The Shire's Bullroarer Golf Tournament

[Istya Alassea]

"Old Took's great-grand-uncle Bullroarer ... was so huge (for a hobbit) that he could ride a horse. He charged the ranks of the goblins of Mount Gram in the Battle of the Green Fields, and knocked their king Golfimbul's head clean off with a wooden club. It sailed a hundred yards through the air and went down a rabbit-hole, and in this way the battle was won and the game of Golf invented at the same moment." - The Hobbit, "An Unexpected Party"

Nestled in the hills of Tuckborough, one of the more recent descendent of Bullroarer Took, Sandy, put it upon himself to reopen the golf course that Bullroarer's nephews used to play the game on. He got a little clever with the golf course, building snags and traps in hidden parts of the old course that rounded about many of the town's nearby hills. He then opened up a little stand just outside of the town where hobbits could sign up to play on the old-forgotten, 9-hole course.

If one were to look at the sign-up sheet he made, it stated:
"Name?
Preferred golf club type?
Please bring your own golf balls.
How well do you think you can play the game?"

This may seem a little unorthodox to most hobbits. However, he thought it did the trick!

Our Rules of the Game:
1. You will be given about two weeks to sign up for the Bullroarer tournament, and then the game will kick off on Saturday, August 21st (I live in the US). When you sign-up, please roleplay talking with Sandy, and then perhaps meeting with your fellow competitors and checking out the landscape. All races are welcome. However, please roleplay as a hobbit if you are not a hobbit on the Plaza.
2. Once the game starts, every hole will be introduced with a post that will talk about the weather, the landscape ahead of you, and the level of difficulty of the hole. As the game gets going, please post about your efforts to play the hole. Results of your efforts at each hole will be addressed by the following Saturday, at the latest.
3. Once you get your ball into the rabbit hole, you will be told your current score for the hole and for the course. You will then be sent on to the next hole. I will try to do this all in one post for everyone.
4. Have fun!

[Raisins]

Granny Appie Smith

Granny had heard that Sandy was up to something near the Bullroarers and she was going to find out what it was. After all she had some of her favourite Apple trees in that area, with their tart firm green apples that most people weren't terribly fond of (and honestly Granny wasn't fond of them either for eating they were terrible for eating but PIE making.... or crisps? Or tarts? Yes they were the best and she worked hard to make sure that her apple supply was safe. She shuffled down the road with her heavy wooden club headed cane, one tiny shuffling step at a time her back bent permanently from age and making far too many pies. When she saw a little stand she wrinkled up her nose in distaste, she was about to give him a piece of her mind about selling out her apples from under her when nobody else ever used them only to find that it was.

She was about to start yelling at Sandy when she started to read the paper. "GOLF?" Her hand shook with a mighty tremble that seemed to shake her entire body her bright eyes peering at Sandy from where he stood to the piece of paper with the quill to fill it out.

"I"VE NOT PLAYED GOLF IN NEAR 4 DECADES" She said rather loudly since she was basically as deaf as a stone, an unfortunate thing on a golf course if a shot went wayward but she was not going to be deterred. She picked up the quill and attempted to write down the required information.

Name? Appie Smith
Preferred golf club type? heavy
Please bring your own golf balls.
How well do you think you can play the game the old way right properly, this new fangled way who knows.

She looked at Sandy and licked her lips and handed in the ink smeared paper - it wasn't actually legible at all

"SONNY WHERE AM I SUPPOSE TO GET A PROPER GOBLIN HEAD?" She asked. She wasn't some young spring chicken that could go trotting out past Oatbarton and find a goblin to play golf with. "DO YOU HAVE GOBLINS ABOUT THAT I CAN GET A PROPER BALL?" She asked very very loudly.

[Istya Alassea]

Sandy (NPC) had been going about from rabbit hole to rabbit hole when he noticed an elderly hobbit (Appie Smith) approaching the sign-up table he had set up next to two large apple trees. Sandy feared that the lady had some sort of admonishment to give him - perhaps about his table placement or the fact that he was doing this at all - and so he went up to her with his head hanging low. However, when he went up to her, he noticed that she had written on the sign-on sheet everything he had requested! This gave the hobbit a bit of a surprise before he made eye contact with her.

