Hazy Memories of Seattle Urban Golf

By now, you’ve most likely realized that Seattlest loves a little bit of the strange in our daily lives. Between all the off-beat circuses, live movies, and pillow fights, our entertainment tastes obviously run a little bit off center. It shouldn’t come as a surprise then that spending a day shooting nine holes of golf around Capitol Hill, in costume, at the bi-annual Seattle Urban Golf was right up our alley.

At first glance, nine holes of golf each about a hundred yards long probably isn't a big deal to most golfers. Since they all run down the alleys, side streets, parking lots and garages of Capitol Hill, and encompass all the hazards those sites might offer (including pedestrians), you start to get a picture of how hard the course might actually be. Did we mention that after each hole all the players stop for a drink at a bar? Things get pretty ridiculous pretty fast.

The day started out with a troupe of 50 or so golfers in our best duds at Cal Anderson Park at the day’s only hole on grass. The short par 3 (or 10 depending on who was scoring), was quickly followed by our first drink at Purr. It was the afternoon's last sedate affair. From there, we ambled to the old KFC parking lot on Pine to tee off toward a hole somewhere on 10th which was followed by a team shot of tequila at King Cobra (which was playing Caddyshack on the TVs--a nice touch).

We’d like to give you a hole by hole and a bar by bar report of the rest of the day, but our memory starts to get a bit hazy at this point. Beyond being impressed at the amount of short, tight and extravagant golf wear Seattleites can pull out of their closets, we remember only a few stops during the afternoon.

There was a drink and a handful of hummus at The Garage and a mojito at The Rosebud (where one woman became enamored with our wife’s backside for a while). Drinks were also consumed at R-Place, after a quick on-the-sly slice of pizza at Hot Mama’s, which didn’t do enough to sober us up for the dreaded SCCC parking lot garage hole. The day ended, 7 hours later at Maharaj on 10th which happens to have an awesome happy hour menu which includes dollar appetizers.

We know we should have more to say, but just the thought of how our head and stomach felt on Sunday morning is enough to send us running for the bathroom today, so we should probably leave it at that, except to say that Urban Golf is indeed a blast and we hear the organizers put it together twice a year, so start working on your swing (and your costume) now.