These days you can play a round on the ice floes in the Arctic, in the war zones of Afghanistan and Iraq and on the plains of Africa.

The rich history of the sport has produced a wealth of screwball, outlandish and just plain weird tales:

• Golf was invented in Scotland over 500 years ago, but the Chinese claim a similar game as far back as 943 AD.
• In a three-day span on a course in Wales, a mother, father and son each made a hole-in-one; the odds of this feat are at least 10,000,000 to one.
• The Toonik Tyme Festival in Nunavut features a nine-hole golf tournament on sea ice with fluorescent balls and parka-clad golfers at Temperatures of -50 degrees Celsius.
• Four-time long-drive champion Jason Zuback once drove a golf ball over 700 yards on an airport runway.
• Eight of the world’s oldest golf clubs owned by the Royal Troon Golf Club in Scotland are worth at least $5 million.

And more…

Steve Drake's profile page

Rob Christie's profile page

Stephen Drake was born in Vancouver and grew up on a ranch near Merritt, BC. As a teenager he spent many carefree summer days at the Quilchena Golf Course beside beautiful Nicola Lake. For six dol- lars, he would zip around the nine-hole layout two or three times in a day with his buddies when the course was nearly empty in the afternoon heat. Coyotes were an unofficial hazard; hidden safely in the sagebrush, they would stealthily slip through the fence to grab golf balls as they bounced down the fairway. During years when the salmon run was thick, errant shots landing in Quilchena Creek would disappear under hundreds of spawning fish strug- gling to move in the trickling flow of water. These days Stephen is a freelance writer and shares space with his wife and two young children.