But what is FootGolf? It’s essentially what it sounds like—golf with your feet. The ball and cup are scaled up, and the length of the course is scaled down. The distance from tee to hole ranges anywhere from 70-200 yards, par 3 to par 5. Like golf, the lowest score wins. Also like golf, it’s the short game where things can fall apart. “Putting” is far more difficult than going for distance when teeing off. Trees, sandtraps, and dangerous slopes provide the usual obstacles to low scoring success.
The sport seems to be taking particular hold here in the Pacific Northwest. Last week, Portland Timbers captain Will Johnson was at Glendoveer Golf Course in Portland to play some FootGolf with three lucky winners in the “Kick It With The Captain” sweepstakes sponsored by regional sports drink company Golazo.
Jessika Fernandez, who worked with Golazo in a PR counselor capacity to set up “Kick It With The Captain” sweepstakes, says, “Golazo wanted to create a fun, unique, and exclusive experience for its sweepstakes winners … After chatting with Will and learning more about his personal interests, Golazo decided to host a FootGolf sweepstakes given the sport is something Will is passionate about and he has been playing as a child with his brother.”
Johnson says his interest was piqued by Golazo’s proposal and personal background with “street” FootGolf, and he decided to participate. “Golazo set up this sweepstakes and I said, ‘you know, I’d love to play FootGolf’. I thought it’d be a cool way to interact with people.” A local high profile sports figure engaging in a new pastime is a surefire way to boost interest in—to most people—an unknown activity and enhance a company’s image by association.
While the weekend event was great fun for the contest winners and a success for Golazo with Johnson being interviewed in a segment for Fox News 12 wearing a shirt with “GOLAZO” emblazoned across the front, the emerging sport is more than just a marketing ploy for a homegrown beverage company to raise their profile with a cool new sport championed by a local, down-to-earth celebrity. FootGolf may sound like a manufactured sport, but there is quite a bit of history behind it even if it’s known by other names. Most everyone who played soccer as a child at some point tried trickshots aiming for a trash can, a mailbox, to split the fork in trees, or even try to make it through an open window without missing and therefore being forced to get a summer job to pay for the damages. This is the “street” FootGolf to which Johnson and Fernandez alluded.
Director of the Oregon FootGolf Association (OFGA) Evan Lundgren provides some history for “official” versus “street” FootGolf. “The origin of FootGolf, similar to regular golf, is pretty dubious. The first official 9-hole course originated in the Netherlands in 2009 but individuals have been claiming to have played it in other countries—Spain and England in particular—previously. Regardless, the Netherlands course was the first official FootGolf course to be played on an actual golf course.”
Since then, courses have sprung up in Europe and South America “and in 2012 the Federation for International FootGolf was created and remains the official international governing body,” said Lundgren. “There is even a FootGolf World Cup!” Going from smashing windows and getting balls stuck in gutters to being able to play on an actual golf course in such a short while clearly indicates rapid growth and an interest in a uniform set of rules and statutes for the sport.
While FootGolf’s current official form that now appears on golf courses the world over may be less than a decade old, there is a long history behind the sport in the neighborhood streets, said Lundgren. “Organically, a lot of people have claimed to play self-created incarnations of the sport at numerous times in the past, and I have personally heard multiple individuals say something similar to, ‘I invented this ten years ago but never did anything with it.’”
Johnson agrees and discusses his history with FootGolf, “I think we were pretty, like, unofficial back in the day. Yeah, we were pretty unofficial … We didn’t have a golf course like this [at Glendoveer], [so] we made up our own holes and stuff, used people’s mailboxes for example. It was just an awesome way to get out in the neighborhood and play with all the kids. So we had a good time with that.”
Making FootGolf a destination social event with playable locations is a huge step up for the sport. But it’s not that easy to turn trashcans into cups on a golf course.
Johnson noted this, saying, “You know it’s cool, [to do something like Glendoveer’s course] it takes time and effort and people’s hard work to organize stuff like this and get it all sorted. We’re pretty excited that they’ve done that.”
With real courses, as opposed to mailboxes and tire swings, appearing around the country—and particularly in the soccer-mad Pacific Northwest—FootGolf as more than a backyard neighborhood challenge looks to grow quickly.
The sport has rapidly grown to encompass an eclectic collection of participants, said Lundgren. “We have seen FootGolf families, soccer teams, corporate groups, fraternities, bachelor parties, young residents from a local hospital, Timbers fans, and just run of the mill soccer players just wanting to get out and try the sport. The FootGolf crowd has a very ‘Portlandish’ feel, which is certainly something we’d like to the sport to cultivate. The closer we can attach the sport to a younger, more modern demographic the better the future for the sport will be.” Portraying FootGolf as a hip activity encourages the sport’s desired demographic to get out and give it a try. Partnering with a sports drink company like Golazo reinforces that perception when spokesmen like DeAndre Yedlin—Seattle Sounders and World Cup hero—and Will Johnson—local hero—heavily promote the drink and the sport, leading to further growth.
