Rifle Golf

Silverado

Silverado

CGN Ultra frequent flyer
Rating - 98.6%
143   2   1
I'll bet I'm not the first to think of this, but here goes... Silverado's Rifle Golf!

Golf is often referred to as "Whack... f**k." This game shall be reverently referred to as "Boom... f**k.":welcome:

This is not intended to test your tactical god status as next in line to be called up to your local SRT as their "Sierra One". LOL

Nor is it in any way a Benchrest match... although it may be shot from a bench, or prone, or some other position as dictated by the 'Course Marshall.' Positions other than benched or prone would make for some awfully high scores though.

It is, however, intended to test your skill at all aspects of rifle marksmanship, with emphasis on:

Knowledge of your whole equipment setup - strengths and weaknesses of your rifle and scope choice and your ability to operate them.

Knowledge of ballistics - how well do you really know your load trajectory? How well do you compensate for wind conditions?

Shooting technique - consistency is key. Body position, cheek weld, breathing and trigger control.

Of course you guys know all this, so on to the game...

Each stage will have a Par score, just like golf. Each shot counts as one stroke.

All targets are exactly 1MOA round targets. The exception is the Putt. All Putt shots are on a regulation clay pigeon at 500m. A clay bird measures around .75MOA. The smaller target and longer range are to make the putt a hard shot - after all, golfers "Drive for show, and Putt for dough!"

An example Par 4 'hole' would shoot as follows:

Drive: 267m straight down the fairway.
Layup: 383m, over there on the left.
Chip shot: 42m.
Putt: 500m (clay pigeon, measures about .75MOA)

If you hit all targets, you shot Par for the hole. Should you require extra shots, they add to your total score. I have yet to devise a way to allow under par scores for the course... ideas? Perhaps an impossibly small target that scores -1 for a first try hit?

This could be arranged for as many 'holes' as you like... 9, 18 or 27 would seem appropriate!

Targets could be metal, paper or some other material. The main thing is that they be accurate in size, and easy to score for hits and misses. I suppose a set of golf gongs could be made, but having enough of exactly the right sizes for many different yardages would be expensive. You'd also need a really good fabricator to get them cut to the exact dimensions, unless you decided on a +/- tolerance.
If using paper or cardboard targets, enough could be set up at each station for a foursome to shoot each before advancing, just like golf.

On Putt shots, only a clean break of the clay, or a bullet hole in the centre flat of the clay will be considered a 'holed' shot (sometimes you can centre punch a clay and not break it). A chip on the rim is considered to have 'rimmed out' and is scored a miss.

A 'Course Marshall' will watch the shoot and make all necessary calls related to scoring. You shall not attempt to bribe the Course Marshall.

The course may be shot with or without a caddy (spotter) helping you. (I think this game could be shot well either way.)

All stated distances are laser ranged from the firing line. Shooters are free to range the targets themselves in order to determine their ballistic corrections as they see fit, however targets will not be moved from their initial placements.

Pace of play will be enforced. Each shooter will have a maximum of 2 minutes to make each shot, or will be penalized 1 stroke. This applies to both a foursome/squad setup, or a 'play-through' setup where a shooter shoots an entire 'hole' prior to the next shooter stepping up.

In the event of a tie, a pre-concieved tie-breaker round will be shot using targets of .75MOA. Should this result in a tie, the tied competitors may choose a stalemate, or shoot the tie breaker round again until a miss is recorded. (When Silverado's Rifle Golf takes over the shooting world and progresses to a level of stature higher than that of the PGA Masters, the discretionary gentleman's draw provision will be rescinded.)

Each hole does not necessarily need to progress 'down' course. For the purposes of ease of setup, a Layup shot could be at a much shorter yardage from the firing line than the Drive for example. Also, longer holes such as a Par 5 can go beyond 500m; for example:

Drive: 304m
2nd: 618m
Layup: 93m
Chip: 17m
Putt: 500m clay pigeon

This game really gives your trajectory calculations and/or familiarity with your turrets a serious workout! Some of the details of course could be altered to suit ranges without the long yardages; ours happens to go to 1K, so that's how I envisioned it, but most shots would be at 600m or less.

As in golf, sandwiches and hot dogs will be available at the turn. There will not, however, be a beer cart girl present until the end of the round.
 
If you make your drive and your 2nd (in a row with no misses)......then skip the chip shot and putt for the birdie.

On a par 5 you could try and do an insane shot (yardage from shot 1 and 2 together), then layup and putt for eagle.

