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New Mexico golf shootout requires mountain skills

Talk about an intimidating golf shot.

There’s only one tee box at the Elfego Baca Shootout, and it’s perched 777m above the hole and nearly 5km away.

After a kidney-busting trek aboard four-wheel drive vehicles to the top of Socorro Peak, golfers have been hacking and whacking every year since 1960 at New Mexico Tech’s extraordinary single-day event.

“I guess it’s a once-in-a-lifetime thing to go to the top of a mountain and play your way down,” said Miguel Griego, defending champion of the Socorro Open. “You’re never going to get another chance to hit your first shot 1,000 yards.”

This year’s one-hole shootout is on Saturday, a side event on the final day of the Socorro Open. The shootout was established to drum up publicity for the quiet university town of about 9,000 residents, about 120km south of Albuquerque.

In Spanish, socorro means “help,” and that’s what plenty of shootout golfers need while enduring the scorching sun, swirling winds and unforgiving terrain as they smash the ball toward a 15m circle chalked in the desert dirt.

The hazards? There’s plenty.

“I’ve seen lots of rattlesnakes on the mountain,” 18-time champion Mike Stanley said. “One year we saw a mountain lion. Another time, we had an El Paso reporter and photographer with us. One of the guys slipped and fell on a cactus.”

Because the terrain is so rugged, golfers are allowed to tee the ball on every shot. It’s OK to move the ball laterally or away from the hole, but that only solves half the problem of hitting it.

“The hardest thing to do is get a stance built so you can stand and swing and not fall down,” Stanley said.

Stanley, a 49-year-old explosives researcher at New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, carried only water, bug spray, a first-aid kit and tweezers when he played from 1980 to 2004. As for the clubs, it was only a driver and 5-iron.

“It would be a little hard to carry a full bag up there,” he said.

These days, many participants use laser range-finders to measure distances.

The key to success, Stanley said, was positioning the three spotters that each golfer was allowed. There have been instances where balls have sailed into abandoned mine shafts or inaccessible canyons.

“You’ve got to hit the ball where they can find it,” he said.

Each competitor is allowed 10 balls and must finish with at least one. Any ball that can’t be located within 20 minutes counts as a stroke.

Stanley said it also helps to know the mountain. Although the elevation drop has helped him smash drives more than 500m, his most successful rounds came when he was able to carefully place the ball.

“You try to hit it right to the top of a cliff if you can, so you’re strategically positioned for the next shot,” he said. “A lot of times, it’s not how far you hit it but where.”

Once the ball is safely down the mountain and into the foothills above Socorro, it’s a series of shots where distance is the demand.

Stanley said the 5-iron was a must near the hole, and it’s never easy to stop the ball inside the 15m circle.

“It’s not trivial because you’re not hitting onto grass like a golf course. The hole is in the rocks, the desert,” Stanley said. “It’s hard to get the ball in. You just kind of chip it.”

The course record was 9 strokes. Stanley said he usually averaged 18.

The event is named after Elfego Baca, a territorial lawman and politician who became famous during the Wild West years.
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