But FootGolf isn’t quite yet a fully national sport. Its burgeoning success in Portland is due to local participation and organization, with individuals like Lundgren driving the creation of courses and the basic infrastructure of a fledgling sport. “The OFGA originated with Natalia Agarycheva and I developing a FootGolf course at Glendoveer Golf and Tennis,” said Lundgren. “We became immediate enthusiasts and proponents of the sport and it was our enthusiasm and diligence that brought us to the attention of the governing branch for the US. We were asked by them to become ‘ambassadors’ of the sport on a trial period with an official offer to become state delegates to follow pending the successful completion of our trial. We were given the offer a short while after and since then have served in a supervisory and developmental role since.” Grassroots involvement has, at least in the Northwest, been the primary force behind getting FootGolf holes on golf courses, despite there the existence of a national governing body. Local efforts will always prove to be the most effective means of growing something—bottoms up and not trickle down.
However, as in anything new and exciting, it would follow that there would be opposition to the unknown and perceive odd. Golf courses would naturally be hesitant to place a gaping hole on their greens for FootGolf and be worried that it might compete with golf or worse drive away golfers entirely because it wouldn’t fit the country club image, but that isn’t necessarily the case for one overriding reason—untapped revenue wells. “Most FootGolfers are soccer players, not golfers, and the average age of a FootGolfer ranges from 18-35 … with the average age of golfers near 50,” said Lundgren. “So, FootGolf brings in not only a different demographic, fans of soccer most of whom have never stepped on a golf course, but it brings a younger crowd… With the loss in revenue from ‘normal rounds of golf’ [as interest in the sport wanes and former golfers are no longer able to continue playing] anything that’s going to bring more revenue and more importantly new revenue is really important to cultivate.” Perhaps simply being around golf will encourage those there for a FootGolf outing to pick up a club and give it a few swings and gain new fans of the Scottish highlands’ game.
It’s not just the course owners who have that deemed FootGolf a worthwhile addition to their courses. Golfers’ resistance has ultimately crumbled at the courses that have embraced FootGolf. Far from driving away notoriously protective golfers, “[Most] golfers, once they see how happy and energetic the FootGolfers are, change their opinion” and are accepting of their new co-tenants on the course, said Lundgren. Hopefully for FootGolf organizers like Lundgren, public and private clubs will seize the opportunity and install actual cups in addition to or on existing golf courses. But even if that sort of progress is slow to advance, OFGA has other strategies to grow the sport in the immediacy.
OFGA has a powerful opportunity for heightened awareness coming in the next few weeks said Lundgren. “We are planning an event with MLS … in which some of the Bayern Munich and US All Stars will play 3 holes during all-star week at the beginning of August…We are also hosting our first major OFGA affiliated tournament in the middle of August that has a ton of local Portland sponsors and donates a large portion of the proceeds to the charity Playworks FootGolf Open.” Sponsorships mean those companies have a vested interested in the success of the sport and will make great efforts to promote the game. And with some of the biggest soccer stars in the world coming to town for the MLS All Star Game, the sport could explode in popularity with the increased exposure—especially if those athletes decide they love it and are willing to promote.
Johnson makes a similar, yet simple and compelling, case for players worth millions of dollars to their clubs. Playing FootGolf allowed him to “mix some soccer without playing a game where [he] can get hurt.” He also added that he felt his skills translated. “I strike a good ball so I think FootGolf could be something that can really translate well for me. I had a lot of fun hitting those balls.” There appears to be a market among professional soccer players to hone their skills with minimal injury risk and with that star power behind the new sport, a groundswell in interest and participation will likely follow.
If FootGolf can attract stars, and pick up sponsors like Golazo along the way, and create and maintain actual courses, there’s no reason the sport won’t grow exponentially. However, like any niche sport, especially one in its infancy, there is always a danger of dying with a whimper before it can gain traction. But money talks and golf courses have begun to recognize the sport as a new potential revenue stream with an entirely new generation to capture with the stately sport of golf. Soon there could be dozens of FootGolf courses scattered around the region. FootGolf appears to have taken hold, and the sport certainly seems to have a rosy future in Portland and the soccer-loving Pacific Northwest.
Note: If you are interested in playing FootGolf, there are four locations around Oregon. Two in Portland (Glendoveer and near Clackamas), one in Lebanan, and another in Bend. Only the Bend location isn’t the full 18 holes, but it is the first to be located on a private course in Oregon. There is also a course in the Seattle area. While Fernandez says there are no current plans for Golazo to host another FootGolf event, they are always looking to expand their sponsorship opportunities, so be on the lookout for one in the future.
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