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New golf dice game could be 'next Yahtzee'
By Kara Chalmers
Friends Zane Tabari and Patrick Shea had just finished 18 holes at Summit Pointe golf course in Milpitas one rainy morning in April 1998, when they went to C.B. Hannegan's, their favorite pub.
This was the usual routine for the pair who first met in Saratoga Little League. They had no idea they were about to invent a game that would cause them to quit their jobs as a sportscaster and golf professional, and delve wholeheartedly into the unfamiliar territory of patents, corporations and marketing.
On that April day, the two sat at the end of the bar where the dice cups were lined up behind the beer tap handles. Amidst drinks, they began playing a game with nine dice and a cup.
"We said there's got to be a way to play golf with dice," said Tabari, 33. "It's the golf junkie mentality--find golf in anything."
Tabari and Shea played four rounds and kept score on a napkin, which they both signed and dated. Shea, 31, won the contest, framed the napkin and gave it to Tabari as a gift.
"It wasn't a gift so much as to rub it in," Tabari joked. From then on, the two always played the golf dice game when they got together.
"We had no idea what it was going to become," Shea said. "We really enjoyed playing the game. It just hit us one day--let's release it."
The game, called Golo, entails rolling nine 12-sided dice, like playing nine holes of golf, for scores. The die are separated into pars by colors. Reds are par three, whites are par four and blues are par five, just as in real golf.
A player can roll the dice up to nine times, taking as many dice from each roll as he wants. The player rolls the remaining die until happy with the scores on each hole. Tabari said the final scores can be quite high, often mirroring those of professionals, which makes the game attractive. And there is no limit to the number of players.
"It's golf in a cup," Tabari said.
The object of the game is to "go low," hence the name.
After that day in 1998, the two spent 10 months refining their game, playing over 2,000 rounds to get the game just right.
They launched Golo in September, began making a profit in January and as of today, they have sold more than 10,000 games in 35 states.
What the two seem most shocked about is that they are actually making a living out of their hobby.
"We truly believe this will be the next Yahtzee of the millennium," Shea said.
"It's fun to think we launched a product and we're selling it," Tabari said.
But there are some drawbacks. Both say that with their hefty workloads since coming up with their game, they don't have enough time to play real golf.
But according to Tabari, not a day goes by that the two of them do not talk about Golo or play it. "We haven't gotten sick of playing this game," Tabari said, pointing at his business partner. "He still kills me, too."
Visit www.iGOLO.com to order online.
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Willow Glen, California Since 1992
