Professor Hacker's Lost Treasure Golf

Note: For this entry, the BLACK text is Aaron speaking. The PINK text is Aunt Peg speaking. Also, as usual, you can click on the embedded photos to enlarge them.

Professor Hacker’s Lost Treasure Golf - The Diamond Course

Dear Aunt Peg,

Here we are in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee.
 

REALLY??  Aaron’s family went to DOLLYWOOD????  You know, I was all ready to scoff about Dollywood, and then I did some quick on-line research and discovered that Dolly Parton invested in this theme park in order to bring jobs to her community.   In fact, Dollywood, with 3,000 employees, is the largest employer in that community.    So, now I’m feeling like an idiot, because it turns out she’s just trying to bring home some jobs!!  Dollywood is celebrating its 25th year as Dollywood, but it’s been a theme park under a bunch of different names since it was built in 1961.   It was “Rebel Railroad” and “Goldrush Junction” and then “Silver Dollar City” before she bought in.

There are so many minigolf courses here - it’s really amazing.  In the amount of time we are staying here we don’t have time to play nearly all of them!!  There’s Firehouse Golf, Tom Sawyer’s Minigolf, a creepy looking Circus Golf, and quite a few others.
 

Why are there so many minigolf courses there??  Is it just on account of this is an entertainment mecca??

The course we played today was Professor Hacker’s Lost Treasure Golf.  In this course you follow the adventures of Professor Hacker as he goes on his 1932 and 1934 treasure hunt expeditions.   Professor Hacker looks remarkably like Henry Hatsworth, by the way.

Who on earth is Henry Hatsworth??  Turns out it’s a DS game.  Who knew??

The first thing you notice about this course is that it has GREAT scenery.  They invested a LOT of money in the setting of this course.  They have a pirate ship, an airplane, and a lot of caves.  You PLAY through the caves!!

Good thing you play through those caves - I’m thinking Tennessee in the summer is hot and sweltering.

They give you wooden signs, in order to get you in the mood - and to properly follow Professor Hacker’s adventure.  These ranged from background information (Look!!   He’s from the University of Chicago!) to information about what part of his expedition you’re recreating.

I especially like the Denver College of SOIL.

They had cute little plastic clubs for small children - even though this course was not great for kids - the course was pretty unforgiving.  And with a low par, that’s discouraging for everyone!

You can pose with Professor Hacker - they’ll take your photo and sell it to you.  

To get to the beginning of the course you ride a mining train to the top of the hill.  Unfortunately, you had to wait for the train, and then the train ride wasn’t very scenic.  For the second course we just took the stairs to the top of the course, which took about 30 seconds.

    
Oh, but I LOVE trains!!  I ride the Amtrak and the Metra and the el whenever I can!!  I bet I would’ve LOVED the funny mining train - I wouldn’t have minded waiting!

They DID have the type of putters that we like - the type with the line on the top.  And they had the short variety of astro-turf.  So, the course played true.  However, the course was unforgiving.  Many of the holes were anthills.  Even the holes that weren’t actually anthills had lips, so that even if you got close to the holes you’d never roll in.  I had a lot of 4s and 5s on this course.

    
Aaron rarely gets 4s and 5s.  This must’ve been REALLY frustrating!!!

Again, the scenery was great.

   
OK, is that waterfall blue???  Do ALL minigolf courses have to put that blue stuff in their water??  What’s up with that??  I’m going to have to look into it!!

Their weird hole-in-one scheme on the “mystery hole” was interesting.  They assigned a random hole each day to be the “mystery hole” and if you happened to get a hole-in-one on that hole you’d win a free game.  You couldn’t find out ‘til you’d finished your game which hole it was.  But, since we never got a hole-in-one on ANY hole, it was a moot point.

   
Interesting!!

We started on the Diamond Course.  They had really handsome signs telling which hole you were on.  Although, it was unclear where you were supposed to put your ball.

    
I actually prefer NOT to be told where to put my ball!!  I LIKE choosing my spot!!!  I think it’s part of the fun and interesting strategy!!  Plus, I’m not such a good rule-follower.

The holes were mostly flat, linear and uninteresting.  It was the scenery that was the interesting part of this course. For instance, this is the old palace dungeon.  

  
My brother Dave was here visiting while Aaron was off in Dollywood.  When Dave saw the photo of this cave he said, “what’s the door for?”  YEAH!!!  What IS it for???  Are there prisoners in there????

  

Here are some of the holes we saw on the course, including one that went under a bridge.

 

Wow, no kidding!!  There ARE a lot of straight-forward, uninteresting holes!!

Look!  A Mayan temple!

Now, if only you putted your ball into an elevator that took you to the top of that temple, and then you could watch your ball bounce back down the side and roll into a trough . . .

This was an interesting hole - two different putting options.

  
See, these were the metal cups that were BALL-REPELLANT!!!!

  
This hole allowed you to putt off onto the sidewalk.

???????    !!!!!!

LOOK!!  It’s Mom sitting on the box of dynamite!!

  
That’s BARB to me!!!

This hole you played through the pirate ship.  But it was still boring.

  

There was a live duck sitting on a part of the scenery.

    
I love live ducks!!  This one is particularly handsome.  I’d even marry him.  If I wasn’t completely DONE with getting married!!

Statistics:

Par:  40
Aaron:  53
Barb:  52
Paul:  48

Difficulty (1-6 putts, 6 putts being the most difficult):  4.5 putts
Rating (1-10 balls, 10 being the most wondrous):  5 balls - looks great, but it’s frustrating.  PLUS, even though they have those little plastic putters - it’s NOT kid-friendly!!

Professor Hacker’s Lost Treasure Golf - The Gold Course

Look at the lovely Gold hole markers.

  
OH, it looks like they’ve played after dinner!!  Doesn’t it look as if it’s getting dark out??

The first hole of the Gold Course is inside a cave.
 

Oh.

Here’s a good over-view of the course.

  
In this hole, you putt up - it goes into whatever hole it feels like going into, and then comes out one of three different exit pipes. 

 

 

Ah, here are all the lost balls.  I’ve put red squares around for easier viewing, as there were a myriad of them.  We never lost ours, so I’m not sure whether or not the front desk handed out free replacements.

  
This hole had a mean gap.  Not a great idea on such a non-kid-friendly course with ball-repellant cups!!  My ball went flying off into the landscaping.  Rats!

  
This hole was really steep.  You really needed someone at the bottom of the hill when you putted in order to catch your ball before it flew out into the lake.

 YIPES!!!

Statistics:

Par:  40
Aaron:  54
Barb:  54
Paul:  54

Difficulty (1-6 putts, 6 putts being the most difficult):  4.5 putts
Rating (1-10 balls, 10 being the most wondrous):  5 balls - looks great, but it’s frustrating.  PLUS, even though they have those little plastic putters - it’s NOT kid-friendly!!

Coming next:  Hillbilly Golf!

Henry Hatsworth in the Puzzling Adventure © Nintendo and EA.