Are You A Nutter For The Drutter?

I’ve seen some odd things on a golf course in my time. Of course, there are some golf fashions, particularly those worn by John Daly, that plummet off the edge of ‘stylish’ and deep into the pit of mental cruelty, such is the clash of vivid colours that assaults the eyes.

Then there’s Adam Scott, the former World Number 1 and Masters champion who is a genuinely nice, disarming and charming chap, but who just happens to putt the ball with a club that resembles a television aerial. When he puts that club back in the bag I am sure he can tune in to any radio or TV station across the globe.

Then there was Charley Hoffman’s hair. Humankind has yet to come up with a word to describe it. So much so, he has had it trimmed for the 2014 season, which spoilt my enjoyment of US Golf immensely.

We’ve also had surfboard golfers, Bubba Watson’s Hover-Cart, golfers playing the ball from up a tree, caddies gently requesting alligators leave the green and of course, we had Jean Van de Velde going for paddle on the final hole of the 1999 Open Championship.

So I’ve seen a few odd things in my time out on the course, but I’ve never ever come across anything like the Drutter.

The Drutter is an invention by golf enthusiast Dino Kapadia, who is from Franfort, Illinois. He recognised that golf was a rather expensive and cumbersome game to play for the beginner. The price of buying a new set of clubs, a bag, balls (of which you’ll need plenty as you lose lots of them, LOTS) would certainly run into hundreds of dollars/euros even for a modest set.

So Mr Kapadia hit upon his novel idea. A way you can play golf without needing all those pesky clubs, a bag and a cart to trundle them around the course. His big idea was the Drutter – a cross between a Driver and a Putter, although the name is where the similarity ends.

The Drutter is essentially a putter head on the bottom of a telescopic shaft. At the top of the shaft, it splits into a Y-shaped prong and cast between the two prongs is, for want of a better word, a large catapult.

To use the Drutter from the tee or fairway, you simply take your golf ball, and slingshot it towards the green. Once the ball is on the green, or near enough to it, you can then use the putter on the bottom of the Drutter to putt your ball into the hole.

It is a very simple idea and Dino Kapadia deserves credit for it. His aim was to provide a simple, cost-effective way for people to enjoy golf courses and the Drutter certainly achieves that. His idea to use disabled Americans to help produce the parts for the club, if it was put into mass production, also deserves respect too.

Mr Kapadia placed his idea on the Kickstarter.com website, where individuals can seek crowd-sourced funding for their project if people believe it is worthwhile. He wanted $2,000 in funding to help develop his idea and he received it.

There is now an official Drutter website too at www.drutter.biz.

It’s certainly an innovative idea, developed for all the right reasons, to encourage more people to golf, especially those who may be unable to afford golf, or who lack the physical capability or skill to play using clubs.

But is it really golf?

Well no, it isn’t but that is something that Dino fully admits. What he instead has provided is a way for people tp enjoy golf courses that is cheap, fun and quick to play yet players can still adhere to the etiquette of the game.

There may be a few traditionalists who baulk at the idea of catapults being used on a course, but given that golf clubs need to introduce new blood onto courses, any idea which has people willing to visit and pay to play is surely worth looking at.

Dino Kapadia certainly hopes so and while Rory McIlroy may be the Icon with the Irons, many more mortals can instead head out onto the course as the Nutter with the Drutter.

And provided you don’t have John Daly’s taste in clothes or Charley Hoffman’s old hairstyle, nobody will bat an eyelid.

Images/Video from Youtube and www.Drutter.biz