Myachi Golf: Course Design

by Crazy Ivan

Myachi Golf is one of the oldest Myachi games.  It came shortly after MYACH as a test of Myachi skill and it has since become the most popular Myachi contest game in the years since.

One of the great things about Myachi Golf is that it is really easy to play even if you haven't played Myachi before.  Being good at catching or free styling doesn't do you much good in Golf so a newb can stand toe to toe with a veteran in this game and an eight year old can beat a thirty year old.

In its simplest form (the one we use in contests), Myachi Golf is a pretty straightforward game of aim.  You get a target like a heavy bowl or bucket (something that won't move when you toss a Myachi in to it from a distance) and set it on the ground.  Then you mark off a spot between 6 and 15 feet away.  Players stand at that spot and take 3 chances to sink a Myachi in the target.

In contests we usually play in rounds.  In round 1 you only need to get a Myachi within a Myachi away from the target (horseshoes style).  Everybody who manages that goes on to the second round.  In that round you have to sink a shot to advance.  From there we just whittle it down round by round so if you miss all 3 shots you're out.  After 4 or 5 rounds it usually comes down to one last person standing and that's our winner.

In extreme circumstances you'll get two or three players that are really good so you might have to make it tougher in the final rounds.  We'll make them shoot from further back or only give them two chances.  With really good players we've even made a rule that you had to sink 3 in a row to advance.

That contest works great when you're throwing a contest at a mall or an amusement park, but it's not very good for veteran players.  After a while the game gets pretty repetitive and loses some of its fun, which is why we developed a slightly more complex form of Golf for Myachi Masters.  This is the version we play at the House of Skills and it's a bit more complex and a lot more golf-like.

First of all, in this game you keep score.  Like golf, in this game you're going for the lowest score.  Each attempted throw is counts as a stroke so you obviously want to sink the Myachi in as few shots as possible.  Unlike golf, you take all your throws from the same line.

But here's where things get interesting.  In this version, you play either 9 or 18 holes and each "course" will be different than the one before.  The winner in each round gets to act as the "course designer" for the next hole.  That means they get to decide where the target goes and where everyone will shoot from.  They can also add obstacles ("you have to throw over this chair" or "it has to pass through this Hula Hoop") and you can add shot stipulations ("you have to bounce it off this wall" or "you have to toss under your leg") to keep each round interesting.

In this way the game changes dramatically every time you play.  You may start off with a fairly simple shot, but eventually you might end up on a course where you have to face away from the target and sit cross legged while throwing over your left shoulder.  You might end up with a course where you have to "Who's Your Daddy" the Myachi off the couch cushions.  You might end up with one where you have to zing the Myachi low to get it under the dining room table.

A pretty extreme (and patently ridiculous) version of this can be seen in our "Sack Center" parody video.  At about 0:59 you see Mav and Animal throwing down an impossible combination shot that goes through two floors and three rooms (including a bounce off my head at the end).  This is clearly a little less than possible, but it gives you an idea of how crazy the courses can get.

Keep in mind that you can really make the course just as crazy as you want.  Since everyone has to shoot on the same course even if it's virtually impossible to do, everyone has the same disadvantage.  We normally play that if you miss 5 shots in a row you just take a 6 on the score sheet so if nobody actually hits the target, the relative score doesn't change.  Of course, it's not much fun to play rounds where nobody scores so eventually you'll find the right balance of difficulty.

There's actually an even more complex version of Myachi Golf that we play that requires a lot of room and is played much more like traditional golf.  In this version you toss or kick the Myachi as far as you can and then go to the spot where it landed and toss again from there.  Of course, to play this version you need quite a bit of room, but you don't need a golf course.  You can play in your neighborhood or even in your yard if you have a lot of lawn.

This game is actually a great one to play if you're a veteran player.  Most Myachi games focus on tricks and catches so it's good to play a game from time to time that forces you to work on your aim.  Obviously this comes in really handy when playing games like Myachi Net, Chaos and, to a lesser extent, Myachi Fu.  It's also a game that the best "MYACH" player won't always win.  That makes it really useful if there's one person in your group of friends that always whips everyone in skill competitions.