Golf is such a stupid, boring, slow game.
We propose "Artillery Golf". Each team has a small bronze or iron smoothbore muzzle-loading cannon. They have a "spotter" with a radio. Each team takes turns to load and aim their cannon at the green. The idea is to land the golf ball on the green, as close to the hole as possible. They have to judge the powder load and the traverse and elevation just right to reach the green with minimum remaining kinetic energy in the ball, so it doesn't bounce too far.
Each team gets 5 shots. Then, the "spotter" from each team has to putt the nearest of his team's balls in the conventional way.-- 8th of 7, Sep 20 2002 Lay Reader Defined http://www.stelizab...org/layministry.htm... just for bliss [PeterSilly, Sep 20 2002, last modified Oct 21 2004] The Competitor's Product http://www.sintro.c...illery/art_tut.htmlGrrrrr...... [8th of 7, Sep 26 2002, last modified Oct 17 2004] Exploding Golf Balls http://www.walkingg...s.com/exgolbal.html...ought to fit in well, I think. I still want to see some Test Match bowler or World Series pitcher surreptitiously substitute a peach for the ball in one of those fair sports. [Nick@Nite, Oct 17 2004, last modified Oct 21 2004] Definition of "sport" http://www.dict.org...m=Dict3&Database=wnNote #1. [cocktaillouie, Oct 17 2004] Technically the "spotter" is called the Forwards Observer.-- Aristotle, Sep 20 2002 Aristotle: You are indeed correct. We didn't want to confuse lay readers with technicalities.-- 8th of 7, Sep 20 2002 //Golf is such a stupid, boring, slow game.// but at least it's finished in about 4 hours. Cricket can go on for five days and still not have a result.
Why should each team get 5 shots? They should have to get it right first time. If they don't they should have to wheel the cannon to where the ball ended up and fire it again.-- PeterSilly, Sep 20 2002 PeterSilly: Yes, that could be an option in the rules. But, more shots = more loud bangs, and black powder smoke, more whistling projectiles ......-- 8th of 7, Sep 20 2002 8th - if it's more you're wanting then each team gets 100 balls per hole. The team with the most balls in the hole wins. 1,800 explosions should satisfy most (but, I accept, not all).-- PeterSilly, Sep 20 2002 24-pdr, grapeshot loaded with golf balls .....
<Stares into middle distance, huge cheesy grin spreads slowly across face>
UB: we were thinking that the teams would move their gun from tee to tee. Hence a small gun, with wheels that won't dig up the fairway - 2 people could drag it. We were thinking of a Falcon, or a Robinet.-- 8th of 7, Sep 20 2002 I think that from now on, any golf related items should be banned from the << sport >> categorie. Golf is NOT a sport. Any more than pool is a sport, or darts.-- briandamage, Sep 20 2002 briandamage: Darts can be a sport, and a contact sport at that ..... seen it happen. Yup.
UB: Hmmm. Yes. We'll see what I've got in the shed. We've fired small green apples from firework mortars in the past. Important tip: DON'T point the thing vertically upwards.-- 8th of 7, Sep 20 2002 Can we make the dress code naploeonic officer please? This would add to the atmosphere.-- Zircon, Sep 20 2002 Zircon: Froggies on one side, Redcoats on the other ? Thenn at the 16th hole, the Germans under Blucher come charging in ........
UB: Eeeeeeeewwww..... <cringes>-- 8th of 7, Sep 20 2002 I see that you are up to your usual tricks [8th]. Very good, carry on.
UB, that is intensley freaky. I'm glad you made a run for it.-- madradish, Sep 20 2002 Link added for you, bliss. (How did we get from golf to church?)
//Golf is NOT a sport. Any more than pool is a sport, or darts.// or football. <ducks and runs for cover>-- PeterSilly, Sep 20 2002 The sort of person (no sexual streotyping here) who might not have realised that "F.A.O." in a military context means Forward Artillery Observer, not For Attention Of.-- 8th of 7, Sep 20 2002 //Darts can be a sport, and a contact sport at that// //I once fired an arrow...It went *straight* up.// These two annos remind me of a game that me and my brother used to play in the back garden with two handfulls of darts. It was very good for generating an adrenaline rush. He's still got the scars.-- DrBob, Sep 20 2002 8th- this is awesome! Is it BYOB (bring your own bombs)? Reminds me of the childhood bottlerocket wars of long ago.. (no fair, steven's using those plastic whistling ones!)
