Blongo Ball/ Ladder Golf / Hillbilly Golf

Strange Games is indebted to reader Jerry Coffey for drawing our attention to the classy American game of Blongo Ball.
To play, you will need a Blongo Ball set consisting of two sets of bolas (two rubber balls connected by a short length of cord) and a goal, which is a little like a plastic clothes-dryer with three crossbars. The aim of the game is to throw your bolas and get them to wrap around the horizontal goal bars, each of which is differently coloured and gives different points. The best throwing technique is to spin one ball around the other then launch the whole bolas in an underhand style.
Rules can vary but a good allocation might be 1 point for the easy top rung, 2 for the middle and 3 for the tricky bottom. You can gain extra points for more unusual shots such as getting the bolas to bounce off the ground before they wrap themselves around the bar. You could even give differing points to whether your shot produces a 'wrap around' or a 'hanger' (the bolas hangs on delicately by one ball only)

Play as a two player game, take it in turns to throw and if you knock one of your opponent's bolas off then they lose those points. The first player to get to 21 wins.
In his correspondence Jerry suggests, rather cruelly I think, that the game is also known as Hillbilly Golf.
Learn more at the blongo ball website where you can even have a go at a computer version of the game
Jerry is also starting a bloglist of fun family games here

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