"Good morning, Ms. Smith!" he said in a suddenly high-pitched tone. He must have been a little nervous. Her screaming into his ear probably also contributed to his nervous response. "I would be delighted to have you try out the grounds today. I will admit you have a good point about where to get goblin heads for the Golf game. But I was thinking everyone really just needs a good sized toy ball, not an actual goblin head. As a matter of fact, I make take care of the ball situation myself and go get them myself here in a few."

He then took the chair from behind his table and offered it to the lady. "If you would like to sit down for a bit, you may. Especially if I am going to head back to my sister-in-law's house to find a good number of sturdy, toy balls. I won't be long."

[Galadrihell]

Silas Hardwick

Silas loved games. Alas, he knew nothing about golf whatsoever. He had the vague idea that it involved hitting something, with something else… but not much more than that. Still, he would do the best he could with what he had; and what he had was a croquet mallet, salvaged from the Mathom House, and three good apples. He envisioned the apples being tapped very gently, bruising just enough to be sweet and edible; (after all, no hobbit would actually waste food). Thusly armed, he strode out happily to the field where the course had been set up.

“Dear me,” he thought to himself, alarmed, as he read the sheet, crinkling it in his long clever fingers. “These are quite the requirements…”

Name: Silas Hardwick
Preferred Golf Club Type: Open to all, I love inclusive clubs
Please bring your own golf balls: uhhh ok
How well do you think you can play: I’ll do my best sir, as always

[Marceline]

Daisy Brockhouse

Daisy was not normally a sneaky little lass, but being Tom’s younger sister did mean that sometimes his mischievous streak influenced her. Fortunately for her parents, so far she had not absorbed any of his brattiness; she did, however, sneak out to play in the meadows just a bit too far from home sometimes. Other times, she would get into her big sister Pearl’s stash of freshly-baked cookies and eat them all, falling asleep with her belly full amid a pile of crumbs on the kitchen floor. On this particular day, she had skipped out to play early in the morning before the sun had fully risen, kicking her favorite round leather ball around in circles through Bywater, laughing as she rushed through the morning dew on the grass and tumbling down hills with delight as the ball rolled on just out of her reach. In this manner, she made her way to Tookborough.

She was surprised to find herself near a small group of hobbits (New friends! she thought), who had gathered around a stand of some sort. One of them (Granny Appie Smith) was shouting rather loudly about something called “golf.” Daisy tilted her head curiously, picked up her ball, and approached the stand.

“Hullo!” she squeaked to them all. Older friends! she thought with enthusiasm. Tom was always trying to hang around bigger kids to make himself look tough and get into their tweenish troublemaking, and now it was her turn to make some more mature friends! She thought she recognized one of them (Silas) as a friend of Pearl’s.

“What’s golf? Is this a club I can join??” She addressed her questions to the gentlehobbit (Sandy) who was fielding the loud lady’s questions. Her eyes shone with eager delight. She stood on her toes to fill out the form as she’d seen the others do, spelling things as best she could.

Name: Daisy BrckHous
Preferred Golf Club Type: A fun one
Please bring your own golf balls: Yes plees
How well do you think you can play: Vary good

[Baphởmet]

Golf. What was golf? Jorgy found a flier for it on his way back from the Market and puzzled over the myriad possibilities. Golf. Was it like gold, but maybe goofier? No, that didn’t make any sense. Not a lot of things in Jorgy’s mind made sense in the real world though. It had something to do with sticks and balls, that much he could figure out. It must be some kind of sportsball. Jorgy liked to watch sportsball events even if he had no idea what the rules were, how the scoring worked, or what the point was, but he was always fascinated and cheered enthusiastically whenever something happened. The latter had gotten him a few odd looks from the opposing teams (or his own team, again he didn’t understand the rules to any of the games). Yet none of that dampened his overenthusiastic fervor for sportsball. Golf was an odd name for sportsball, that was for sure, but so was football, cricket, Calvinball, and squash so who was he to judge? According to the flier, there was going to be a golf tournament and he could join in! What fun! He would have to learn a little about golf before joining but he was very confident that… he’d have a good time at least.

