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Dear Aunt Peg,
This course is right near Lake Estes, as you’re coming into town from the Big Thompson Canyon. There are two courses here, the Mountain and the Meadows courses.
You can play both courses for $12.00, or one course for $7.00. But, look at this, non-playing golf guests are $1.00, and toddlers with plastic putters are $2.00.
WHAT?!?!? Who ARE these non-playing golf guests???? If they’re not toddlers, who are they????
And, like a lot of courses in tourist areas, you can pay for two courses, but play them on two different days.
They had a practice green - astro-turf. OK quality. They also had water falls.
And they’re not BLUE!!! That looks lovely!!
We played the Meadows course. The fairways all had brick sides, but they weren’t particularly bouncy. The fairways were really lumpy - they were long and hilly. Dad liked how they put this fake rock here to house the light fixture.
I always like when they have fake rocks that have speakers. That just makes me laugh. Yep, this looks like a lot of long and lumpy holes.
Mom liked the score-card holders. She also thought it was really interesting how, even the sidewalks were lumpy at this course! They had speed bumps on all the sidewalks! It was like they couldn’t figure out how to make the greens lumpy without making the sidewalk lumpy too.
Weird.
This course had a lot of signs telling you what not to do. This is why we took whatever liberties we could think of.
In this course, the variation between holes is just the variation in lumps!
Look at the lovely scenery!!!
This hole had a gap, like some we’d seen. But you could also just putt around the gap, which I found odd.
I think it looks like a sleeping face!!!
Look!! Aaron is getting really good at capturing images of balls in mid-air!!!
Man, that is a really skinny fairway!!! (Barb just told me that this is a hole where you could actually go out into the river and get washed back onto the green. Aaron and Paul got holes-in-ones on this hole by putting into the water.)
This isn’t really sand. It’s just a textured rubber mat.
This is the first hole that I think was meant to look like something. It’s easier to see on the drawing of the hole - it looks like a sea-monster!!
WAY cool!!!
I think this was supposed to look like a guy who had just had brain surgery.
WHOA!!! Maybe it’s a guy wearing a yarmulke!!!
Here’s a close-up of the lumpy sidewalk.
Those black things are, like, non-slip strips for the bath-tubs of the elderly!
Dad has a weird putting style - I told him he was choking up too much, but he liked his style.
This was the only multi-tiered hole on the course.
OOoooooh!!! Look at the cool cave!!!!! With train tracks!!!
Dad was amazed that there was no “keep off the tracks” sign, so he stepped on them!
This was the ball-return hole. The elevated hole gives you a hole-in-one on your score card and a free game, but if you went in one of the other holes you got a 2. You started by putting through the logs.
Par: 40
Aaron: 42
Barb: 47
Paul: 50
Difficulty (1-6 putts, 6 putts being the most difficult): 2.5 putts
Rating (1-10 balls, 10 being the most wondrous): 8 balls. It was a really interesting course - I think it would be hard for little kids on account of all the really long and lumpy holes.
Coming soon: Lilliputt Golf in Grand Lake, Colorado
Note: For this entry, the BLACK text is Aaron speaking. The PINK text is Aunt Peg speaking. The BLUE text is Mom (Barb) speaking. Also, as usual, you can click on the embedded photos to enlarge them.
Dear Aunt Peg,
Here we are in Estes Park, Colorado.
OK, we have played this course every year since I was 10 years old. Every night that we stayed in Estes Park. Mr. Mitchell has become a family friend. You know, he bought this course in 1955. And it still only costs $3.00 to play. Before he bought this course, he owned one in Cody, Wyoming. He bought the one in Cody for $5,000, and he made $8,000 on it the first year he owned it. (1952). That Cody course is still in existence - it’s run by the city now.
I love Mr. Mitchell’s signs. That side room used to have arcade games in it (Ms. Pac-Man and one other, if I remember correctly), but now Mr. Mitchell has turned it into a sort of a miniature Estes Park museum.
I love the place where the people who win free games get to sign their names.
Mr. Mitchell always had the most interesting selection of golf balls to choose from. This is the only photo I’ve got of Mr. Mitchell, as he doesn’t like to be photographed. I played with a red ball, and a ball that was painted to look like the globe of planet Earth!
