Elfego Baca Shootout: 3-Mile Mountain Golf Course (with 1 Hole)

by cyn.khoo | June 3, 2009 at 03:09 pm

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The Elfego Baca Shootout takes place this Saturday, a 1-hole, 3-mile golf-course down Socorro Peak, a mountain in New Mexico.

There's only one tee box at the Elfego Baca Shootout, and it's perched 2,550 feet above the hole and nearly three miles away.

The event has been held annually since 1960 as part of the Socorro Open. Participants battle fire, wind, and earth (that is, the "scorching sun, swirling winds, and unforgiving terrain") in order to sink their respective golf balls into the target hole, the centre of a 50-foot circle in the desert.

In Spanish, "Socorro'' means help, and that's what plenty of shootout golfers need...

"I've seen lots of rattlesnakes on the mountain,'' said 18-time champion Mike Stanley. "One year we saw a mountain lion. Another time, we had an El Paso reporter and photographer with us. One of the guys slipped and fell on a cactus.''

The challenges increase with strict rules imposed on the shootout, including a 10-ball maximum (with minimum 1 remaining at the end) and limit of 3 spotters. However, golfers are allowed to tee the ball for each shot and move it laterally or away from the hole.

Once the ball is safely down the mountain and into the foothills above Socorro, it's a series of shots where distance is the demand. But golfers still must negotiate sandy arroyos and thick fields of creosote bushes. [...]

"It's not trivial because you're not hitting onto grass like a golf course. The hole is in the rocks, the desert,'' Stanley said. "It's hard to get the ball in. You just kind of chip it.''

The record for the course is 9 strokes, and Stanley has usually obtained an average of 18.

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