Three-Stroke Penalty For Hitting A Polar Bear

NOME, Alaska - The Bering Sea Golf and Country Club has more water hazards than most courses in the country. It comes with the territory when you're playing atop a frozen-over ocean.

The nation's northernmost golf course also has some rules that wouldn't concern players at Augusta or St. Andrew's.

For example, anyone whose ball hits a polar bear is assessed a three-stroke penalty - a concession to the Endangered Species Act. But if the player retrieves the ball from the bear, five strokes are subtracted from the scorecard.

Stealing a partner's ball is accepted practice, as is making lots of noise while someone else is putting. And no one seems to know what's an unplayable lie when you're waist-deep in a snow drift.

Golf is a once-a-year game in Nome - the annual Bering Sea Ice Classic, a six-hole, par-42 charity event that marked its 10th birthday last weekend.

It's an event not destined to be a stop on the PGA Tour any time soon because, as tournament founder Elliott Staples puts it, "I don't know if they (touring pros) could handle the competition. This is a tough course to play - people at Pebble Beach don't know tough."

Sixteen tough foursomes, paying $50 a head into the local Lions Club's scholarship fund, ventured out Saturday in a prolonged snowstorm and 20 mph winds to knock bright orange balls across the snow onto lumpy greens made of artificial turf. Coffee cans served as holes.

Aside from the heavy parkas and fur hats, many sights were familiar to courses in the Lower 48. Some players wore plus-fours - pants that stop at the knee - and argyle kneesocks.

Other sights were Alaska-specific. Snowmachines replaced golf carts, and one bag was hooked onto a pair of skis.

Roy Callaway of Anchorage wore bunny boots with a wingtip design painted on them and a tasseled fringe on the tongue.

"They're golf shoes," he said, shaking his head at what must have seemed to him pretty obvious.

Larry Staples, Elliott's brother visiting from Makanda, Ill., said there were a few things about arctic golf he had to get used to.

"The fairways are a lot softer, but you don't have to replace your divots," he said.

Lots of balls were lost in the deep snow. The incentive to stake a claim to an unwitting player's ball is that replacements cost $10 each.

"Any guy who finishes with a ball wins," summed up former Lt. Gov. Steve McAlpine, who wasn't quite able to swipe as many as he lost during his round.

A few trophies were given out, but most participants were happy just to contribute to the month-long carnival that is Nome during the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race.

"Have fun and keep it light," a player known only as "Farmer" said when asked about the tournament's philosophy.

The course is a short snow-wedge shot from the Iditarod's finish line, laid out amidst the Nome National Forest (Seasonal) - last year's Christmas trees stuck upright into the snow and ice. Nome, built on a beach during a turn-of-the-century gold rush, has no real trees of its own.

Cardboard animals - including a bear, wolf, penguin, walrus, pig and giant squirrel - populate the national forest. There also us a fake palm tree and a pink flamingo.

"Must've been brought up from the Hawaiian Open," said greenskeeper Mark Mahoney of Nome.

After an obligatory visit to the "clubhouse," a Front Street saloon, players tee off from a bluff overlooking the first three holes, also known as "the inner course."

They then make another clubhouse visit before tackling the back three, which bring them several hundred yards offshore. And when the "outer course" is finished, guess where they go?

Mahoney said he doesn't have much to do to keep the course in tip-top shape.

"You don't have to mow the greens that much, and the fairways take care of themselves," he said while clearing one green with a janitor's broom.

And from the players' viewpoint, "the good thing about the greens is that you can stomp on them to get a better roll," Mahoney said. "That's what the smart ones do."

The Bering Sea isn't much of a hazard as long as the ice doesn't break up and drift away from shore, which Callaway said happened a few years back.

"The day we played, it was nice and then a storm came in," he said. "The next day, all the ice was gone. We had to rebuild all the greens."