World's Toughest Golf Hole: 3 Rugged Miles

NM hosts challenging extreme golf tournament
By A Ali,  Newser Staff
Posted Jun 3, 2009 3:28 PM CDT
World's Toughest Golf Hole: 3 Rugged Miles
Scott Jameson of Socorro, NM, tees off in last year's Elfego Baca Shootout.   (AP Photo)

New Mexico’s ultimate golf challenge is a single, 50-foot wide hole. Sound like child’s play? Add a 2,550-foot mountain, rattlesnakes, and a 3-mile course. The Elfego Baca Shootout—a side event to the Socorro Open—requires golfers to finish with just one of 10 balls, hardly an easy task when canyons, mine shafts, and cactus block the path, Yahoo! reports.

The golfers can tee up each shot and have three spotters to watch where their ball goes. The course record is nine strokes. “It’s a once-in-a-lifetime thing to go to the top of a mountain and play your way down,” the tournament’s defending champ tells the AP. “You’re never going to get another chance to hit your first shot 1,000 yards.” (More Socorro Open stories.)

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