Gonzo Golfers Play On Ski Slopes

By Jeffrey Ressner/Truckee

Four months ago, the baggy-jeans-and-snowboard crowd was cavorting in deep powder at this California ski resort, called Northstar-at-Tahoe. Many of the same folks are back on these 8,000-ft. peaks, today--hiking up the rough slopes, now covered with rocks, weeds and pinecones--to play a round of "extreme golf."

Mike Leslie, 30, clad in Hawaiian shirt and emerald wraparound shades, hums a Metallica tune as he climbs to a makeshift tee and swings his 3-iron. His ball sails across a steep slope before settling into a patch of daisies. "When I look at these mountains," he says, "I think of only one thing: golf course."

A waiter at a local restaurant, Leslie is one of 52 weekend hackers who showed up last week for what its extreme-sports organizers call the "U.X. Open." The grand prize: an invitation to the finals in West Virginia later this year. But not everyone took the tournament seriously. Two of Leslie's buddies stuffed their worn golf bags full of ice cubes and Budweisers.

Playing on parched ski slopes and limited to just four clubs, the golfers are supposed to hit balls in the fewest possible strokes into 10 target zones marked around flags. The course layout zigzags wildly across the steep mountain. The terrain requires special rules, such as: "Any ball that comes to rest on...boulders...may be moved to the nearest point of relief no closer to the goal than two club lengths."

U.X. Open founder Rick Ryan, who usually works on NBA marketing deals with such clients as IBM, first played mountain golf as a goof when he attended college in Vermont. Now he dreams of bringing it to the Tiger Woods generation--and incidentally bringing new summer business to America's 441 ski resorts. "We could," he says, "be creating a whole new game."

Well, not exactly. In Arizona, crazies already love "wasteland golf"--played entirely in the desert. Another variation, speed golf, requires players to cover a standard course as quickly as possible, by running between shots. One-club golf--a favorite Tiger Woods practice routine--mandates the use of a single club from tee to cup. Frisbee golf claims more than 16,000 players worldwide.

"It seems every other surfer and skateboarder is into golf," says Will McCulloch, 25, a U.X. Open player and managing editor of Schwing!--a slick, year-old magazine that reaches an estimated 68,000 punkish players of both conventional and extreme golf. "The game isn't just for geeks or old, white men anymore," adds Adrian Young, 30, who plays drums for the rock band No Doubt and boasts an 8 handicap. The National Golf Foundation reports that 57% of all current players are younger than 40.

Consider U.X. Open contestant Donnie McFadden, 30, a steakhouse chef, heavy-metal music fan and newly minted golf nut from Hobbs, N.M. His fashion sense is decidedly more WWF than PGA: tank top and shorts, shaved head, piercings and a sun tattoo across one forearm. "Golf shouldn't be about age or tax bracket," he barks. Laughs Michael Caruso, editor of Rupert Murdoch's new Gen-X magazine Maximum Golf (which claims a circulation of 300,000): "There's something to be said for anything that explodes the old form. Whether these things will ever catch on, I'm doubtful. When was the last time anybody invented a new sport?"

As for snowboarding waiter Leslie, he has tried other golf variations before, but Northstar's U.X. Open marks the first time he has scaled a mountain to try to shoot birdies. "It reminds you that when all's said and done, it is just a game," he says. "Regular golf can get pretty stressful." But the result of the U.X. Open indicates that not everything about golf changes when you change the format. The winner of the tournament, at 6 under par, was Thomas Clarke, 41, a chiropractor who was very serious about the competition.