Winter-weary Sutliff Golfing
SUTLIFF – If watching golf at Pebble Beach last weekend put you in the mood to swing a driver, Sutliff might be the place for you.
“This is for anyone who wants to have a good time,” said Gary Cox of Solon, one of the event’s organizers. “It’s a break in the winter.”
Participants will not actually play a round of golf. The town, about six miles east of Solon, has only one building and is not big enough for an entire golf course.
But they do swing the clubs, competing in contests that include chipping a golf ball into the middle of an inner tube on the river and putting on the old Sutliff Bridge. There will be a sandbox and cup for a children’s putting competition on the bridge.
There also is a longest drive contest, in which participants knock a golf ball across the Iowa River to see who comes closest to a pin. It’s about a 200-yard drive but no cinch. “It’s harder to do than you think when you’re all bundled up, “ Cox said.
Then there is the marshmallow drive. Golfers put a marshmallow on a tee and see how far they can drive it.
Summer golfing attire is optional, but rewarded. “We try to get a ‘best-dressed’ out there,” Cox said. “We’ve had people come out in shorts. Not me, though. I’m not that brave.”
The winter tomfoolery started 20 years ago when four friends who gathered at the Sutliff tavern decided to hit some golf balls to break the season’s monotony.
There is no entry fee but donations will be accepted to support the Sutliff Bridge Authority, a non-profit organization that maintains the old wooden bridge crossing the Cedar River and no longer used by traffic.
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History of Sutliff Bridge 