The day arrived and Jorgy was off on a hop, a skip, and a jump to the specified location from the flier (let’s not talk about the first place Jorgy visited because he misread the flier in his over eagerness). He was not the first to arrive, he’d never been the first to arrive anywhere in the world, and there were even some people he knew! It was Silas! And Daisy! Well this was going to be a very fun day! Jorgy beamed as widely as was hobbitly possible.

Name?: Jorgy Underash
Preferred golf club type?: I’ve never been a part of a club before, are there fees?
Please bring your own golf balls. Well, this will be interesting
How well do you think you can play the game?: umm, very?

[Istya Alassea]

By the time Sandy Took had returned from his sister-in-law's house with a wheelbarrow full of toy balls and wood mallets, he was surprised to see a small crowd of hobbits near his sign-up table. They were all catching up with each other and talking about what the term "golf" actually meant. He did a little skip for joy in the air before he rolled the wheelbarrow over to the side of the table, and then he gave a grand wave to everyone just before he scanned his eyes over the sign-up sheet.

"Good morning, lads and little miss Daisy!" he said with a grin, as he attempted to give everyone a shake of his right hand. "I am so sorry I have not made your acquaintances yet until today. My name is Sandy. So, which one of you is Silas, and which of you is Jorgy? I have decided to help with the golf club and balls situation, so please take however many you may need from my wheelbarrow here."

He gestured to the wheelbarrow, and then he did another little skip of excitement before he asked if Daisy would like to be on his shoulders for a little bit. "The game will start not too long from now. So what do you think of today's weather? It seems a little cloudy today. I am sure hoping it just stays that way ..."

[Lady of Shadow]

Elanor Starsley

As punishment for attempting to push a fellow hobbit lass off of a cliff because the boy she had a crush on was more interested in her than Elanor herself (who was much too young to be thinking of boys, but she did anyway), the young lass's Elders suggest she give the game of golf a try to pent up her frustrations there.

"But I've never played before!" Elanor complained, trying to weasel her way out of this particular "punishment". The young lass wasn't much a fan of any type of game, mostly because she was so obsessed with this older Hobbit boy that had absolutely no interest in her whatsoever (and wouldn't even known she existed if she hadn't pulled the stunt she did. Because of this, he refused to even talk to her, at least until she learned to "grow up" and handle rejection like an adult, rather than the premature child that she was, which caused young Elanor to vow revenge on him and any young lass that he even looked at).

"There's no better time to learn than now," one of her Elders explained (her parents often asked others in the neighborhood if they could help discipline young Elanor, since sometimes she was even too much for them to handle. After all, she was able to escape Krampus when he was after the naughty children in the neighborhood, so her parents were at a loss with how to try to discipline her next. Perhaps taking up a sport would be a better way to vent out her frustrations over the boy she had a crush on rejecting her, which didn't surprise Elanor's parents, since they found the boy to be much too old for their mischievous young Hobbit lass).

Elanor was told to seek out a relative of old Bullroarer Took, who was said to invent the game, to ask if he would mind if she joined in. "His name is Sandy," They told her, as they described what he looked like so that it saved Elanor the trouble of asking everyone else that was participating who this Sandy was and what he looked like.

"Do you mind if I join in?" young Elanor asked when she found Sandy, following her Elders description to the letter.

Name?: Elanor Starsley
Preferred golf club type?: The easiest, obviously, since Elanor's new to the game
Please bring your own golf balls. Ok.
How well do you think you can play the game?: I guess we'll find out, won't we?

[Galadrihell]

Silas Hardwick

“Oh, hullo, Daisy,” said Silas kindly, as the hobbit-lass came bounding up. “Will Pearl be joining us today or are you playing alone? oh, and here comes Jorgy! Hello, my eccentric friend. I do hope Jorgyferret is doing well,” he added brightly, recalling the events of his last Party when Jorgy had somehow won a ferret. He rummaged around in his pockets and pulled out a bag of hard boiled sweets, slightly stuck to the paper, which he proffered around.

