Is There Golf on Mars?

For centuries, philosophers and mathematicians have gazed up at the night sky and wondered: "Is there Golf On Mars?"

The Year 2866: A New Era for Golf

The year is 2866. Mars is 35% terraformed, finally enough to allow the playing of the game of Golf!

Imagine golfing across an infinite* rocky Martian surface. Discover golfing obstacles that make us Earthlings gasp in awe!

*Infinity is impossible to represent on any non-quantum computer. In actuality, there are roughly 25,770,000,000 golf holes in this game.

The Journey to Mars

In 2020, NASA launched the Perseverance rover to search for life and golf on Mars. The journey there takes 200 days.

If you were to play one hole of Golf On Mars every 30 seconds during that journey, you would only be able to complete 0.002% of the game (576,000 holes).

A Paleolithic Perspective

Imagine being a paleolithic hunter-gatherer gazing up at the Red planet one night, traversing the ice bridge connecting Russia to Alaska during the last glacial maximum 24,515 years ago. If a time traveler brought an iPhone for you and your tribe to ritually play a hole of Golf On Mars every 30 seconds, it would take until the present day to complete all the holes.

The Simulation Challenge

However, this is not a realistic simulation. For example, if the ball is 16 pixels wide on your screen, then the typical hole will be 1200 pixels away. Scaling this to the size of a real ball (1.68 inches), it's as if the hole is only 3.5 yards away!

Realistic Course Dimensions

A realistic 18-hole golf course where the fairways are 3.5 yards away would only require about 1300 square feet of land. However, gravity on Mars is 38% that of Earth's gravity, allowing you to hit a ball 7 times farther, or roughly 1400 yards for a good player.

This 18-hole course then needs to be 64,000 square feet. You could cover the entire surface of Mars with 241 billion of these golf courses.

The Conclusion

Therefore, you could easily fit all the holes in Golf On Mars on the surface of Mars. Mars is par 3, so aim to finish in under 77 billion strokes.