PowerPlay Golf
Former British Amateur champ and Walker Cup Captain Peter McEvoy was in town this week to officially launch PowerPlay Golf and explain his concept to the media at Copetown Woods, a very strong public course just west of Hamilton, where GM Barry Forth has signed on to become the first PowerPlay Golf site in Canada.
PowerPlay Golf was dreamed up by McEvoy and a partner back in the UK to stimulate play on a public course they managed. The idea was to offset the time and cost of play with something that delivered all the positives of golf but could be played in far less time than a traditional 18-hole round.
McEvoy explained that the idea originated with other sports like cricket which used to take five days to play and alienated all but the hard core cricket fan. In today’s faster paced world, he suggested, people want a quick fix but if you’re going to take something away from them, then something has to be added back to compensate. Cricket came up with something called 20/20 cricket which can be contested in a few hours but adds a few twists to sweeten the excitement level.
In golf, McEvoy says, it’s not enough to just shorten a round to nine holes. You need to add something to compensate for the loss of the other nine. Hence PowerPlay Golf – a nine hole game with the added excitement of two flags on each green and the chance to gain additional points for scores made on the more difficult hole positions. (and the potential for even more betting.)
The basiscs of PowerPlay Golf are pretty simple. It’s a 9-hole game using the Stableford scoring system to record points for each net score. A bogey is 1 point, par is 2 points, a birdie 3 and an eagle 4. Each green has two flags – a white flag representing an accessible pin position and a black flag denoting a more difficult one. During the round, each player has three “PowerPlays” in the first eight holes and an optional fourth PowerPlay on the 9th green. When a player calls a PowerPlay he then plays to the black flag and his points are doubled for that hole. So a net par becomes 4 points, a net birdie 6 points and so on. No points are lost for net doubles or worse. On the 9th, if a player elects to use his final PowerPlay, the major difference is that points can be lost for a net double or worse. (you wouldn’t think that any self respecting golf scribe could make a net double but it could happen in theory if you snap hooked your drive and then perhaps pumped a pair into the pond fronting the green.)
I was paired with Jason Logan from Score Golf and freelance writer Rick Young as we each tested PowerPlay Golf for the first time. Before I heard about PowerPlay Golf, the idea of two flags on a green seemed gimmicky but right off the bat we all found that you really only focus on the flag you have chosen and the other is forgotten. It’s usually best to choose your PowerPlays where you get strokes so you can really pile up the points. The game was simple to grasp and the added excitement of making net birdies and eagles with double the points really added some pressure.
It took the three of us just under two hours to play nine holes and I think we all felt we had completed a game. I certainly didn’t feel cheated that I had only played nine as I might have if PowerPlay weren’t involved.
The strength of PowerPlay Golf is that it utilizes the basics of golf but the scoring and potential for wagering add excitement. The 9-hole format obviously takes less time and because it’s a net game, it can be played competitively by anyone.
If there is a downside to PowerPlay it is that North Americans are not up to speed on Stableford scoring. We still think most often in terms of score not points. That downside should be short lived as more golfers experience PowerPlay golf. Course operators need to print special cards that permit the recording of gross score, net score and points. Players eventually will ask how many points did you make as opposed to what did you shoot.
Personally, I enjoyed PowerPlay Golf. It will be interesting to see if it catches on with golfers generally but there’s no doubt it’s a viable alternative to those five hour rounds.
Note: In addition to Copetown Woods, PowerPlay Golf is being introduced at Caledon Country Club, Braeben Golf Club in Mississauga and Peninsula Lakes Golf Club in Niagara.
Are we constrained by artificial lines?
My column from the Spring issue of Fairways Magazine:
A recent column by Jim Koppenhaver, a respected golf industry analyst from the US, explained that in the past he had been guilty of not giving due credit to all forms of golf when defining and assessing the current state of the game. By that he meant that so-called recreational golf was often overlooked as being part of the sport. Recreational golf in his view meant anything that could not be distilled down to an 18-hole competitive round. He elaborated that so-called recreational activities were often considered by golf industry associations as “an assault on competitive golf and the abandonment of tradition.” People who played recreational golf therefore were not real golfers.
