Rattlesnakes. Mountain climbing. Mountain lions.
It ain’t your grandpa’s golf game, that’s for sure. This Saturday, intrepid golfers will swap out golf carts for four-wheel drive vehicles and dune buggies and golf their way down rugged Socorro Peak on the final day of the Socorro Open in New Mexico.
Golfers begin the game teeing off at 2,500 feet. The course has one hole, a fifty-foot circle three miles down the mountain. These golf players have balls- ten, to be exact, and they have to finish with at least one. (Any balls that stay lost for twenty minutes count as a stroke.) Because of the extraordinarily rugged terrain, players are allowed to tee up for every shot, and each player is allowed three spotters to try to keep track of golf balls that are known to careen down abandoned mine shafts and into canyons.
Fancy golf bags are left in the desert dust for a driver, a five iron and laser range finders. Mike Stanley, 18-time game champion, says the hardest part is maintaining an upright stance on the uneven course. Stanley says:
“The hardest thing to do is get a stance built so you can stand and swing and not fall down. You pile up rocks. You dig with your feet. Anything to try to have some stable footing so you can swing and hit the ball.”
The Elfego Baca Shootout is named for Wild West politician and policeman Elfego Baca, who was born in Socorro.