He whirled as Sandy came up. “Oh, how kind,” Silas exclaimed, thrusting out his bag of sweets at Sandy and plunging his hand into the wheelbarrow with the other. He felt around a little until he found a - a mallet? A club? that felt right in his hand. Hefting it, he lifted it out and leaned upon it, crooking one leg. “I think I look most sportsmanlike,” he declared heartily. “Hello, Elanor! Do help yourself to a rhubarb-and-custard.”

[Istya Alassea]

While he inspected the grounds beyond the sign-up table, Sandy suddenly felt a tugging of his hand. He turned slightly to see another young hobbit lass asking if she could join in on the game. In response, Sandy gave a slight and awkward bow to her and then grinned when he saw write down "Elanor" on the parchment sheet on his table.

"Hi, Elanor!" he said enthusiastically. "I would love for you to join in on the game. In fact, please make sure to tell your father I said hullo after we get done with the game today. He was a right, kind lad when I met him during my travels some years ago. I hope your family is doing well!"

Sandy then took a whiff of the air - was that rain or cherries he was smelling? - when he turned to see Silas pulling out some candy from his pocket. Ahh, that explained it. He couldn't help but admire how the mallet seemed to fit Silas's choice of clothes for the day. Getting extra mallets and toy balls was the right thing to do today. He should have listened to his sister-in-law earlier when she told him to take care of the day's golfers. He didn't quite know what she had meant until now. And so far, he knew there was quite enough supplies for everyone!

Speaking of his sister-in-law, he really needed to get back with her about the hobbit lass that she wanted him to meet this weekend. He was nervous about the idea. Maybe this golf game would help relieve his nerves?

[Raisins]

Appie looked at this Sandy, this young whipper snapper with his fangled ideas and smacked her lips together in disapproval her narrow eyes narrowing even more with her wrinkles has he suggested they use toy balls. TOY BALLS. The weight would be all off now this Sandy might be related to Ole Bullroarer but he had the AUDACITY.

Of course she was about to yell at him when he trotted of to get the toy balls leaving Appie on her own only momentarily as a bunch of young hobbits came bounding up to try this. Well she wouldn't call it golf. Especially if one weren't using goblin heads embarrassing. She hobbled over to a few of the younger hobbits and looked them over as they picked out clubs and mallets.

"DID YE BRING ME A PROPER GOBLIN HEAD SONNY?" She said (well yelled) as she began rummaging through the cart with a the mallets and balls in it. "CAN'T PLAY GOLF WITHOUT A PROPER GOBLINS HEAD." Her gnarled old fingers dug through the cart tossing mallets and balls out of the way until she came upon a rather, damaged green cabbage head. She squinted at it. and lifted it up her cane resting against the cart as she held it up with both hands.

"IT'S A MITE LIGHT SONNY.... THIS HAS GOT TO BE AT LEAST A WEEK OLD GOBLIN HEAD." She gave it a sniff. "DEFINITELY STINKS LIKE WEEK OLD GOBLIN HEAD. I SUPPOSE IT WILL DO." She tucked it under one of her trembling arms and picked up her cane and started to hobble towards some of the younger lasses.

"GONNA SHOW THESE BOYS HOW IT'S DONE EH?" She shouted at Elanor and Daisy thinking it was quite grand to see some other hobbit lasses out on the course.

[Istya Alassea]

Start of the Tournament

Just as Sandy's sister-in-law, Istya, rounds the corner toward the field with one bag of assorted pastries - and another full wheelbarrow of cabbage heads - Sandy gives the crowd a sudden, perfunctory wave. He then waves the group to follow him toward a slight rise of a hill and then to glance down the hill on its lefthand side to take notice of the first rabbit hole. "Please grab a snack from my sister-in-law, Istya, here. We don't want you going hungry! Then, once you are ready, please go ahead and start the game." He then gave Appie a broad smile. "And as you can see, madame, I think my sister-in-law understood your predicament. Otherwise, she would not have brought this wheelbarrow. So, everyone, please take as many cabbages as you need for the game today. If they stink like goblin head, at least you can more easily imagine Bullroarer's first game."

