Why Golf?

by Crazy Ivan

When people ask what Myachi is, I hesitate to say that it's a game.  After all, a ball is used in a number of games, but it is not a game by itself.  Myachi is a game-facilitator, but it isn't really a game in and of itself.  There are a number of Myachi games, which I blog about constantly, but there is no one "game" called "Myachi".

So when we to tournaments and contests (in person as opposed to on this blog), we're left with a number of great options of exactly what game to play.  A contest could be a best trick competition, a MYACH game, a game of Fu, a big air contest or any number of other crazy games we've come up with over the years.  But in places like Dollywood, almost all of our contests turn out being Myachi Golf contests.

People often ask me, "Why golf?  Why not do a competition that involves tricks or catches or something a little more... Myachi-ish.  After all, Myachi is very rarely a game about accurate tossing over a distance, so why focus on Golf so heavily when you do tournaments?"

Actually, come to think of it, people don't often ask me that.  I've been asked similar things here and there in the past, but nobody's ever asked me the exact paragraph above.  But I'm going to answer it anyway.

Golf is the only test of Myachi skills that we've come up with that doesn't require any real familiarity with Myachi.  You don't have to know any tricks or even be able to catch so anybody who wants to step into the game is able to do it and the person who is best at Myachi doesn't always win.

Now, in some ways this is a bad thing.  You obviously want some competitions to favor the person who has earned their expertise through long and arduous practice.  That's why when we first crown a world champion of Myachi, it won't be because they won the most Golf contests.  But for competitions like the ones we do at theme parks, the whole point is to demonstrate the fact that everybody can play the game.

If we held a big air contest, we couldn't exactly get the 4 year olds into the game along with the rest of the group.  We couldn't get grandma into a best trick competition.  We couldn't even accommodate a relatively skilled person who had never played Myachi.

But Myachi Golf is a perfect game for exactly that.  Everybody can play Myachi Golf.  It doesn't matter their age or their familiarity with the game.  Sure, I let the little kids stand a lot closer than the others, but after that there's really very little advantage in being older or better at Myachi (unless, of course, you play a lot of Myachi Golf).  This fact was demonstrated in dramatic fashion this evening in our final tournament of the day today.

We hold 5 contests a day at Dollywood.  They tend to get bigger as the day goes because people come back for several of them once they get fired up about the game.  That means that usually the last contest is huge and awesome.  That was certainly the case today.

Our contests go in four rounds.  For those who haven't seen it, we use a goal with three concentric rings.  The bulls-eye is a three pointer, the next ring out is 2 points and the outermost ring is a single point.  Anyway, in the first round every contestant gets one shot and all they have to do is get the Myachi to land anywhere in the target.  In the second round they have 2 shots to get 3 points.  In the third round they get 2 shots to make 4 points and those lucky few who make it through all of that duke it out at the end by taking 3 shots.  Whoever gets the most points wins.

And yes, all that set up was important.

At the end of the first round of the tournament, we give a last call.  Anyone who wants to get in on the game has to join in before we move on to round two.  So I usually try to coax as many people in as possible at that point, including all the moms, dads, grandpas and grandmas that are sitting around watching.

So in this particular contest, a couple of the contestants talked their grandma into stepping into the game at the very end.  She was the last person to step up before we moved on to round two.  She makes it into the second round and then the real fun starts.

In the second round she hits a bull's eye on her first shot.  She's got to be in her sixties and she's as fired up as any of the kids that are standing around.  So in the third round she shanks her first shot and only gets one point.  That means, of course, that she needs to hit another bull's eye again to move on.  And she does.

By the finals, it's her and 4 kids, including one of her own grand kids.  All the others had been in several contests that day and had been practicing up beforehand so things didn't get any easier for her.  But a funny thing happened.  It usually takes at least 7 or 8 points to win that last round, but the first couple shooters had bad luck and only got 4 points a piece.  Then my ringer, the dude who had already won one contest that day and taken 2nd place in another had a terrible run of luck and only got 5 points.

Grandma shot last.  She only needed 6 points to win it all and she started with a bull's eye.  Her 2nd shot was a two pointer, which tied her for the lead.  All she needed to do with her final shot was get a single point.  By that point quite a crowd had gathered around and she was visibly nervous.  She lined up her shot, took a deep breath and won it all.

And that's why we do golf tournaments.  Heck, I didn't even mention the 4 year old who hit a bull's eye to get in to round 3.