PUBLISHED 21 June 2020
AKS has welcomed pupils back to school but with team sports limited by the continuing social distancing rules the PE Department were keen to set a new challenge to the pupils and have done so in the form of a new sport, that of ‘Foot Golf’ where Golf and Football come together in one of the fastest-growing sports in the UK.
The game is played similarly to golf, with the exception that players use a football instead of a golf ball, and the ball is kicked rather than struck with a club, working toward a "footgolf cup" or target. The player who finishes the course with the fewest shots wins.
The first ever footgolf tournament was organized in the Netherlands by Michael Jansen and Bas Korsten. After this, many countries began to organize matches, events, tournaments, even national leagues and associations around this game. Later, Belgium and Hungary switched from playing in parks to golf courses and the game was introduced to Argentina in 2010. The game was internationally publicized, and countries worldwide started collaborating on the development of the game. By 2014, the game was offered at hundreds of courses in the United States and was in the final stages of being recognized by Sport England and can be played locally at Tee Time Golf Centre in Bispham.
The extensive school playing fields have proved the perfect venue for the setting up of two new AKS 10 hole foot golf courses. Each course sees pupils challenged to kick the ball from the ‘tee’ and into the target in as few shots as possible. Each hole has an assigned ‘par’ and the players complete their scorecards as in traditional golf, with the winners being the player who records the lowest score at the end of the round.
Year 6 pupils have enjoyed the new challenge and it was great to see the students giving the two new courses their first run out. Everyone seemed to enjoy the new ‘socially distanced’ activity out in the sun and no doubt pleased to have a competition to get their teeth into with other sports still not up and running.