Sandy stomped his foot on the ground at the opposite end of the hill from the hole, and under his foot was a yellow marker. This marker was to show everyone where they were meant to start the game.


Hole One
PAR: 4.
Setting: The hill is only as tall as one and a half Gondorian men, and its slopes are nice and easy. However, the hill is rather broad - a length-wise stretch of eight Gondorian men starts at the tee-off point and then ends at the left edge of the hill (where the rabbit hole can be seen down below, twenty feet from the hill). Surrounding the hill on all sides are high grass and a sliver of a brook behind it, so watch out for the water trap.
Conditions: A little windy, but not too bad. Mostly cloudy.

You have until Saturday, August 28th, to post your "first round" of golf attempts at this hole.

[Marceline]

Daisy Brockhouse

“Hi Silas!” Daisy said, giving her sister’s friend a small wave. “Just me. Pearl is sleeping!” Silas and Jorgy began talking and Daisy went quiet, looking up at them with wide eyes and trying to understand all the dialogue about something called “Jorgyferret.” She wondered if this were, perhaps, one of Jorgy’s relations. If so, it must be a distant one, because she’d never heard Jorgy talk much about family when he visited the Brockhouse home. She took one of the sweets Silas offered (slightly warm and gooey and melty from being in his pocket all morning, she suspected), then did a little skip of her own when Sandy addressed her.

“A shoulder ride!” Daisy exclaimed. “Yes please!” She reached her hands up in the universal gesture for “please pick me up!” and beamed. The shoulder ride would have to wait, though, as Sandy became quite busy organizing the start of their game. Daisy was distracted by Appie’s continued shouting but smiled when the older hobbit addressed her and another youngster (Elanor). “We sure will show them!” she cried, thinking of Tom.

The arrival of a new hobbit with a giant bag and a wheelbarrow set Daisy’s hobbitish curiosity in motion. What was this game? How was it played? Had she really joined a club? Tom would be so jealous! He was always trying to start up new clubs (or were they gangs?) in Bywater. She followed Sandy up the hill and - at the word “snack” - bounded over to Istya to retrieve some food and cabbages. “A snack and three cabbages, please!” Three seemed like a good number.

She approached the marker where Sandy had stomped his foot, set down one of her cabbages while munching on a pastry and holding her other two cabbages under her arms (she had left her ball back at Sandy’s stand in all the excitement), and gave the cabbage on the ground a good swift kick. It rolled lazily down the hill.

[Raisins]

Appie gave a nod to Daisy who cried that they'd show em. Yes always good when the young ones were excited about something as traditional as golf, with that she took several minutes to shuffle her way up the hill the to where Sandy had been with some other new lass that was there with some sort of wheelbarrow with more goblin heads. He was saying something to her but honestly she couldn't understand him at all.

"YES YES VERY GOOD YOUNG MAN GLAD YOU CAME TO YOUR SENSES AND GOT MORE GOBLIN HEADS." She said with a bit of a nod completely misundertanding his far to soft words about cabbages being reminicent of goblin heads. "HONESTLY SOMETHINGS SHOULDN'T CHANGE." She muttered her slightly more rotten than the rest cabbage resting under her arm as she shuffled up to the top of the hill after Sandy. Each step shakey and slow and more than once she needed to take a break climbing up the hill so that she could catch her breath. Getting old was hard work, these young whipper snappers had no idea how difficult it was to get old.

Eventually she made it to the top of the hill and dropped her rotten cabbage with a splut fairly near where Sandy had been standing she saw some yellow marker and tapped the rotten cabbage towards it and then squinted down the hill putting her paper skinned hand to her brow and looking for this rabbit hole. Having decided she found it she lined herself up to the rotten cabbage and wiggled her but with a little old lady shimmy. Squinted at the direction of the rabbit hole again and spun her club headed cane about so that the part normally pushing into the dirt was now in her hand and with a swing the warned others she'd probably done this with live goblins once upon a time with the very cane in hand at one point in her life - the rotten cabbage sored off with a wet splut and a fluttering of a few rotten leaves about her.

