GolfCross is a variant of
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 ...
developed in
New Zealand
New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...
by
Burton Silver. It is similar to golf, except that it uses an oval ball and holes are replaced by suspended goal nets.
In addition, the green is replaced by a "yard",
and a player whose ball lies in the yard has the right to turn the goal net so as to face them.
According to Silver, the oval ball is designed so as to give the player more control over where the ball travels. Burton Silver explains:
Because the oval ball spins on two axes, it is almost impossible to hook or slice it. However, controlled hooks and slices are easily achieved by angling the ball on the specially designed tee adaptor. Back-spinning the ball and running it on is also achievable by the way in which the ball is set up on the tee.
According to NZ player
Greg Turner
Greg Turner (born 21 February 1963) is a New Zealand professional golfer.
Turner was born in Dunedin. He attended the University of Oklahoma in the United States but has spent most of his career on the PGA Tour of Australasia and the European ...
,
GolfCross is a more strategic and tactical game than regular golf, especially in match play, and because players are shooting for goal it tends to be more dramatic and exciting to play and watch.
GolfCross can bring back many advantages to normal golf. The mindset that the ball will hardly ever slice or hook can be bought back to golf and used effectively.
There are GolfCross courses in Germany, Argentina, England, Ireland, Scotland, and New Zealand. It is still unclear how widely GolfCross is played. Recent interest has centered on its ecological advantages. Because it doesn't use putting greens, agricultural chemicals can be done away with, and because the ball is easy for any player to backspin, fairways don't require irrigating to keep them soft in order to reduce run-on.
References
External links
Official siteBBC article on the sport
Individual sports
Forms of golf
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