One has to wonder then what exactly is a golfer? Does that mean that anybody who doesn’t post a score for handicap purposes isn’t a real golfer? Do the folks who only play nine holes every Wednesday afternoon not count? How about the ones who play five or six times a week but take mulligans, improve their lie and concede putts? Is that not real golf? Are they not real golfers?
By some counts there are approximately six million golfers in Canada but only about 400,000 of them are members of the RCGA through their provincial golf associations. Does that mean there are only 400,000 real golfers in Canada and the rest are not? Certainly golf course owners who rely on the other 5.6 million non-members to pay green fees and buy beer would disagree. Equipment manufacturers, golf pro shops and retail stores that sell clubs and balls would consider them all to be real golfers. If you asked any of the six million if they considered themselves to be real golfers, the answer would undoubtedly be affirmative in every case.
Now let’s take this a step further. Is someone who only plays miniature golf a real golfer? Traditionalists would scoff at such nonsense but The Rules of Golf define the game as follows, “the Game of Golf consists in playing a ball from the teeing ground into the hole by a stroke or successive strokes in accordance with the Rules.” That happens in miniature golf. Ergo, they must be real golfers.
Between the PGA Tour and miniature golf is a vast range of activities that include the use of a golf club and golf ball. Modern technology has given us simulator golf where you can play courses all over the world without leaving town. If you have mastered simulator golf but never set foot on a real golf course does that make you a golfer? Is that real golf?
I must admit that, like Jim Koppenhaver, I too have a bias towards 18-hole competitive golf. My brother recently reminded me that I used to say that playing nine holes was like kissing your sister. However I’m evolving. Occasionally my wife and I will go out late on a Friday or Saturday evening and play as many holes as daylight will allow. I consider that real golf.
I also used to denigrate all forms of golf that involved anything other than playing your own ball on every shot. That meant I wasn’t a big fan of scrambles, shambles or alternate shot formats. If it included three flags on every green, holes the size of hubcaps or buying mulligan tickets those weren’t games for me either. But, as I said, I’m evolving.
It’s not really about what I prefer or any other individual for that matter. Golf is really anything that you want to make it. If 18-hole competitive golf occupies one end of the spectrum, there are a wide range of things that most traditionalists would find abhorrent on the other end. But those other activities, if they involve swinging a golf club at a golf ball, can be part of the game too, at least in the broader definition.
Most prudent people have an abiding dislike of waste. One of my pet peeves is that a large percentage of our property tax dollars go towards the building and equipping of schools that are unused for sixty percent of the year. I acknowledge that there are insurance issues involved but couldn’t the gymnasiums and classrooms be put towards valuable use on nights and weekends for sports leagues or adult training classes?
Similarly, golf course owners might look at unused tee times as an opportunity to develop alternatives. Private clubs might open the tee on Monday and Tuesday afternoons to public league play. As tough a pill as that may be to swallow for hard core private members, the added revenue and the exposure of the course to potential future members might be the club’s long term salvation. Public courses too can embrace activities that don’t impact the regular patrons. Witness the growth of PowerPlay Golf in the UK and elsewhere. It’s not a game you’d want to play every day but it’s fun, takes less time to play and still demands all of the skill required in “real” golf.
The bottom line is that if your tee sheet isn’t full all the time, then there is opportunity to explore alternate forms of golf. As Koppenhaver acknowledges in his article, many of the non-traditional activities, once thought of as an “assault on competitive golf and an abandonment of tradition” are really feeder systems for people who might ultimately move on to playing full 18-hole competitive rounds.
As an industry, we need to stop drawing lines that exclude new concepts and people who participate in non-traditional forms of golf. To expose golf to as many people as possible and grow the game, we must learn to embrace the alternatives. Hug a miniature golfer today!
Peter Mumford is the Editor and Publisher of Fairways Magazine in Toronto. Fairways is intended for avid golfers and this blog site is an extension of that same philosophy - we don't dumb it down for the uninformed!