She leaned against the club and watched the large cabbage fly. "NOT BAD FOR HAVING NOT TAKING A SWING IN A FEW DECADES." She said and hobbled towards the snacks cart.

[Baphởmet]

It was customary for Jorgy’s mind to wander. Was it anyone’s surprise that he’d zoned out after having been handed a golfing stick (or whatever they were supposed to be called)? Even when he was amongst friends like Silas and Daisy, he was apt to begin to wander about things like butterflies and rainbows and pots of gold. He realized he’d started to daydream when the images playing in the back of his mind stopped making sense (and for Jorgy to say that meant something). “I’m Jorgy!” he shouted, which was a wonderful coincidence since he’d just been asked if he was Silas or Jorgy, otherwise it might have been embarrassing to shout “I’m Jorgy!” when say someone asked you what you favorite way to eat eggs was. Thankfully though, he and everyone else had been spared such an ignominious event. “Jorgyferret is doing wonderful,” he said, just in time to speak to Silas before the start of the game. “He’s doing a wonderful job acting as a guard ferret until I can find a proper lock for my door. Did you know that they don’t come on the door already? That’s what the carpenter told me anyway. But…” he trailed off, thinking back to his interaction with the carpenter who made his door. He had been an odd fellow, asking him all sorts of question about what sort or things he had in his house and who would live there and such. Hmmmmmm, Jorgy shrugged his shoulders and brushed it off. Probably standard questions.

He took a mushy, half melted sweet from Silas and tucked it into his pocket. It would make a fine victory sweet whenever he scored a goal. “I don’t know about you,” he whispered to Daisy, “but I have no idea what in the blue sky I am doing.” He grinned. He liked Daisy, much more than her bother Tom and his little gang of friends. They once came around to Jorgy’s house and threw eggs and cereal all over his lawn! Daisy was much nicer!

He watched Appie (he didn’t know her name, but in his head he called her “Mrs. Shouty Baggins”) take a good whack at a cabbage. Was that what they were doing? Smacking cabbages? Well that certainly looked like fun! He bounded over to Istya and did an intricate Jorgy bow (that is to say he nearly fell over trying to be impressive). “I’ll take a snack and… three cabbages as well,” he said, following Daisy’s lead. He then watched her… kick the cabbage? Jorgy was very confused. But he assumed Daisy knew what she was about and did the very same. Going third, he dropped and booted the cabbage in the same direction, yelping as he didn’t realize the cabbage was as heavy as it was on his barefoot. “Yoooooowch!” he cried and began hopping about on his uninjured foot (don’t worry, he’s not actually hurt he was just surprised).

[Galadrihell]

Silas Hardwick

“Ah, sleeping in,” nodded Silas. The idea of warm, cosy blankets did sound wonderful, but it was some nice weather Pearl was missing out on! Shrugging, he ambled after the others, swinging his new mallet merrily before a most peculiar scent wafted to his nostrils. Was that… slightly off cabbage? But then he could also smell baked goods - warm and crisp from the oven. He inhaled deeply, and then thumped his chest with coughing as the pungent cabbages filled his nose instead. “Dear me,” he commented to nobody in particular, as Jorgy had announced himself and then looked oddly vacant for a while - before picking up on Jorgyferret.

“Oh, yes,” Silas commented, bemusedly; “there are many ways of securing one’s door: a simple wedge for some, or a latch will do, or a bolt. Not many go in for keys around here. It’s not like we live with coarse folk like up in Bree.”

He sniffed (and regretted it).

Sandy was making a further announcement. Oh, excellent - they were to whack the cabbages and eat the pastries, and not the other way around! What a relief. Silas selected an Apple-and-custard pastry and nibbled at a raisin as he browsed the cabbages. Not one too large, he thought - a smaller airier one would fly better, would it not? He placed it down square upon the ground and gave it a good stout THWACK.