Yesterday we held our second annual Ice Golf Tournament at our club. Our pro used his ATV to plow a 7 hole routing on the backwaters of Lake Wausau that flow through our club. Narrow "fairways" and postage stamp "greens". An ice auger drilled the holes. 7 iron was the club of choice for maneuvering the tennis ball around the course.
If struck with too much force, the tennis ball tends to compress too much and doesn't go anywhere. It also spins a lot. Straight on shots tend to balloon a bit. I'd say 50-60 yards was a good stroke. Playing it down is an experience when your ball lies at the bottom of a 8" deep footprint in the snow. And of course putting on bumpy, icy "greens" is an crap shoot. Several putts bounced off the flag stick and one came back 10' after hitting the back of the hole too firmly. Flag stick out for me, please.
After making two turns around the layout, a break in the clubhouse for soup and pulled pork sliders awaited us. After lunch 7 of us went out to play for skins. I won one skin with a one handed par putt on a par 5, which didn't quite cover the cost of lunch and a couple barley pops!
Now some may say this is not real golf and turn their noses up, but what the heck! You need to find something to do in the winter besides ice fish. It was a good pregame warmup for the Packer game, too.