Strings, Pink Balls, White Greens : It’s Called Winter Golf, and These Duffers Have Heart

ST. PAUL, Minn. —  Linda Flanagan took a mighty swing at her fluorescent, passionate pink golf ball, hitting it solidly. It landed a few feet from the pin on the fifth hole.

Flanagan, 31, didn’t see it, though. She was engulfed in a swirling cloud of snow caused by her swing.

Across the way, on the third hole, at the Lost Spur Country Club, Ben Bambenek, 31, went to address his ball and suddenly sank nearly to his waist in three feet of snow.

He choked his 5-iron and swung. The ball sailed neatly through the air about 10 feet then sank in the snow.

No roll on this course.

About the same time, teacher Steve Nelson, 29, found his drive without any trouble. Everybody else in his sixsome was looking for lost balls.

Nelson had spotted the two feet of bright red yarn attached to his golf ball. Although his ball had burrowed deeply into the snow and out of sight, the yarn was plainly visible.

Many other golfers in Sunday’s 14th annual St. Paul Winter Carnival Golf-in-the-Snow Tournament had tied yarn streamers into holes drilled through their golf balls.

There are no sand traps here. No fairways. No greens. No rough.

There is just the glistening snow--average depth 1 1/2 feet and as deep as 3 feet in spots--that has been covering the course since early November.

There are no water holes either. Just frozen ponds, creeks and a frozen river.

Lost balls? No penalties for those in this tournament. No strokes for missed hits, either. Incredible as it may seem, many players had birdies after losing a ball or two on a hole. Some players lost as many as 15 balls during play in the nine-hole tournament.

“A ball in the snow is much higher than your feet,” said Dean Strand, 60, the tournament director. “That’s why all the whiffs. The club goes under the ball hitting the snow.”

The cup on each green is 10 feet in diameter--a circle in the snow marked with blue spray paint.

There’s no putting in this competition. How could anyone putt?

You hit the ball into the blue circle--in summer it’s the green--and it counts the same as getting the ball in the hole.

Sunday was a warm day for golf by St. Paul standards. The temperature climbed from an early morning low of 10 to 25 by mid-afternoon, the high for the day. By nightfall it was down to 10 again.

In fact, it was one of the hottest days in the history of the tournament. Usually golfers brave howling blizzards, temperatures as low as 20 below.

John Thordson, 55, a contractor, has played in all but one of the 14 Golf-in-the-Snow tournaments. “It breaks up the monotony of winter,” said Thordson, who shot a 40. Lowest score of the day was Jim Ryan’s 29. Penny Barnes was high with 106, including a 20 on the par-5 seventh hole.

“You get itching for golf in winter after weeks away from the links,” said Don Gilles, 33, vice president of a printing company. “All of us golfers keep in shape this time of the year hitting balls at indoor driving ranges.

“You may think we’re crazy, but actually this is a lot of fun.”

There were 109 men and 11 women in this year’s tournament. The $25 entry fee included the golf, dinner and prizes.

No snowmobiles were allowed. Golfers had to trudge through the deep snow. Some pulled their clubs on sleds. It took most players more than three hours to complete the nine holes. Some snowshoed around.

Doug Lenhart, 34, carried an insect spray can with him. “Minnesota mosquitoes are tough,” he said. “The mosquitoes are normally dormant this time of the year, but you never know when they’ll show up. In Minnesota we never take a chance.”

Golf in the snow is just one of numerous activities during this centennial year of the St. Paul Winter Carnival. The carnival was first held in 1886 as a celebration of winter after an eastern reporter called St. Paul another Siberia not fit for human habitation. This year’s carnival started Jan. 22 and will end next Sunday.

Other sports at the carnival include rugby, volleyball and boccie ball in the snow, broom ball, bande (a combination of soccer and ice hockey), softball and car racing on ice, a gigantic ice fishing contest and a frozen 5-kilometer run in snow and ice.

As electrician, Gordy Boyle, 37, slowly moved one foot ahead of the other through the deep snow in pursuit of his bright orange golf ball, he turned and yelled to the two Los Angeles newsmen covering the tournament:

“Say hello to Disneyland for me you lucky so-and-sos.”