Note: Descriptions are shown in the official language in which they were submitted.
i2~;3~18
This invention relates to a board game which simulates
the game of golf.
Many board games are known which are intended to
simulate or resemble a true game or sport but few gain
wide acceptance with the public either because they lack
any true resemblance with the game or sport they are in-
tended to represent and are thus not very realistic, or
because the mixture of chance and skill is poor, and the
game does not hold the players' interest for very long.
Accordingly, an object of the present invention is
to provide a board game which simulates the game of golf
and which is both realistic and interesting to play.
The invention provides a board game which simulates the
game of golf, comprising: a game board depicting a golf
course or a part thereof; a template in the form of a thin
sheet of transparent or semi-transparent material which
can be placed over a part of said game board and which has
a plurality of small holes arranged in a predetermined
pattern and means representing an intended direction of
play extending through said pattern of holes; and means
for randomly indicating a particular one of said holes
of said pattern on each turn of play so that a point may
be marked on said game board through said particular hole
to represent the destination of an imaginary golf ball
considered to have been played in said intended direction.
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The means representing an intended direction o~ play
is preferably a straight line marked on the template and
a marker, such as an additional small hole, is preferably
provided on the template for alignment with a predeter-
mined point on the game board. The marker represents the
point from which the "ball" is hit.
It should be noted, however, that the straight line
and the marker can be omitted, if desired. For example,
certain holes in the pattern can be used both to represent
the intended direction of play and to indicate the point
from which the ball is hit, so the template may if desired
be provided with nothing more than the pattern of small
holes.
A preferred embodiment of the invention is described
in more detail below with reference to the accompanying
drawings, in which:
Fig. 1 is a plan view of a board for use in a board
game according to a preferred embodiment of the invention;
Fig. 2 is a plan view of a template suitable for use
in the game;
Fig. 3 is a plan view of a part of the board of Fig. 1
on an enlarged scale showing the template of Fig. 2 laid
thereover;
Fig. 4 represents an equipment card for use in the
game; and
Fig. 5 is a plan view on an enlarged scale of part of
the template of Fig. 2.
The game comprises a game board 10 as shown in Fig.
1. The board may be made of any suitable material, e.g.
flat cardboard or plastic, and can preferably be folded
or rolled in the conventional manner for ease of storage.
The board 10 has a drawing or photograph representing
a plan view of an entire golf course or a part thereof.
In the embodiment shown, the board 10 shows for simplicity
a golf course consisting of only three holes 11, and each
hole has a tee 12, a fairway 13, a green 14, areas of
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rough 15 and several bunkers 16. Other obstructions,
such as ponds, lakes or rivers, may also be represented
if desired in order to make the golf course as realistic
as possible. In fact, in a particularly preferred form
of the invention, board 10 may bear an aerial photograph
of an actual golf course, or a drawing made from such a
photograph.
The game also comprises a template 20 as shown in
Fig. 2 on an enlarged scale relative to the board shown
in Fig. 1. This is a thin rectangular sheet of trans-
parent or semi-transparent material having a pattern 21
of small circular holes 22 arranged in rows and columns,
a straight line 23 passing through the pattern of holes,
and a round hole 24 acting as a marker positioned at one
end of the line 23. The line 23 intersects the circular
holes of the central column as shown and the template
has a series of numbers 25 representing the distances of
various holes of the central column from the round hole
24. These numbers represent distances in yards on a re-
duced scale and the scale is the same as that used for the
representation of the golf course on the board 10. It is
particularly convenient if each hole 22 in the template
is separated from each of its immediate neighbours by a
distance corresponding to ten yards.
The size of the template 20 is such that it can
partially-or completely cover any one of the holes 11
represented on the board 10. Since the template is
transparent or semi-transparent, the drawing or photograph
of the hole 11 may be viewed through the template. The
round hole 24 represents the point at which the "ball"
is struck and, during play, is positioned over the point
where the "ball" is deemed to be at the beginning of each
stroke. It should be noted that, if desired, the hole
24 may be replaced by any suitable kind of mark or point
provided in the same location on the template, or as
stated above, one of the holes of the pattern can be
designated as the marker.
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In its most basic form the game is played as follows,
with re~erence being made to ~ig. 3 which shows one of
the golf course holes 11 of the board 10 with the template
20 located thereover. The small holes 22 in the template
are not shown in this Figure to avoid visual confusion.
