The Cocoanut Ball Golf Tournament is a five-day event that draws people from golfing and non-golfing worlds to play a game that is in its way as odd as soccer. It’s one of the rare things where you can tour Tiger Woods and see a guy in a feather boa hitting a coconut into his hole.
The tournament is held in early October, at the end of the golf season, which is why it’s called the Cocoanut Ball Golf Tournament. The actual hole is called the Cocoanut Ball Hole, and it’s at 10400 North Tamiami Trail, Sarasota, Florida .
It has been held since 1993. The tournament was started by two local businessmen who wanted to give something back to the community they love so much. They have been joined along the way by their wives (for better or worse) and their children (for better or worse).
The competitors are all volunteers, including many people who just like the idea of giving back. There are those who are professionals in other fields, such as business people, retirees, teachers and others. The best of them go on to compete in professional tournaments; more than one has gone on to win a PGA tour event.
Two hundred players play each day over five days
1. The Cocoanut Ball Golf Tournament was started by the late John D. Schulte, a local politician and golf enthusiast. Schulte’s enthusiasm for the game was so great that he decided to incorporate it into his February 8, 1998 birthday party which was held at his home in Ormond Beach.
2. One of the tournament’s sponsors, Mars Incorporated, began featuring product abuse themes on its packaging in 1997. The company recently used “The Cocoanut Ball” to promote its most recent product release: Snickers Cookies & Milk Flavored Bars.
3. The inaugural event drew close to 60 players who were invited to play a two-person scramble on a modified golf course, limited to 18 holes with a par of 18. Their prize? A box filled with wrapped candy bars and other goodies from Mars Incorporated . . . all wrapped up in hundreds of cocoanut balls!
4. The second annual tournament is scheduled for Tuesday, February 8, 1999 – but you have to register by Friday, February 4th to be considered for the invitation list.
5. Those who are chosen will receive invitations via first class mail (with tracking and signature confirmation). If you are selected for the invite list and wish not to take part in the
The story of the Cocoanut Ball Golf Tournament is a tragedy. The event was supposed to be an annual fund-raising event for a local charity. But the first year, it didn’t raise enough money, so the organizers had to come up with a second plan. They decided to move it from December to October, and they figured that would make it easier to get people interested in playing. Unfortunately, not many people are interested in playing golf in October.
As the tournament approached the third year, they found themselves in desperate straits: they couldn’t find anyone willing to play the tournament, even at the last minute. They were out of money and out of options; their only hope was that someone might show up with a new idea and save them from total ruin. Eventually, someone did arrive with a new idea: the idea of moving it back one day earlier, to October 29th–a Wednesday instead of a Thursday–allowing potential players more time to get up on Sunday morning and get to the course on time.
Unfortunately, this proved even worse than Friday mornings: everyone decided that playing on Wednesday meant they would have less time off work than they bargained for. In short order, no one showed up at all–except for some of those who
The tournament is a corollary of a larger event. Each year since 2009, the golfers have been gathered at the end of April to play in the annual “Cocoanut League” tournament in Key West. It’s a strange tradition, but not without precedent.
The first recorded amateur tournament was held in 1876 by members of the Whist Club of New York City. The club’s secretary, Frank Metzger, organized a four-man team from his group and created the first “Amateur Golf Association.” The sport caught on quickly, and within two years there were 200 clubs with more than 2,000 members. They were all evenly matched and played on public courses. There was no money involved: only playing fees. But by 1878 some had begun offering prizes for winners, which is how the modern tournament was born.
The most important thing to know about golf is that there are two kinds of people in the world: those who understand how it works, and those who don’t. The first group is small and exclusive. It is your job to join the second group.
You need to get good at something that people want to watch you perform, and then you need to do it well enough that they will pay to see you do it. You must also be able to do it well enough that they will want you to do it again and again.
Golf doesn’t have this problem. The things golfers do are so simple and straightforward that everyone can follow them, no matter how dumb or slow-witted or drunk they are. They don’t need special training or a plan; just put on your clubs and swing away.
And the beauty of golf is that there are only seven of them: one for putting, one for chipping, one for pitching (that’s the shot where you use a pitching wedge), one for sand-sealing (using an approach shot), one for chipping sand, one for bunker shots (using a sand wedge), and one for pulling out of roughs (using a long iron). That’s all!
So there you have
Golf is the sport that has been most changed by technology. The game used to be played on courses with grass, but then in the 1870s, some members from a club in St. Andrews started laying out synthetic turf on the course’s fairways. A few years later, at Augusta National Golf Club in Georgia, members laid down sand for fairways and greens. In 1981, they began using polyethylene pellets made by Dow Chemical as the fairways’ cover.
The new material was cheaper than grass and easier to maintain than sand, so it spread quickly around the country. During World War II, golf course owners laid down polyethylene mats during air raids to protect their greens from damage. And now there are more golf courses with artificial surfaces than with natural ones.
Of all of the American golf tournaments, the most famous is probably the PGA tour. Yet it gets much less coverage than it deserves. Why? Because many of the world’s top golfers are not allowed to play in PGA tour events. At least not at first. And those who are allowed to play are not allowed to get too excited about it.
That’s why the PGA is called “PGA.” The “PGA” stands for “Professional Golf Association.”