They let you pick your own club, which is excellent. This was a crowded day, so there were a lot of clubs in use. There were people on almost every hole.
Luckily the scenery is WONDERFUL!!!
This was a felt course. It was a little wrinkly. That happens with his course. But he does just replace the carpets from time to time.
Mom likes how he has well-placed boards with clips and pencils for your score card.
Every hole has either a bench or plastic chairs. Mr. Mitchell understands that the elderly may need to be able to sit between holes. Grandpa loves that.
LOOK at those flowers!!! You know, when Mrs. Mitchell was still alive there were a LOT of columbines and lobelias.
The alligator's mouth used to open and close, but it doesn't work anymore. It also doesn’t give an automatic hole-in-one if you putt through it anymore.
I know. It hasn’t for years. But when we were little, it always worked. Sigh.
LOOK!!! The windmill has made a propeller on Aaron’s head!!!
The infamous 4th hole that taught me to putt straight.
Mr. Mitchell’s kids own the gas station.
Look how many older people there are on this course!!
Well, there are so many people who have been coming here for years. Everyone comes there and talks to Mr. Mitchell for 5 or 10 minutes before they play. Plus, it’s cheap. It’s cash-only. But, where can you get that amount of entertainment for that price?? Plus, Mr. Mitchell gives away a lot of free games to people who have been coming there for years.
He changed this hole since we last saw it. He added a piece of wood on the left-side barrier so you couldn’t cheat by hitting your ball really hard, bouncing off the backstop and over the side.
Yeah, when we were kids we used to just whack our balls really hard to try to bounce over the left side!!
I love how he’s got hand-painted backgrounds on so many of the holes. I wonder if Mrs. Mitchell painted them?? In any case, they’ve been continually re-touched - they always look fresh.
This windmill is still a guaranteed hole-in-one, as he’s maintained this ditch that directs your ball. When I was younger, I thought the ditch had just been worn in by years of play, but mom recently told me that it's actually how the hole is designed.
Man, we looked forward to this hole when we were kids!!!
Dad missed the entrance to the windmill, however. Mom says, “It happens.” Dad blew a raspberry at us.
Another painting, and a fun picture of the aforementioned beautiful scenery.
I love the foxes. I love the moon.
Unfortunately, the back plank on this hole is completely dead. Mom says it used to bounce back a little bit. You used to be able to hit it off the back and roll in, but not anymore.
There was an elk just outside the fence. Sorry about the poor quality of the photos, that was due to my having to take the photo over he chain-link fence at the edge of the property. There was a sign on the fence, saying to be sure to keep the gate closed so the elk don’t come in and eat the flowers on the golf course.
Man, I love Estes Park!! I remember one year, the elk all just came to the park next to the library and just sat in the park!! Like, a whole herd of them!!! Apparently they hung out there for a couple of days!!
The whole front range is painted here. Long’s Peak is on the left, Hallett’s is near the middle, and the Mummy Range is on the right.
Here’s the free game hole.
Uncle Dave’s family won FIVE free games one night!! Look!! It’s Michael’s signature!! He’s our illustrator!!!
You know, when we started playing minigolf here, Dave was too young to play on the course near our home in Nebraska. But Mr. Mitchell will let children of any age play - with adult supervision. It was such a treat for Dave to get to play, instead of just watch. That’s one of the reasons this course is so beloved by us. And probably gazillions of others.
Statistics (from four nights of golf):
Par: 51
Aaron: 41/40/47/41
Barb: 39/39/44/42
Paul: 48/47/44/44
Difficulty (1-6 putts, 6 putts being the most difficult): 1 putt. Partly because he’s set the par so high, which really makes children feel encouraged. On the scorecards, he even prints "Keep your score and watch your game improve."
Rating (1-10 balls, 10 being the most wondrous): 10 balls according to Aaron.
You know, this is a rating that takes into account familiarity, and other intangibles like, owner friendliness, adjacent elk, and fabulous mountain aromas.
Coming next: Cascade Creek Mini-Golf