The game may be played by any number of players, even
a single player trying to get around the course with a
minimum number of strokes, but there are preferably four
players (as in the game of golf) taking turns to play
strokes. Placing the template over the first course hole
(indicated by ~he number ~ (see Fig. 1)), the first player
locates the round hole 24 over the tee box 12 and slides
the template from side to side until the line 23 lies in
the direction the player would like the "ball" to go for
his preferred shot. As in the game of golf itself, the
player will not necessarily aim directly for the flag
26 identifying the hole in the green 14 because it is
unlikely that the "ball" will reach the green 14 on the
first stroke and may land in an obstacle, such as bunker
16, if aimed directly for the flag 26.
Once the player has decided on the best position for
the line 23, any suitable form of chance means is operated
to randomly identify a particular one of the small holes
22 in the template 20 and this represents the point where
the "ball" has landed. This point is marked on the board
by placing a marking instrument, e.g. a pen, pencil or
felt marker, through the particular hole.
In one form of the invention, the chance means is
a pack of cards each bearing an instruction such as 150
yards forward, 20 yards right. If the space between
two adjacent holes represents 10 yards, this instruction
represents an "address" for a particular hole 22a in the
template (see Fig. 2) and a particular point on the board
(i.e. as marked by an X in Fig. 3). In keeping with the
real game of golf, the terms "hook" and "slice" can be
used instead of left and right.
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The other players then take their turns in the same
way starting from the tee 12 and the position of each
"ball" is marked on the board. Different players may
use different coloured markers so that each can easily
identify his own "ball".
The first player then repeats the procedure, but this
time places the round hole 24 in the template 20 over the
point X where his "ball" landed, and was earlier marked,
selects the best position for line 23 for his ball to
reach the green 14, and again operates the chance means
to indicate a new position for his "ball" which is then
marked on the board.
As soon as any player positions his ball on the green
14 by the above procedure, one form of the invention
requires the operation of second chance means to indicate
whether the player will require 1, 2, 3 or more strokes
to sink the putt. For example, a conventional die may be
thrown, and the number on the die taken to be the number
of putting strokes required. Alternatively, a twelve-
sided die may be used and the numbers 1 to 3 may indicate
one putt, the numbers 4 to 8 two putts and the numbers 9
to 12 three putts. The number of strokes required by each
player to take the "ball" from tee 12 to the hole is noted
for each golf course hole 11 (which are played in the
numbered sequence (see Fig. 1)), and, just as in the real
game of golf, the winner is the player with the lowest
number of strokes when the strokes for all the holes are
totalled.
As will be noted from the above, marks are made on
the board as play progresses. However, the board should
be free of such marks when each new game is started or
confusion will result. Accordingly, the game equipment
may contain a large number o~ disposable "boards" (e.g.
golf course designs printed onto thin paper) or, more
preferably, the nature of the board and/or the marking
instrument should be such that the marks are easy to clean
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from the board. For example, the board may have an upper
lamination o~ tough plastic and the ~arking instrument may
be a chinagraph pencil or a felt-tip marker using water
soluble ink. The board may then be wiped clean after use.
Advantageously, the board and the template, depending
on the material used, have surfaces that tend to attract
each other so that the template is easy to hold in place
on the board. For example, the surfaces may be formed by
plastic material which easily becomes electrostatically
charged. Indeed, the template 20 may be made entirely
from a thin flexible sheet of electrostatically chargeable
materiaL which readily, but removably, sticks to a plastic
laminate overlying the playing surface of the board.
When the template 20 is made of a very clear and
transparent material, it does not obscure the details of
the golf course on the playing board and thus contributes
to the realism of the game, particularly when the golf
course shown on the board is an aerial photograph of
a real golf course which tends to make the details of
interest to the players.
The board may of course show any number of holes
(including just one single hole) but, again for the sake
of realism, 18 holes are preferred.
As noted above, the basis of the game is that the
players, for each stroke, operate chance means to provide
an "address" for a particular hole 22 in the template 20
showing the point where the "ball" has landed. Although
the game can be played with chance means that indicate
particular holes on a completely random basis, a much more
realistic game results if the chance means are designed
to place the "ball" in an area of the course that would be
reasonable according to the circumstances. For example,
a player would not expect to move the ball a mere ten yards
when driving from the tee, so the chance means should be
designed to make the "ball" move by a realistic distance
in these circumstances, while still retaining an element
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of randomness that approximates the randomness that can
be expected in the real game of golf.
To achieve this, the chance means may consist of
several collections of hole addresses rather than just
one collection r and each collection of addresses may be
limited to a particular group of holes 22 in the template
20. Each of the collections is then also associated with
a particular set of circumstances found in the real game
of golf. The player must select an address from one, and
only one, of the collections and the particular collection
chosen for this will be dictated by thë rules of the game.
