One athletic competition that has been suffering the consequences of capricious weather in recent years has been the relatively obscure sport of ice golf.
This year’s world ice golf championship, which was scheduled to have been played in Greenland in March, has been called off — as was the 2009 tournament – because the temperature were not, as the organizers say, “Greenlandic”. Greenland is experiencing its warmest winter in over 50 years – making a golf competition on ice too risky for those competing.
The tournament has not been played since 2006 in Uummannaq.
Though a mostly unheralded sport, ice golf does have its loyal devotees, including some top amateurs from the grassier version of the game. In the early years of the noughties, Drambuie sponsored the World Ice Golf Championship.
The tournament, the organizers say, is being postponed until temperatures return to the level Greenland is accustomed to, ie, extremely cold.
