Footgolf aims to hit the spot where golf falls short

On a damp morning last week, Chris Knowles, the pro at Sapey Golf Club, lined up his tee-shot at the par-three first. He pitched it halfway to the green. Then it bobbled left, into a shallow bunker and out the other side, whereupon it curled round on to the green . . . and into the hole.

It was the third hole-in-one of his career, but the first he had achieved without the customary assistance of a club in his hands. Against that, he did have a 21-inch cup to aim at, nearly five times normal size. And Knowles was, as the cricketers say, "seeing it as big as a football". That is because he was indeed kicking a football.

"Beat that," he said to the next man up, who happened to be a complete novice (ie me).

Welcome to footgolf, the latest attempt to solve the sudden global crisis that has befallen the once-mighty game of golf: a story of declining participation, falling revenues and, for some courses, closure.

This may not be obvious to anyone who watches the Masters this week, which will be suffused with the usual superlatives about the wonders of the setting (partly because the club is known to ban commentators who are insufficiently fawning). Augusta National is indeed a fabulous place, reached via a strip mall outside a typically tacky Georgia town. This sense of being cut off from harsh reality increasingly characterises its relationship to the sport as a whole.

Some struggling clubs have tried dumbing down golf by simply making the hole much bigger, which is just pathetic. This idea is much better: dead cheap and gloriously simple - just kick the ball holewards. It is also more subtle and skilful than you might think.

Sapey is set in lovely English countryside on the border between Worcestershire and Herefordshire. It was founded in 1990, at the height of the golf boom after farmer Jim Preece tried and failed to get a tee time on one of the long-established local courses, and got grumpy. "You've got land," said someone. "Why don't you build your own course?" So he did.

The club was successful enough for it to add a nine-hole par-three course across the road. Then came the financial crisis which, so David Cameron will keep telling us at least until election day, is now under his sturdy control. Not for golf, it isn't - because societal changes also kicked in. If potential players still have enough cash for the subscription, they lack the familial permission to disappear for much of the weekend. And often the patience. So Sapey joined about 70 other British courses and hundreds more elsewhere in adding footgolf to the mix. There is already an embryonic tournament circuit.

The credit for the game is usually given to Willem Korsten, a Dutch footballer who played briefly for Tottenham at the turn of the millennium and adapted an idea he had mucked about with in training. Mind you, I was kicking stones towards distant targets on country lanes years ago. And a version called Codeball (named after a Chicago doctor called Code) had a brief burst of popularity in the Midwest circa 1930.

Footgolf works best on undulating par-three courses, which favour precision rather than power; the ball can roll a heck of a way, as Knowles proved with his escape from the bunker. And the putting (a toepunt works best) offers all the frustration of the real thing.

Part of its beauty is compatibility: a golfer can get out the clubs and play pitch-and-putt against the kids kicking the football towards the bigger hole. Played sensibly, footgolf is fast too. Although it makes sense to line up putts every bit as carefully as in golf, there is no need to fret about club selection; indeed there are no clubs to lug around.

The Sapey course only opened just over a month ago, and the March weather has not been kind, but Knowles thinks they have a hit. "We've been getting 80-100 people through on both Saturday and Sunday for the par-three and we weren't getting anywhere near that. And there's the knock-on effect on food and drink sales. Mostly the players are in the 20-30 age group and we're hoping they might want to try golf next."

What worries me is that this does seem like another example of the footballisation of the planet. However, I can't see Augusta taking it up any time soon.

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