing is that it’s fairly inclusive, which makes for lots of possibilities,” said Don Van Deusen, assistant general manager at Fairway Hills. “Families can play, kids can come out after school or possibly even birthday parties. The time commitment and equipment needed are minimal, so that’s a big draw.”
The origins of footgolf date to 2006 in other parts of the world, but it was not officially recognized as a sport in the United States until 2011 — the year the American FootGolf League was established. Currently, there are eight courses in Maryland.
The game itself is fairly simple. Each player — up to six in a group — has their own soccer ball and tries to kick it into a 21-inch-diameter hole in the rough areas of the golf course in as few shots as possible. Players may not wear cleats; indoor or turf shoes are recommended.
As in golf, the holes vary in distance and layout. Fairway Hills, for example, features holes between 50 and 175 yards and incorporates sand traps, trees and hills.
“We went out and looked at what was available to us and initially just put some things in the ground and some paint down for what we thought might work,” Van Deusen said. “We made some adjustments after that, but I think we settled on a pretty good course. We wanted to stay away from the golf greens, stay away from the water and then, from there, make best use of the space that we could.”
When making the decision to add footgolf to Fairway Hills, the Columbia Association, which oversees the course, had several important factors to consider.
“You always want to add new things, attract new people and keep people interested so that they can keep an active lifestyle,” said Dan Burns, director of sports and fitness for Columbia Association. “In this case, footgolf was a way to use the course at Fairway Hills when it’s not normally being used as much. It attracts another group of people who might not typically use the course. It also can introduce those people who might not normally come to Fairway Hills to the golf course.
“Some of these nontraditional uses po- tentially expose people to the traditional use,” Burns said.
Another recent addition to Columbia Association’s activity list that also makes use of existing facilities is pickle ball. The game, played on a relined tennis court, is popular with seniors.
The goal of adding the sports is to reach more people.
Fairway Hills offers footgolf every Monday evening on the front nine of the golf course. Start times are available from 5 p.m. and 6:30 p.m.; a typical 18-hole round can take as little as two hours or well over three, depending on players’ skill level and pace. A full round costs $10 for juniors (17 and under) and $17 for adults; players can bring a ball or rent one for $3.
“We picked a night where we didn’t have a league — Monday night was open — and we set aside a block of tee times very much the same way we do the other nights of the week for our leagues,” Van Deusen said. “The nice thing is that we still have the back nine open should any regular golfers come in after 4 p.m. Some courses will have the two [sports] sharing the course at the same time, but we wanted to avoid that.”
Even with a smooth-running operation and positive feedback thus far, business has been slower than anticipated. The footgolf course is filling just a handful of tee times each week and, according to Van Deusen, has had only around 60 paid rounds through mid-July.
Van Deusen said the goal for the year when the course opened in April was 400 rounds. “If we can just get people out, see what it’s all about, I’m confident they will have a good time and want to come back again,” he said.
And if the response from the foursome of soccer players is any indication, Van Deusen might be on to something.
“I’ll probably come back later in the summer and bring my friends, maybe some of the rest of my team,” McNamara said. “It’s definitely something different, something fun.”