A Hole In One?

I recently played a course that had been infected with the Footgolf plague, and on the par three second, my tee shot found a Footgolf hole near the green.

Can I count this as a hole-in-one?

I had a generally bad attitude about sharing space with soccer hooligans in the first place, and this did not help improve that. What is the ruling on this? I took a free drop as the most likely solution (I guess the USGA is going to have to make up rules for co-existing with the foot fungus.).

But the drop didn’t make me happy. The hole was short and right of the green. Given the ball flight, I think it entirely probable that my ball would have kicked up to the green if it had not fallen into the well of desolation. That would have left me putting for a birdie. With the drop, I was chipping to get it close to save par.

That wasn’t the only issue for me. On the same course, there were numerous short flags at various locations up and down the fairways, indicating the position of the soccer holes. On the longer holes, there were three or four of them. I tried to block them out, but the flags kept coming into my peripheral vision, and as you might expect, I unintentionally hit several of my tee shots right at those flags on the margins. It is sort of the same effect as a water hazard: you see it, and just can’t help firing away in its general direction.

Here’s a photo of a hole with two flags. One is the soccer golf flag; the other the real flag.

That brings up another problem of coexistence: what happens when your drive plunges into one of those chasms? You lose yards. Or maybe your ball is saved from a fate it richly deserved in the deep rough or the woods. In either case, the foot hole is interfering with the game. The USGA is going to have to add rulings for those instances also.

Finally, there is the issue of noise. Soccer hooligans apparently must hoot and holler as they play. If they are going to continue on the courses, someone is going to need to let them know about the expectations of decorum and consideration. It’s a GOLF COURSE, not a grade school playground.

Not a good first experiences with foot golf. In the future, I’m going to do my level best avoid playing courses infested with the Footgolf plague.