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All the United States California San Francisco La Boule d'Or Petanque Terrain

La Boule d'Or Petanque Terrain

A playing field for a popular French past time can be found tucked away in a quiet corner of Golden Gate Park.

San Francisco, California

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About

Tucked away in a rarely visited corner of the park, this modest gravel playing field in Golden Gate Park is home to the second oldest Petanque club in the United States, known as La Boule d'Or, founded in 1959 and still active to this day.

Petanque is a team sport, originally played in the South of France. Starting at the turn of the last century and often confused with Italian bocce or Scottish lawn bowling, petanque is played on a hard dirt or gravel plain known as a “terrain” with metal balls that are lobbed towards a wooden ball called a “cochonnet”. It is played by an estimated 17 million people in France, but US clubs total just 1,500 members.

During the week, the Golden Gate Petanque Terrain is a quiet place to read or enjoy the sun. Members of La Boule d'Or use the terrain on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays after 1:30pm.

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Added By

Tre

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knoxium

  • knoxium

Published

July 23, 2011

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Sources
  • http://www.petanque.org/
  • Christopher Pollock; “San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park - A Thousand Acres of Stories” 2001, West Winds Press
  • http://www.golden-gate-park.com/petanque.html
  • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P%C3%A9tanque
  • http://petanqueamericaopen.blogspot.com/2007/05/san-francisco-la-boule-dor.html
La Boule d'Or Petanque Terrain
San Francisco, California, 94121
United States
37.771173, -122.498589
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