Potato Cannon Golf anyone?-- Mr Burns, Sep 20 2002 This layman debate sounds a bit like gauntlets hitting the dirt.
I daresay if someone tried veryvery hard, they could post a topic on the New Turkic spelling reforms or something, which would flush out few experts. I must say no-one has quibbled with my Maori NLHB tagline, though I was expecting UnaBubba to pipe up with, 'Think you'll find 'hawhe' is an awkward neologism, used only by the Akarana...'-- General Washington, Sep 20 2002 Re: Nick@Nite's cricket anno. It has been known for bowlers in my team to surrupticiously (sp?) substitute the ball for a tea cake (basically a horrible round marsh-mallowy thing coated in chocolate). Re: PeterSilly's cricket anno. Unless the game is abandoned for some reason, you always get a result in cricket. ...but going back to the original idea for a moment. I would favour the 'fire a round and then move up and fire again from the landing point' approach. Make the object of the game as 'complete the course in the quickest time' and you've got a much extended and noisier and far more dangerous (hurrah!) version of the gun-carriage race that they used to have at the Royal Tournament.-- DrBob, Sep 20 2002 DrBob - but that result is usually a draw on the basis that you have run out of time. "If we only had another couple of days we'd have let Sri Lanka finish their second innings before starting ours."-- PeterSilly, Sep 20 2002 Well its not is it? A sport, I mean....-- briandamage, Sep 20 2002 I'm afraid you're lagging a bit behind the times, Peter. Most test matches these days finish with a definite winner and well inside the allowed time. It's causing a bit of concern at the moment because, of course, the test match grounds are losing a day's revenue as a result.-- DrBob, Sep 20 2002 Cricket is a sport, just. But golf...nah. I reckon it was invented by someone too lazy to do sport, so they made up a version of outdoor tiddlywinks to convince themselves that they were getting a bit of exercise.-- briandamage, Sep 20 2002 Perhaps if stangely dressed (like the usually are) golfers were used instead of cannon balls, and upon return to the ground would have to put a regulation golfball into the hole? Then no matter what happens, there is something for everyone. Loud explosions for the kids, gristly bits of golfer for adults and real sports fans, and golf, for golfers. As an added bonus there would be plenty of "ammo" at any golf course.-- HMav, Sep 20 2002 I was hoping that this would be using large pieces of field artillery as drivers, mortars as sand wedges and a bazooka as a putter. Shots must be taken from a spot no more tan 10 feet away from the last foxhole. Hitting water or a population centre would be out of bounds.-- st3f, Sep 20 2002 Well, yes [UB], I guess Southern Hemisphere teams do tend to actually know how to play the game which puts the rest of us somewhat at a disadvantage. That's mainly because they cheat by practising beforehand.
DrB - I'm sure about half of England's matches this summer ran out of time - some of which were admittedly weather-induced. What half-baked idiot thought it would be a great idea to play a game that requires 5 days continuous sunshine in England? Own up now.-- PeterSilly, Sep 21 2002 I really like this idea, but I'm with the people who think it should be played along. Obviously you should play with real connon-balls as well. I quite like the idea of teams having a range of small cannon of different sizes corresponding to the different clubs golfers use.-- Loris, Sep 21 2002 "My god sir! I have lost my ball!"
"My god sir!, You have! Take a Mulligan this instant!"
If artillery golf was played alternate weeks to normal golf on the same course, the normal golfers would be treated to a ever shifting array of bunkers and hazards.-- Zircon, Sep 21 2002 All this talk about no layman is a bit embarassing, since I've just had it from high authority that the army, the British one at any rate, has no FOs or FAOs. They are Forward Observation Officers, pronounced to rhyme with poos.-- General Washington, Sep 21 2002 Bubya, you are an improbable being, a credit to whatever savage planet of supermen you came from. Challenged on the 'no laymen' issue, you damn well learn a subject from scratch if need be in order to review it. What can I say? It's a pleasure and an honor.
