Rules & Game Play
Lunar golf combines the play of golf on Earth with new obstacles and an altered scoring method.
In keeping with tradition, a full course contains 18 craters (a “hole” in earth terms), divided into a “light” nine and a “dark” nine. While all are usually played in the light, the two halves are symbolic of the two sides of the moon, light and dark. The dark nine commonly contain the more challenging of the craters, while the light nine are the simpler craters on the course.
Each crater starts and ends in the same fashion as it does on Earth, the tee-off for the first shot, and eventually concluding when the ball is hit into the designated spot, which may be a cup as on Earth, or a designated container mounted elsewhere on the crater. Instead of getting to the ball into the receptacle being the entire challenge, as it is on Earth, scoring in lunar golf involves taking shots through various obstacles on each crater. Craters all contain as few as a single obstacle, or as many as the course designer sees fit. An obstacle may be a simple loop to shoot through, or anything on up to a very complex structure which must be navigated. Each obstacle is assigned a specific point value. When a player’s ball is shot and successfully clears the obstacle, they receive the corresponding amounts of points. The important factor is that for every stroke they take, at least one point is deducted from their overall score (this may be altered to provide a handicap depending on the rules set by the players). For example, Player A enters the 5th crater with 35 points. He clears a 5 point loop, but takes a total of six strokes before completing the crater. He therefore moves to crater 6 with a score of 34. Unlike Earth golf, the highest score obviously wins.
On a crater with more than one obstacle, the player may clear additional obstacles to increase their point value. They may only clear an obstacle once per crater, however, and all strokes still count as a deduction.
Due to the great distance involved in many of the courses, it is necessary that each obstacle on the course have a method of registering when it is successfully passed, so players can determine the success of their shots in an official manner. For example, each time a ball passes through one of the loops on the course it may light up or display the success on a monitor. The score can then be recorded, and the obstacle reset, for the next player.
The lack of gravity and atmosphere on the moon provide both a benefit for this game, as well as increased challenge. For example, the lack of atmosphere prevents the ball from hooking or slicing as it does on Earth. This is because the rotation of the ball is irrelevant when it does not have air to move through. Hence, shots tend to go straight, but are still affected by gravity, and obviously the obstacles on the course. Also, the fact that the moon has only about 1/6 the gravity of the Earth, the ball travels much farther when the same force is applied to it. Therefore, while each crater has a different length, which is the responsibility of the course designer to determine, the courses on the whole are significantly longer than they are on Earth.
Due to the lack of atmosphere and extreme temperatures on the moon, all players must wear special space suits in order to survive on the surface. There is no regulation as to what type of suit recreational players may use, but in professional competition all players must wear the same style suit. To achieve fair play, it is important that one player not have a significantly more or less flexible suit than his/her opponents. The exact suit style is determined by the officials in charge of each professional event, but in general they should maximize flexibility in the torso and arms to allow players the greatest range of movement.
Tournament play is a simple concept, all registered players rotate through the course, and in the end the player with the highest overall score is the winner. In the event of a tie, sudden death holes are played until one player comes out the champion.