Burton Silver is an inventor, writer and cartoonist. While perhaps better known for his parodies, in particular the international best seller Why Cats Paint, he is no stranger to innovation in sport. As the founder of the International Fringe Games, he had the Times of London wondering whether he is “simply mad or a great sports visionary”.
With more than ten books to his credit he has invented and written about such diverse subjects as erotic Japanese paper sculpture and ornithological dejecta as well as inventing powered skis, a sheep buggy and more recently, the tee cup.
He has been working on GolfCross® since 1989.
A fourth generation New Zealander, Burton lives by the sea in Wellington with his partner, Melissa da Souza, four children and a cat.
“I think if I were a good golfer and was therefore imbued with all the wonderful golfing traditions — I wouldn’t have been removed enough from it to see how it could change. And I think those traditions would have inhibited me even if I could see another way of playing it. Being a New Zealander also helps because living in a ‘new’ country means you’re not so bound by convention and being isolated means we have a real ‘do-it-yourself’ mentality.
“It seems strange and sad to me that we don’t do more to encourage a spirit of innovation in sport. Because inventing new activities and getting people to participate in them is so exciting and stimulating for all concerned. It always leads to new discoveries about our physical and mental capabilities and skills, and it presents us with new challenges, which is surely what sport should be about.
“It’s my belief that the creation of the new in sport is as important as the celebration of the old. That actively experimenting with sport and staging new events challenges human ingenuity and reinvigorates the human spirit and I’d love to think that GolfCross® may in some way act as a kind of catalyst in encouraging us to explore all the other new sporting challenges that are just waiting to be discovered out there.”