The sport of the future.

Tennis golf really is a coming craze. If there's anyone who has their finger on the pulse of the nation (especially when it comes to underground sports), it's this kid. And tennis golf will be huge. It could at least get some coverage on ESPN 8 - The Ocho!

For those of you who don't know the origins of this amazing sport, allow me to set the Wayback Machine for Spring 2003. I'm hanging out with Josh and his friends at Illinois College. They have this sweet thing called Senior Week where seniors are pretty much the only people left on campus and they're done with Finals. How this doesn't just dissolve into an anarchic bacchanal, I'll never know. But it was fun - some seniors party, we invent sports.

I guess the kids at IC just got an itch to play golf, but didn't want the hassle of leaving campus. And playing with golf balls was obviously out of the question because of problems in distance and property damage. Hence - tennis golf. Pick your favorite iron (I use a 5 iron - go figure), take a tennis ball, and go to town. The game is played on campus using various landmarks and buildings as holes. In our course, for example, you have to hit the library, a tree, between two rows of bushes, and eventually the strange Stonehenge-like sculpture in the middle of campus. (That's not all one hole. That would be ridiculous. Although the last hole at IC was something equally silly. It was a par 9.) The course is created the first time out, pars are assigned, and you go from there.

The first attempt at tennis golf at Drake was last Saturday afternoon. Raph and I went out to create the course. We made it 8 holes before losing BOTH our tennis balls in thick foliage around Old Main. That was embarrassing. Undaunted, we set out the next day with a foursome to complete the course. What follows is proof of our awesomeness.


Here's the foursome. From left - Raph, Emeric, myself, and Quentin, a guy from Raph's floor who caught us at tee-off and decided to jump in. Yes, his shirt does indeed say "Wenches want me." This is the crowd we run around with.


A common practice during tennis golf: watching the shot and praying it doesn't break a window or a person.


Emeric and Keri, in their classic "British noble" pose. Those kids love to act like nobility, God bless 'em. Keri was nice enough to serve as our audience/ball girl/photographer on this outing.


I find that wearing ridiculous glasses bought at Walgreens really helps my game. "Cool cool glasses."


Emeric had a pre-shot ritual that was very entertaining. This is him pretending that he knows which way the ball is about to go.


Raph, on the other hand, is pioneering a revolutionary new technique in which he never once looks at the ball. Not ever. It's a terrible technique.


Quentin had never actually touched a golf club before that day, but he took to the body english like a natural.


Now there's some pretty form.


Pretty form leads to holes-in-one. This is me right after I hit a bench on a short, but devlishly tricky par 3. It's the only hole-in-one recorded on the course so far. Take that, Tiger.


Fun as it is, the game is little more than an excuse to take a lovely walk around campus and have some silly fun with good friends. And good friends they are.

Well, I'm graduating on Saturday and after that I'll be going on a short camping jaunt. So if you don't hear from me by a week from now, assume I've been eaten by a mountain lion. They can climb trees, you know.