John Duncan is optimistic foot golf will find traction at Golflands in Hastings.
It's a dysfunctional marriage between two codes so whether it'll stand the test of social and intellectual bounds in Hawke's Bay, only time will tell.
It's called "foot golf" and, yes, it'll probably be enough to make some purists shudder.
Participants can belong to a club and co-habit with "swingers" but one party will simply be content with kicking it in the teeth, especially when they find themselves in the rough.
With a heavy bias on embracing the rules of hackers, the cross between golf and "the beautiful game" tees off today at 4pm in a Hawke's Bay first.
Football golf comes to Golflands course in Hastings with the promise and zest of abbreviated codes such as twenty20 cricket, Fast5 netball and sevens rugby.
It arrives on the heels of other national and global variations such as putt-putt (mini golf), night golf, speed golf and frisbee (or disc) golf.
"It's amazingly simple. You don't use a golf ball but a size 5 soccer ball," says John Duncan, the owner of the course and adjacent No5 Cafe and Larder.
The Scotsman, from Aberdeenshire, bought the property in January 2011 from Bay stalwarts Kit and Kay Halford.
His father-in-law, Max Plested, of Hawke's Bay, brought the code to his attention but Duncan admitted he didn't act on it soon enough to stake a claim for a New Zealand first.
"I was hoping to be [the first] but a Timaru club beat me to it two weeks ago," says the 42-year-old who suspects a club in Rotorua has also got into the act.
It takes out the complexity of swinging a golf club to hit a dimpled titanium ball into a 10.8cm diameter cup.
Some skill will be required to slice or hook balls to counter dog legs but it is nothing adroit footballers are not accustomed to or novices can't rapidly grasp.
More reassuring is the knowledge that one has to be terribly unlucky or poor sighted to lose a football in the rough.
Repairing divots on greens and fairways or keeping one's lips pursed on the tee-off mound?
Ah, don't lose sweat over it.
"Everyone can kick a ball so it's more involved than golf," Duncan explains. He says parents with children or workmates engaging in end-of-year celebrations can roll up to the course for a fun-filled activity and something different with catering facilities.
His introductory offer, with the onset of the first tee-off at 4pm today, is $10 for adults and $8 for children 15 and under, for 18 holes.
Duncan reckons it'll take the same time to complete as 18 holes of golf.
The No1 hole is a par 3, 96m challenge. All the holes are played on the fairway to 53cm diameter cups strategically placed with blue-flag markers.
A dozen balls are available for hire at $4 each with a refundable $20 deposit but foot golfers can bring their own size 5 balls.
"Anything bigger [than a size 5 ball] will damage the pin."
Duncan says stud or spiked shoes will give way to trainers.
He's in the throes of working out teething problems and will have a better grasp of tee-off times once he gauges the popularity of the sport.
"People are taking it more seriously in Europe with international rules," he says of the code that is believed to have originated in The Netherlands.
In the past two years about 200 courses in the US have embraced foot golf.
"They are using plus fours and long socks in Europe but I'm not going to do that here. It'll just be a casual Hawke's Bay style."
A handicap system and affiliation to other courses around the country or world are possibilities "but we're not there yet".
"If it's popular then I'll take it to the next stage."
Duncan doesn't envisage problems with the traditional iron-and-driver swingers. He will endeavour to allocate tee-off times that will not put them on a collision course, as it were.