Golf on the Most Dangerous Course in the World
Americans love golf. More than 27 million of us play nearly half a billion rounds every year. Thanks to Adrian Levsky, some are now playing on a course that features very unusual hazards.
When he's driving on the golf course, Adrian Levsky is focused on distance. But off the links CBS News correspondent Michelle Miller reports he's working on a drive that will land much further away.
The obsession started last Christmas when his co-worker Mike Martin was transferred overseas, and expressed frustration on the new job. Immediately, Levsky thought golf was the answer - and started begging friends to donate golf balls.
Golf's a sport associated with manicured greens and fairways. The golf balls that Levsky was sending would end up in one of the biggest sandtraps in the world: an Army base in the middle of the desert in Afghanistan.
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Levsky's friend Colonel Mike Martin is now in a war-zone, where golf has become a new pastime. Troops have launched a tournament called the Helmand River Open.
In truth, it's Operation Down Time.
"It helps out significantly with the morale out here," Col. Martin said. "It gives us something to do in the little down time we have - it takes our mind off the more serious business at hand."
With almost every swing of the golf club, the ball is sacrificed. It's too risky to retreive them from the hazard of a minefield.
So Levsky constantly works the phones to supply reinforcements. Levsky called Calloway, the golf equipment company which, coincidentally was already in the game - having donated golf gear over the past five years. But now they know exactly who was using it.
So far more than 100,000 balls have been sent and lost - but at this course no one's counting strokes.