Par 3's...hit your drive, skip the chip and putt for birdie. Of course if you miss on your drive you could penalize the shooter.....make them chip offhand or something!
 
I just thought I'd add, if I am in fact the originator of this excellent idea, please send me $1 for every round you play.

All rights reserved, and all that!
 
Shrek said:
If you make your drive and your 2nd (in a row with no misses)......then skip the chip shot and putt for the birdie.

On a par 5 you could try and do an insane shot (yardage from shot 1 and 2 together), then layup and putt for eagle.

Par 3's...hit your drive, skip the chip and putt for birdie. Of course if you miss on your drive you could penalize the shooter.....make them chip offhand or something!
Click to expand...

There may be some merit in these ideas... I'll mull it over a bit.

I think that letting a shooter skip straight to the putt makes it too easy, as the putt is at a known distance. What I mean is that once you've dialled in your putt the first time, only wind or mirage are going to help you miss, whereas all the other shots leave some chance to your come ups etc.
 
Interesting ideas.

Some thoughts - do you really want to scale all targets to 1MOA? If so, then the majority of the challenge is ranging the target (though this can pretty much be solved 100% with a laser rangefinder), and a secondary challenge is doping the wind. Further shots would be harder of course, but only in proportion to the difficulty of doping the wind. What if instead you used a fixed-size target? Not only would it be simpler to provision for the match, but a 400m shot would be more than twice as hard as a 200m shot (it's half the size MOA-wise, plus you need to dope 400m wind vs 200m wind). E.g. how about using 4" diameter targets at all distances? Would be pretty much a "gimme" at 200m, would be able to hit it much of the time but not nearly all of the time at 400m, and it would be awfully darn hard to hit at 600m.

To allow for shooting under par - For every shot that you make with a single shot, you could allow an optional much-harder shot (twice the distance? Or, same distance but half the size?) to make, that would result in that shot being eliminated. E.g. if you hit a 400m drive (say a 3" diameter target) with one shot, you'd have the option of taking an additional single shot at a 1.5" diameter target set up next to it. If you hit that, then your drive counts as "zero strokes"?
 
I felt that making the targets 1MOA would be a strong challenge, as it seems to be the threshold for what makes an accurate rifle.

Are you sure your rifle and load really shoots 1MOA or less? Can YOU consistently shoot 1MOA or less?

A chip shot at 25m would be a small target to hit first time indeed!

When you scale the MOA targets out at longer yardages, you are correct in that wind and range estimations become key. It also challenges a shooter's load development and/or practice regimen.

There are lots of <MOA groups shown and talked about at 100 and 200m, but do you know how stable your bullets are at 600?

I'm thinking the introduction of more difficult targets to try for birdie or Eagle is the way to go, but all initial targets must be shot of course.

I realized overnight that a course of more than 9 'holes' would make for an awful lot of rounds downrange in a day!

Basically, I wanted a game that removed the tactical scenarios (though I'm a big fan of Tac Rifle) as well as the grouping aspects of F-Class, BR etc. It's kind of a versatility challenge; there's your target, hit it. Then hit that one way out there; now this little one up here... and so on.
 
Silverado said:
I felt that making the targets 1MOA would be a strong challenge, as it seems to be the threshold for what makes an accurate rifle.

Are you sure your rifle and load really shoots 1MOA or less? Can YOU consistently shoot 1MOA or less?
Click to expand...

Yes, and yes (barely; with a scope and bipod, I can usually shoot 10 shots just under 1 MOA, out to 600m).

Note that I can (barely) shoot a 1 MOA *group*. This means that hitting a 1 MOA *target* counts as "fairly difficult". The "V-bulls" on the target system we use are approximately 1 MOA; a good shooter can hit them most of the time (with a scope and bipod, 7 or 8 times out of 10), but it is *remarkably* difficult to hit ten out of ten...!

To be honest, I think a 1 MOA target is probably a little bit too difficult. Figure out how often you want a good shooter in good form to be able to hit the target you present (e.g. "most of the time", "nearly always", "much of the time", "only if he reads conditions perfectly") in order for the game to be meaningful, and then design the target size based on that.

A chip shot at 25m would be a small target to hit first time indeed!

When you scale the MOA targets out at longer yardages, you are correct in that wind and range estimations become key. It also challenges a shooter's load development and/or practice regimen.
Click to expand...

