Backyard golf is a

lawn game A lawn game is an outdoor game that can be played on a lawn. Many types and variations of lawn games exist, which includes games that use balls and the throwing of objects as their primary means of gameplay. Some lawn games are historical in natu ...

played in the United States. The game is very similar to

golf Golf is a club-and-ball sport in which players use various clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a course in as few strokes as possible. Golf, unlike most ball games, cannot and does not use a standardized playing area, and coping wi ...

; however, it uses fewer

clubs Club may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media * ''Club'' (magazine) * Club, a ''Yie Ar Kung-Fu'' character * Clubs (suit), a suit of playing cards * Club music * "Club", by Kelsea Ballerini from the album ''kelsea'' Brands and enterprises ...

(i.e.

sand wedge In the sport of golf, a wedge is a subset of the iron family of golf clubs designed for special use situations. As a class, wedges have the highest lofts, the shortest shafts, and the heaviest clubheads of the irons. These features generally aid ...

, pitching wedge, and nine iron). The balls are

wiffleball Wiffle ball, a team sport developed in 1953 in Fairfield, Connecticut, is a scaled back variation of baseball designed for playing in a confined space. The sport is played using a perforated light-weight plastic ball and a long hollow plastic ...

s that are often covered with electrical, duct, or masking tape. The courses typically consist of one central hole location where different tee boxes constitute different "holes." Most courses have nine holes, although larger yards have been known to have 18 or 36 holes. The game is very easy to play as it requires minimal technical skill. The large size of the ball and short distance of the holes make backyard golf conducive to casual play. The whereabouts of the game's origins remain unclear. It is entirely probable that the game was "invented" many times in many locations as a fun game in the vein of

horseshoes Horseshoe is a shoe for horses and by analogy is applied to many things with a similar shape. Horseshoes (game), a tossing game played with a horseshoe Horseshoe(s) or Horse Shoe(s) may also refer to: Places * Horseshoe Valley (disambiguation) ...

shuffleboard Shuffleboard (more precisely deck shuffleboard, and also known as floor shuffleboard) is a game in which players use cues to push weighted discs, sending them gliding down a narrow court, with the purpose of having them come to rest within a ma ...

, or

croquet Croquet ( or ; french: croquet) is a sport that involves hitting wooden or plastic balls with a mallet through hoops (often called "wickets" in the United States) embedded in a grass playing court. Its international governing body is the Wor ...

. The game is very popular in Western Massachusetts where organized tournaments have occurred. A relatively famous permanent course exists in

Ludlow, Massachusetts Ludlow is a New England town in Hampden County, Massachusetts, Hampden County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 21,002 as of the 2020 2020 United States Census, census, and it is considered part of the Springfield Springfield me ...

on Chapin Street. It is known as the Ancient Nine or Lavoie Course. It is the only known course where the public is welcome to play the game on private property free of charge during daylight hours. Another course exists in

Willoughby, Ohio Willoughby is a city in Lake County, Ohio and is a suburb of Cleveland. The population was 22,268 at the time of the 2010 census. History Willoughby's first permanent settler was David Abbott in 1798, who operated a gristmill. Abbott and his ...

on Marble Lane.

References

{{reflist, refs= {{cite book , last=Rowell , first=V. , last2=Tukey , first2=P. , title=Tag, Toss & Run: 40 Classic Lawn Games , publisher=Storey Publishing, LLC , year=2012 , isbn=978-1-60342-809-5 , url=https://books.google.com/books?id=uW5VuRKx5KMC&pg=PA14 , pages=14-16 Lawn games Forms of golf