Anyway. The Maori tagline is a bastardization of Rewi Maniapoto's answer to General Cameron's truce parley at the Siege of Orakau, usually given as 'We will fight on for ever and ever and ever!' This is the version as recorded by the British interpreter; the Ngati Maniapoto have it slightly different. 'Hawhe' -- now I don't have an etymological resource, but I can't imagine otherwise -- must be a neologism from English 'half'. 'Tohu' is cook. No doubt your Maori friend (mentioned elsewhere in one of your postings) can pull apart my grammar.
It's good to know the FO/FAO thing is not an error, then. I had assumed (since it was 8/7's conversation) Anglocentricity. A friend of mine, a captain with UKSF, flew back in from Brunei yesterday, took a look at Artillery Golf, and said it was a bit rum all this hubristic no layman talk when we hadn't even got the acronyms right. I'll set him right. Reassurance all round :o].-- General Washington, Sep 22 2002 You're quite right that the correct modern term is FOO. Having just returned from a trip to Ypres, and having spent a lot of time reading documentation of that period (when the term FAO was sometimes used), we had it stuck in our minds.-- 8th of 7, Sep 25 2002 He's back. Expect some annotation about using cats instead of balls any time noo.-- PeterSilly, Sep 25 2002 We finally tracked down where we'd picked up the term FAO. Not from our little holiday - just something we were browsing. See link.
PeterSilly: Don't be daft. Cats display remarkably poor aerodynamic properties and are unsutable as projectiles. But we'll file that idea for future reference.
We have found some cardboard firework mortars in the workshop that will take a tennis ball. We'll do some tests next weekend and report back.-- 8th of 7, Sep 26 2002 He's right, take it from me. I've experimented, and (even when attached to toast) they always land feet down and leg it off to hide somewhere.
In any case, it seems obvious that one should use cannon-balls. Maybe the green should be re-designed a little, that little soft bit of grass near the hole could be replaced by solid rock. Then putting could be replaced by a device releasing a big rolling ball a-la Indiana Jones.-- Loris, Sep 26 2002 //I have found some cardboard firework mortars in the workshop that will take a tennis ball//
Either you have bigger fireworks or smaller tennis balls in the UK.. Can't buy anything that large in the states. 2.5" PVC pipe does fit a tennis ball quite nicely, and with 120PSI behind it, you usually can't find it again.-- Mr Burns, Sep 26 2002 We have mortar tubes going up to 250mm (10 inches). Over thte last few years, there's been a slow changeover from the old Imperial sizes (2", 3", 4", 5") to metric approximations - 50, 75, 100, 125 mm. There's usually enough tolerance in the shell diameters to allow either type of tube to be used. But as we slowly replace the stock, they're gravitating towards all-metric.
However, we still have quite a collection of "odd" tubes; old 2" and 2 1/2", plus 50mm, 55mm, 60 and 65mm sizes. The 65mm size takes a standard beercan quite neatly. We're not sure what size the "tennis ball" tubes are supposed to be - we just tried different sizes until we found one that's a good fit with a little bit of clearance. We guess the ball will lose its "fuzz" fairly rapidly with the muzzle flash, and then be a looser fit. New balls, please......-- 8th of 7, Sep 27 2002 //Golf is NOT a sport// [briandamage], take a look at my link for the definition of sport. Golf involves both physical exertion and competition, therefore it is a sport.-- cocktaillouie, Mar 29 2004 Love the way these conversations span several years...-- simonj, Mar 30 2004 why not a small trebuchet, or catapult?-- copycat042, Mar 07 2008 Bravo 8th!
Today's the anniversary of you adding one of the greatest aspects of this site, your wit, insight and scientific expertise.
Miss you buddy, hope you found your place in the Borg and are shaking your head somewhere watching us mere mortal humans fumble about down here.-- doctorremulac3, Jun 11 2024 random, halfbakery