Category Archives: Sports

WhirlyBall!!!!!

Last Friday, a few friends had heard about a free event for “WhirlyBall“. Turns out a local radio station was going to be there and it was going to be free all night. Who doesn’t like free?! I had heard of a group at work going to Whirlyball as a team building event but wasn’t quite sure what it entailed. As soon as I looked up what “WhirlyBall” actually was, I was ready to go!

Whirlyball – Take a seat in one of these little bumper cars. (Steer clear of #13, it’s a slow one.) You have a little basket/glove followed with a plastic whipple ball. The goal is for each team to hit the backboard (see below) with the ball for 1 point and if you get the circle in the middle, congratulations, you’ve just scored yourself two points! This goes on for 7-10 minute games.

Don’t fool yourself, this is a lot harder than it looks. Those little cars are pesky! The car has a pedal. You don’t have to push it to go, it just kind of goes on its own. The pedal just makes you go faster. You have a joystick that you use to steer. Turn it left, you go right. Turn it right, you go left. Turn it all the way around, you stop. Turn it too much, you may go backwards, you may not go anywhere at all. Takes some adjusting.

You may find yourself pinned by an eight year old who proceeds to sit there and laugh at you and say “I got you stuck!”, but that didn’t happen to me. Nah.

Some people take this pretty seriously. Check out those chin guards.

There’s even some leagues. Intense. I have some bruises on my knees from that joystick hitting them.

It’s still worth the fun!

When playing, be wise on who you pick to be on your team. You want them on your side.

There’s only a few of them in the entire country, but if one is near you, you may want to check it out!

It was one heck of a good time!

Top Golf

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There are only a few Top Golf locations situated throughout the world. London, D.C., Chicago and Texas.

What is Top Golf? It’s a driving range, but not any driving range… it’s more like a game. When you arrive, you get a card with your name and balance, kind of like a gift card. Each ball has a computer chip in so it will acknowledge which ball is yours (this is done when you get your bucket of balls out of the machine.) If you hit your ball over the fence and into traffic, they will know it’s yours, beware.

This is where it gets interesting. Instead of hitting the ball at a flag as you would at most driving ranges, each flag is surrounded a bigger hole type area. The closer to the flag you hit the ball, the more points you get. Yes I said points. There are various types of games that you can play with your friends to fire up the competition a little bit. The closer to the flag and the farther away the flag is, the more points you get. Every once in a while, the computer will show that you get a bonus ball. If you hit within the inner most circle surrounding the flag, this is considered a hole-in-one and you get a free game. Not too shabby!

Pay no attention to form. Strictly the fact that I hit the hell out of that ball!

At one point we were going there every Sunday morning and calling it “Church”. Not only would we go to play golf but they also have great food and drinks available. This is a great outing for family, a group of friends, business parties or even just to practice on your swing. It’s pretty cute to see the little kids get out there and practice their swing. The only downside is that it is a little more on the expensive side but it’s definitely worth the fun for any skill level. I had never played golf before Top Golf. Even though I mostly go to just hit the ball hard and far, I really do love it and it helped lead me to actually try out a real game of golf!