But yesterday it was a particularly appealing prospect: the Shoreditch Urban Open golf tournament was taking place and that meant it was all legal.

Eighteen streets in east London were cleared of breakbeat DJs and independent film producers. Streets became "holes". And with row upon row of Bank Holiday boozers looking on, a field of 64 players - containing a full range of abilities from the former Ryder Cup player Ronan Rafferty to your hopelessly uncoordinated correspondent - battled for Britain's first ever urban golf title.

First some ground rules. The basic principles of urban golf are the same as its rural parent - try not to take more than 200 shots if at all possible; wear some Ronnie Corbett clobber - but there are a couple of notable tweaks.

First, there are no holes as such; open manholes take their place. There is no grass; you carry a mat which you place under your ball before each shot, while the greens are made from rolls of carpet.

And then there's the ball: to ensure no shattering of nearby windows or skulls, the traditional hard dappled Titleist is replaced with a small leather sack stuffed with cotton.

Spectators, too, have orders to follow. Under no circumstances are they to shout "get in the hole"; the rulebook notes that the ball is "an inanimate object and we're not American". They are also required to swill alcohol at an alarming rate.

The tournament is the latest attempt by golf's trendier enthusiasts to shake off the game's misogynistic, pastel-clad elitist image and take the game to a new street-savvy generation. The organiser, Jez Feakes, is a golf fanatic who took up urban golf when he became fed up with the stuffy attitudes at his local course.

He is carrying on a process that began with the emergence of Tiger Woods as a cool, young, black role model and has been fuelled by the involvement of youth-friendly corporate sponsors such as Nike. Now the rejuvenation has spawned a magazine called Golf Punk, the brainchild of Loaded co-founder, Tim Southwell, who spotted a new and hungry market opening up in the shape of the 48% of golfers aged between 15 and 34 who were so rebellious that they did not object to sharing a clubhouse bar with a woman or somebody lacking a tie and blazer.

So at midday yesterday a group containing Feakes and Rafferty teed off. Rafferty was to birdie the 42-yard par-three second, a harbinger of things to come.

Meanwhile, I followed in the second group, purling what initially felt like a lovely three-wood down the fairway. The ball however did not respond by bounding down the road with satisfying purpose, instead dropping to earth like cow slop and flatly refusing to scurry along. It quickly became clear that the balls travelled half the speed and covered half the distance of real golf balls, and that's being generous.

They also did things like nestle under parked cars. The cars are deemed water hazards, so players had to take a penalty drop. I soon became acquainted with this rule; by the time I was through the fourth, I was already nine over par.

At the fifth - a vicious dogleg at the junction of Tabernacle Street and Clere Street - a wild hook sent me over a fence and down into a sunken courtyard, 20ft below street/fairway level. With visions of making the shot of the tournament I clambered down and, opening the club face, attempted to lift the ball high up and back into play. I have no desire to tell you what happened next, the score will have to suffice: 12.

Halfway down the ninth, the fairway was clogged by officers perusing a smashed-up BMW. To be fair, they were very helpful as my ball dropped just behind the stricken car. "Do you want us to put the bonnet down?" For the record, a beautiful arcing wedge lifted over the Beamer down the green.

Early clubhouse scores suggested I was not going to win the title, but predictably Rafferty was leading a tight field from the might of Badda Bing Putting King, Wee Bobby Bob, McBob-Bob III and Conjoined Twin.

"I'm sure the traditionalists will laugh, but I played Augusta, the deserts in the Emirates and ice golf in Greenland," said Rafferty. "Just give me another surface to play golf on. For me this is just like a busy businessman using one of those putting machines in his office; it's just an extension of that. People in the city just don't have the time to get to the course, so if this gets people playing it's got to be a good thing.

"Golf's suddenly become cool. It wasn't long ago that my son's school had 12 kids playing; now there's 56 and counting. This sort of thing helps the game's image."