Take the one-armed challenge

LAKE CITY — Golf is hard enough, but playing with one arm makes for even more of a challenge.

That’s what a group of golfers will do Saturday at the Lake Pepin Golf Course for the One Arm Tournament, a nine-hole contest.

The tournament got started six years ago in honor of Dick Herbst, a one-armed golfer. A conversation between Herbst, his son and a friend developed into a tournament idea.

Some friendly ribbing about each other’s golf games led Herbst to tell his golfing group to try playing his way — with one arm.

They did and hilarity ensued.

“I never laughed so much in all my life,” Herbst said.

Herbst lost his right arm in 1974 after a farming accident and didn’t begin to play golf on a regular basis until seven years ago. In his short playing career he already has two hole-in-ones. Herbst got his first hole-in-one two years ago and added another one this year.

Players play from the red tees and the club holds a potluck afterward.

“If you get 10 strokes on a hole, pick up your ball and go on to the next hole. Ten is enough,” Herbst said.

The tournament begins at 1 p.m. with a shotgun start. The cost is $15 for members and $45 for nonmembers.

The one-arm tournament has grown from around 26 participants in its first year to 49 last year. Leading up to the tournament Herbst starts seeing more and more people starting to swing with just one arm around the course to get ready for the tournament. Though it’s not a serious tournament, people have started to take it more seriously. The winner of the tournament last year broke 40.

The tournament fees players pay comes back to them through prizes at the end of the tournament.

Only six holes were played in the tournament’s first year because Herbst and others were concerned the tournament wouldn’t get done before sunset.

Tags: lake city, sports, golf, proam