For example, in the real game of golf, a player may
select any one of a number of clubs for a particular shot,
and he should not expect a particularly good shot from
a bunker or other trouble spot (e.g. from the rough) com-
pared with a shot from the fairway. Moreover, even the
best players play some shots well and other shots poorly.
All of these facts can be simulated by the chance means by
providing different collections of addresses, one collec-
tion representing a good shot from the fairway using a
driver, another collection representing a poor shot from a
bunker using a sand wedge etc., etc. The first mentioned
collection will contain the addresses of a group of holes
in the template quite distant from the round hole 24 and
fairly close to the central line 23, whereas the second
mentioned collection will contain the addresses of a group
of holes quite close to the round hole 24 and diverging
quite widely from the central line 23. The selection of
a particular address from each of these collections is
then quite random so that the player has an idea of where
his "ball" will go, but does not know precisely.
The particular collection selected by a player
preferably depends partly on choice, partly on luck and
partly on the player's previous shot. For example, if the
player's previous shot placed the ball in a bunker, the
selection would be limited to bunker collections. The
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1263~18
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player could then choose which club to use, e.q. a sand
wedge, and the s~lection ~ould then be limited to two
collections, namely a collection for good bunker shots
using a sand wedge and a collection for poor bunker shots
using a sand wedge. The final selection would then depend
on the throw of a die or the answer to a question, e.g.
a number of 9 or more on a twelve-sided die or an incor-
rect answer to a predetermined question would require the
player to select an address from the "poor bunker shot
using a sand wedge" collection, and the address would
randomly identify one hole from a particular group of
holes associated with this collection.
Since there are as many as fourteen different golf
clubs, shots from the fairway, bunker or trouble, and good
and poor shots to take into account, there must be quite a
large number of collections of addresses. However, it has
been found that the number can be managed quite easily by
providing as few as 200 "equipment" cards, an example of
one such card being shown in Fig. 4 and identified by the
reference numeral 30. The card has printing on both faces
and the face shown in the drawing provides hole addresses
for good shots as indicated by the words "GOOD SHOT" (this
assumes the player has successfully answered a question
or has obtained a suitable number on the throw of a die).
The reverse face would contain hole addresses for poor
shots and would bear a legend such as "BAD SHOT".
The first column on the card (left hand side) indi-
cates the golf clubs available. The second, third and
fourth columns give hole addresses according to whether
the "ball" has landed in the previous shot on the fair-
way, in a bunker or in some other trouble spot (the first
stroke from the tee is considered a fairway stroke).
Each of the 200 or so equipment cards is identical
to the card 30 except that the template hole addresses in
the FAIRWAY, BUNKER and TROUBLE columns vary on each card.
The different collections of addresses previously referred
;3'~
to are the addresses shown in the same places on all o~
the equipment cards. For example, the hole address~s
shown on all the equipment cards in the DRIVER row of the
FAIRWAY column on the GOOD SHOT sides of the cards form
the collection of addresses for a good shot from the
fairway with a driver. The fact that a different address
from this collection appears on each equipment card means
that addresses can be selected from the collection at
random by randomly selecting equipment cards from a pack
of such cards (or, more usually, by always selecting the
top card from a previously shuffled pack).
An example of a hole address from the card 30 is
280 S 20. This identifies a hole on the template 28
spaces along the line 23 from the round hole 24 and 2
spaces to the right (the "S" stands for "slice"). An-
other example is 190 H l0 which identifies a hole 19
spaces along the line 23 and one space to the left
("H" stands for "hook"). A further example is 90,
which indicates a hole 9 spaces along the line 23.
The equipment cards are thus used as follows. The
player locates the round hole 24 of the template over
the point on the board where his ball is determined to
be (i.e. on the tee 12 for his first stroke of each hole,
or over the mark made on the board during his last turn).
The template is pivoted around this point until the line
23 lies in the desired direction of play, the player throws
a die or chooses a card from a question and answer pack
and attempts to answer the question posed. The player
then chooses an equipment card such as the one shown in
Fig. 4 from the top of a stack of such cards and turns to
the "GOOD SHOT" or "BAD SHOT" side in accordance with the
number thrown on the die or his answer to the question,
and then decides which club to use. Having decided on the
club, he then reads off the hole address relating to this
club from either the "FAIRWAY", "BUNKER" or "TROUBLE"
column according to the position of his "ball" on the
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board (the tee is of course considered to be on the
fairway). Usin~ the hole identi~ied by the address, the
player marks a new position for his "ball" through this
hole. He then returns the equipment card to the bottom
of the equipment card stack and the question and answer
card (if used) to the bottom of its stack.
Incidentally, as shown in Fig. 4, there are no
instructions in the "BUNKER" and "TROUBLE" columns for
certain clubs. This is because, in the real game of golf,
such clubs would rarely be used in such circumstances.
The player must accordingly choose another club.
The preferred manner in which the instructions for
the equipment cards are generated is described below,
taking the no. 4 iron golf club as an example.
Fig. 5 is a representation on an enlarged scale of a
part of the template 20. Experience with the real game of
golf indicates that a good shot from the fairway with a
no. 4 iron would normally carry the ball between 180 to
200 yards with a variation of perhaps ten yards to each
side of the desired line of flight. This corresponds to
the holes 22 enclosed by the dotted lines 31, 32, 33 and
34 shown in the drawing. Thus, the address of each of
these holes should appear at least once in the equipment
cards under the heading "FAIRWAY" in the row for "4 IRON"
on the "GOOD SHOT" side of the cards. In fact, since
there are only 9 such holes and 200 equipment cards,
these holes will each be indicated in this location on
the cards 22 times, except for two of the holes which
will be indicated 23 times (9 X 22 + 2 = 200).
The hole addresses for the other strokes of the no.
4 iron are generated in a similar way. That is, a good
shot from a bunker would not be as accurate as a good shot
from the fairway, so the number of possible holes should
be larger and are enclosed by the lines 31, 35, 36 and
37 in Fig. 5. Thus there are 20 possible holes, each of
which will appear 10 times in the equipment cards on the
18
"GOOD SHOT" side in the "BUNKER" column and the "4 IRON"
row.
The lines 38, 39, 36 and 41 indicate the holes for
both a good shot from trouble and a poor shot from the
fairway.
The lines 38, 39, 40 and 41 indicate the holes for a
poor shot from a bunker.
The lines 38, 39, 42 and 41 indicate the holes for a
poor shot from trouble.
In each of the above cases, the holes enclosed by the
stated lines are each indicated in the appropriate rows
and columns on the appropriate sides of the equipment
cards.
The hole addresses for the other clubs are generated
in the same way using distances which are reasonable
according to the real game of golf as it might be played
by a professional golfer.
If desired, the "BUN~ER" or "TROUBLE" columns on a few
of the equipment cards may have indications such as "LOST
BALL" or "MISSED STROKE", requiring a player to forfeit
one stroke. If so, it would be necessary to obscure the
instructions on the equipment card before the player made
the choice of club, otherwise the player would choose
a club not having the "MISSED STROKE" or "LOST BALL"
instruction.
In order to assist the player in choosing an appro-
priate "club", the distance ranges that a professional
golfer would normally hit a ball with each club are
preferably indicated on the template 20 as shown in
Fig. 2. For example, the lines appearing in the left
hand margin of the template show that a player could hope
to hit the "ball" a distance of 230 yards by using either
a no. 3 wood (3W), a no. 4 wood (4W) or a no. 2 iron
(2I). The preferred distance ranges are given below:
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GOLF CLUBRAN OE IN YARDS
Driver 250-300
3 Wood 230-260
4 Wood 210-230
2 Iron 190-220
3 Iron 180-200
4 Iron 170-190
5 Iron 160-180
6 Iron 140-160
7 Iron 120-140
8 Iron 100-120
9 Iron 60- 90
PW 60-90 30- 50
30-50 0- 20
SW o- 20
It was mentioned above that once a player positions
his ball on the green 14, other chance means are then
operated to determine how many putts are required to
sink the ball. However, if the scale of the board is
sufficiently large, and the distance between the holes
22 in the template sufficiently small, this may not be
necessary, i.e. the player can use the template 20 to
locate the ball actually in a hole in the green shown
on the board.
Alternatively, if chance means are employed, some
means other than a die may be used, e.g. question and
answer cards, with a correct answer being equivalent to
sinking the ball in a single putt and an incorrect answer
being equivalent to sinking the ball in two putts, or the
like.
When question and answer cards are used as chance
means, an extra dimension of interest to the game can be
provided by posing trivia questions relating to the game
of golf, or perhaps providing categories of questions such
3S as general knowledge, golf facts, sports questions, etc.
and letting the player or an opponent choose the category.
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Although a preferred embodiment of the invention has
been described in detail above, various modifications and
variations will be apparent to persons skilled in the
art. All such Inodifications and variations are included
within the scope of this invention as defined by the
following claims.
