Pillar Mountain Golf Classic

By: © Nelson Taylor 2009

Festival Location: Kodiak, AK, USA

Festival State: Alaskan Festivals

Festival Type(s): Stick and Ball Sport Events, Bizarre Sports Events, Bizarre Festivals

What kind of golf tournament has rules that prohibit two-way radios, dogs, tracking devices, chainsaws and hatchets? Only one, the Pillar Mountain Golf Classic, a tournament held on April Fool's weekend every year since 1984, a day-tourney offering some of the worst lies the sport has ever seen. Why? Because the course is the 1400-foot mountain itself and the tournament is the world's only one-hole par seventy. And that isn't even the worst of it.

Players are warned about extreme wind, the possibility of frostbite, and are urged to carry a set of crampons (spiked shoes). You see, in April, Pillar Mountain is often still covered in snow and ice. But that doesn't stop about 60 or so hard-core golfers every year who pay $50 to test themselves against the mountain and take home the $600 winning purse. Well, calling them golfers might be a stretch. Most are just hackers who play once a year at most.

Micky Mummert-Crawford, who is one of the female hackers who plays every year, says, "It's grueling. I shot like an 800. My arms were so tired." She laughs, "I went to Hawaii last winter and played golf for the first time on a real course. It seemed so easy." So if you're planning on heading to Kodiak to try your hand at gorilla golf, bring lots of balls.