I was just thinking along the lines that since longer shots in golf are more difficult than shorter shots (all other things being equal), that in "rifle golf" you ought to make the longer shots an appropriate degree more difficult than the shorter ones.

If a 100 yard drive is a "gimme" (I'm not a golfer so I really don't know for sure), then the corresponding 100 yard drive in "rifle golf" ought to be similarly easy (e.g. shooting a 4" target at 100 yards ought to be a "gimme").

And if a 500 yard drive is pretty damn hard, even for a good golfer, then (say) shooting a 4" disc at 500 yards would be similarly pretty damn hard, even for a very good shooter.

I've shot clay birds at 500m. I knew it was going to be difficult (I figured I would probably be able to hit 4 or 5 our of ten), but I had no idea how difficult it actually turned out to be (I think I was only able to hit 1 or 2 out of ten; of course the newbies with me were doing about twice as well as I was... ;-).

There are lots of <MOA groups shown and talked about at 100 and 200m, but do you know how stable your bullets are at 600?
Click to expand...

Yes, my bullets are completely stable out to at least 900m. They'll shoot about 0.5 MOA at 100, and about 1.2 MOA at 900m.

I'm thinking the introduction of more difficult targets to try for birdie or Eagle is the way to go, but all initial targets must be shot of course.

I realized overnight that a course of more than 9 'holes' would make for an awful lot of rounds downrange in a day!
Click to expand...

Say par-4 (four shots) per hole on average. If you shoot par on each hole you might add an extra shot per hole as you try for 1 under on that hole, and if you don't shoot par you'd be looking at an extra shot (maybe two) per hole. So say 48-60 rounds for a "9 holes". That actually sounds just about right (a typical day's target shooting for me is about 45 rounds).

Basically, I wanted a game that removed the tactical scenarios (though I'm a big fan of Tac Rifle) as well as the grouping aspects of F-Class, BR etc. It's kind of a versatility challenge; there's your target, hit it. Then hit that one way out there; now this little one up here... and so on.
Click to expand...

I think you've come up with a pretty interesting idea, and a fairly realistic way to convert it into a series of appropriately challenging rifle shots. As you describe it though, it will be fully as challenging as F-Class or BR (and it will reward top F-Class and BR gear and shooters accordingly).
 
You make a number of great points; I must correct you on one thing however.

Putts in golf are WAY harder to master than long drives. Driving is muscle memory, while putting requires a lot of 'touch'. Many a Master's champion has putted himself right out of the running at a PGA major, notably long drive golfers like Woods and Daly. Also, golfers with pinpoint accuracy hitting up on to the green, as in a pitch or chip shot, have a huge advantage in the overall scheme.

So, I think that making the closer shots harder is appropriate to the golf analogy.

The course certainly could be set up with some easier gimme shots for sure. I also have a few ideas for making middle distance shots harder, such as hitting out of the rough or sand would be in golf.

As to the advantage to F or BR shooters, I think that really skilled Tac shooters practice their come ups more than their TR bretheren, as F, BR, etc. are always shot at the same, fixed distances. Tac Rifle is shot at many varying ranges. Consider it to be a challenging course of fire for a truly versatile rifleman.

The 'Golf Course' is meant to be very challenging, and I don't think any shooter will be able to put up scores way under Par as is seen in golf, but I also intend this to of course be a fun shoot event or style of game, much like the Rifle Rodeo.

In addition, this game could be modified for various classes of equipment, such as an AR category, or Hunter Class category. And of course old timers like Catnthehatt will want to shoot an Irons class I'm sure!

Oh, also when I use 'you' I didn't mean you personally, but you in the broader sense of interested players. It sometimes amazes me that shooters with great, accurate setups only shoot them out to about 300m. I'm sure you will agree that a guy learns a lot about his setup and technique between 300 and 600m, and beyond!
 
EXCELLENT IDEA!!!

Biggest challenge to doing more than 1 hole - where you gonna find that kind of distance with safe backstops behind? Or are you shooting all shots from the same location, just at different targets?

If you had enough area to lay it out like a REAL golf course (much larger scale), now THAT would be cool!

Either way - I like the idea, but I think 1 MOA targets is too tough. Or just raise the 'par' on each hole by one or two. Doesn't need to track exactly like golf.
 
All shots would be taken from the firing line; targets set at various ranges and positions. It could be set up on any rifle range really.

Perhaps 1.5 MOA would be better for precision rifles, and something like 2 or 3 MOA for AR class... it would all come clear once a game was setup and shot I guess.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom