A Great Way to Entertain the Troops, Canadian Style

The Slanch Report had a post up today about the Kandahar Canadian Open.  What's that, you ask?  It is a tournament that was played at a NATO base in Kandahar, Afghanistan by Canadian soldiers this past weekend.

Most golfers waited until the relentless sun of southern Afghanistan began to set before venturing onto the greens at the NATO base in Kandahar to tackle a mini-replica of the Glen Abbey Golf Club in Oakville, Ont., where the soggy real Canadian Open was being staged.

Aside from the weapons slung across shoulders and the military uniforms, the weather also set the Kandahar tournament apart.

"We just have 50-degree heat to deal with," said Bill Pigden of Winnipeg, a retired major who is now a civilian manager at the Canadian Forces’ Personnel Support Agency at the base, where morale is one of his duties.

He means 50 degrees Celsius.  That's 122 degrees Fahrenheit. 

The tournament was played on a scaled down, miniature golf reconstruction of the real Canadian Open's host course - Glen Abbey.  It took four truckloads of sand (in the desert, really?) and 600 square meters of turf grass to create the course.  With no water available for water hazards, the sand acted in place of a lake.  And nailing down the turf was really tough.

The (turf) was nailed down and sand built up in place of water hazards and change of terrain. Peanut cans sunk into the hard sand served for holes.  "For every nail we got into the dirt, we bent about five. It is like concrete underneath. We had to use a hilty gun, basically a little jackhammer, to jackhammer the ground underneath so we could set the can inside."

The proceeds of the tournament - $20 - went to benefit a nonprofit that helps paralyzed soldiers transition back to society through paralympic sports.

Lt.-Col. Kevin Bryski, chief of staff with the Afghan Regional Security Integration Command South, and an avid golfer said, "Having opportunities like this to vent a little bit and get out and have some fun on the golf course with your comrades . . . it’s just a wonderful opportunity."