Yellowknife (Apr 23/04) - It may have been a far-cry from the PGA Masters, but for Inuvik's golf-starved, the Lion's Club Annual Snow Golf event, Saturday, attracted more than 50 players.

"As always it was a success," said club president Vicki Boudreau, who estimates the club raised more than $1,500. "The weather was half-decent and the course was great."

And a big thanks -- or no thanks depending on how one fared on the course -- must go out to Alan Davis, who spent the better part of three evenings ploughing nine holes into the snow on Boot Lake.

Doing away with all of the conventional golf trappings, snow golf works on the same principles as golf except players have only one club -- a broomball stick. A rubber ball is used in place of a golf ball.

Ingenuity and good fortune tended to rule the day as players employed half-crushed tin cans as make-shift golf tees and, judging from some scores, lady luck was on many players' sides.

Boudreau says money raised at the event will go to offset club members' travel costs to Lions conventions. Over the past year the club has donated more than $90,000 to community organizations, including covering the utilities at the Inuvik Youth Centre.