Speedgolf is a real L.A. sport, part fitness craze, part insane

You have no idea the sacrifices I am making to you people.

Take the speedgolf. This is taking over a sport that many people hate and making it worse.

“No,” said Wesley Cobb, world sprint champion. “We took golf and made it a sport.”

Well, that’s fine, if your idea of ​​sport is to set off at 5:30 in the morning and play golf like you’ve parked twice and finish at 6:30 so you can come back and shower and work at 8. But isn’t that the whole point of the game Golf, to miss it all?

“I hear it a lot,” says Garlin Smith, president of Speedgolf SoCal in Los Angeles. “Garlin, you’re killing me. I want my wife to think that golf on Saturday takes eight hours.”

Just thinking about speedgolf makes me tired. US Champion Scott Dowley won the 2020 title by firing 75 in 43 minutes for 118 points (75 + 43 = 118). Does this sound… fun?

But for you, I agreed to give it a try.

We met up at 5:15 a.m. at Chester Washington Golf Course in Los Angeles with the “us” I mean the “crazy fitness geeks” that make up Speedgolf SoCal. A start in Chester Washington allows them to get their run first about 15 minutes before sunrise. For the first or second slot, they use glow balls.

I drove with slit eyes while I veiled my breakfast with a hot pocket and did it just in time. In the parking lot I met Smith and immediately hated him. He was a 56-year-old surfer who looked 46. Even worse he kept talking about how much fun I was about to have. “Speedgolf is perfect for keeping your game sharp,” he said in his happy annoyed way. “Get some aerobic exercise and stick to life.”

I had a question: Why are we doing this again?

“Because you’ll feel great when you get into your car, after you go through and play 18 holes while the cars stop to start their ride.”

Meh.

Speedgolf is like regular golf. You have to wait for the ball to stop rolling and get everything out and ignite the bunkers. But it’s not like regular golf. You are wearing exercise equipment. You’re carrying a streamlined golf bag that holds no more than six putters, although some only hold six. If the ball goes out of bounds, you fall along the fly line and get hit. No search rule for three minutes. There is hardly a three-second rule. Also, there is no time for the honor system. Some holes everyone hits at once.

Well, it all seemed fun to me.

My trilogy included a garlin and a lawyer whose body seemed to suggest he’d never run behind a bus, let alone a golf ball. “I do this because I hate slow play,” said Randy Balick. “I mean, do you think I got a body like this because I love to run?”

But the moment he got to his first drive, he paused as if he had just robbed a liquor store. Before I could suck it up, Garlin had hit and was off as well, which meant I was golfing in a jailbreak.

Swinging at the speed of light, I swiped it miles right. Since I didn’t have a glowing ball, I was definitely lost. I quickly made another spin and hit it in the exact same spot.

Q: When can a watch look like a week?

A: Play speedgolf.

I noticed that most of these guys were wearing two rain gloves because they were sweating a lot. “Do you think a four-footed penalty kick is difficult?” Cobb wrote me. “Try it with your heart beating out of your chest while sweat drips down your nose and onto the ball. Then do it again for another 17 holes.”

I was running as fast as my 63-year-old asthmatic lungs would have taken me, and so I was trying to make up for lost time by swinging fast and really hard, sweat stinging in my eyes, hitting hog strips and sniping hooks, which only added time zigzagging across the track, while it was Randy and Garleen go in straight lines.

Somewhere out of misery all the stupid things I’ve done hit me. I was wearing sunglasses. (The sun was barely shining.) I put a registration card in my pocket. (You keep your balance in your head.) I had two ball pens. (No one distinguishes anything.)

By the time I got to the sixth tee, the speed group ahead was already at No. 8. Randy kept checking his watch.

After nine holes, it felt like Hot Pocket was trying to stage a comeback. (Oddly enough, it tastes good either way.) You’re done, done, and done. Smith saw my failure coming early and had a golf cart ready at the turn. I’ve never been happier to walk into one in my life. My nine-hole time was 45 minutes, about 10 minutes slower than what these guys usually spend, and who knows what I’ll shoot? I lost count. Maybe 45? Over 18 holes, that would have been a 180 degree speedgolf.

The guy driving the buggy is named Jason Vaughan and he’s a really good player with his normal best round of five and best pacing round under two.

He said his hero was Wes Cope. “He’s like a god to us,” said Vaughan, who was breastfeeding from an injury. “His transition time is equivalent to six seconds.” The “transition time” turns out to be the time it takes to go from jogging to hitting to running again, a kind of downtime on the golf course. Cupp is best known for posing with his bag hanging from a carabiner strapped to his waist. It’s Steve Jobs from speedgolf.

Freed from their anchor (me), Randy and Garlin played the linebacker nine in 34 minutes. That’s not even four minutes per hole.

I know guys who have four-minute sex. For some reason (me), he gave up on holding the score, but I think without that handicap (me), they each shot about 78 in 68 minutes, for a score of 146. Strong.

I didn’t totally hate him. Speedgolf taught me some cool things about golf that I didn’t know before.

1. Doing useless swings. As for the guy, all speed golfers said they shoot the same speed golf (without swing exercises) as they do in regular golf (many swing exercises). I’ve been wasting years of my life.

2. Fourteen clubs are not necessary. After playing speedgolf, I now take out a quad iron wedge when I grab my bag. It didn’t make a difference and my shoulder thanked me.

3. Yardage hours are a godsend. They are all worn by speedo because they save a lot of time. If every golfer in America wore a yard watch, the world would be a happier place.

But I knew I’d never be golfing fast again, for three reasons:

1. Bull-. Eighty-two percent of the joy of golf for me is giving the needle to my friends, telling stories, and recapturing the glory and sorrow of the last hole.

Ted: I think my wife could have played this hole better than you, and she’s never played it.

I can. I’ll ask her tomorrow morning after you leave for work.

It all went into Speedgolf. You can’t needle your buddies because they are always jumping over a bush somewhere.

2. The function of it. The FunMeter needle is about 1/16th in speedgolf. It’s more like when you clean the garage yourself. You feel good about it when you’re done, but the same can be said about flossing.

And, the final deal…

3. No beer.

Do you think I got a body like this because I love Gatorade?

Adapted from “So Help Me Golf: Why We Love the Game” by Rick Riley. © 2022. Available from Hachette Books, an imprint of Hachette Book Group, Inc. You can purchase the book here.