River View Miniature Golf

First let me say  that this course is NOT exactly where their web-site says it is!!  That’s kind of aggravating!!  It says on their web-site that the course is in Pottawatomie Park in St. Charles, Illinois, which it is.  But then they say parking is “2 blocks north of Main Street on 2nd Avenue”.  Which it clearly is NOT!!  Man!!  I got to that intersection, and started heading north on 2nd Avenue, and drove, 6 or 8 blocks, it seemed like!!  Finally, there was an entrance to the park.  I went in - I could see the swimming pool, the tennis courts, the riverboats, the regulation golf, but not the minigolf!!  Finally I went to the swimming pool and asked at the desk where the minigolf was.  They were very friendly.  In case you go there:  it’s SOUTH of the main parking lot right on the Fox River.

 
HA!!!  I liked the idea that we could rent “food canoes” if we wanted to!!  HA!!  Would this be canoes made out of food??  Or ones that take you TO food???

  

This course has a special pretty much every day of the week, and the day we went was “grandparents’ day”.  Bring one grandparent, and one person in your party gets in free.  This was a park-district course, so it was pretty cheap to begin with:  $5.00 per person for 18 holes.  Anyway, we brought Dad (who is Aaron’s grandfather) and not only did he TREAT us to a round of golf, but he got in free!!  Wahooo!!!

 
This course was ANCIENT astroturf.  The turf was so ancient that the greens were really fast.  And really lumpy!!  They had these sort of rubberized tee areas.  And, look, a lovely waterfall in a NATURAL color (in the top-right of the photo)!!

  

The greens were really fast, and then the boundaries of the holes were all these very low bricks.  These things meant that we bounced completely OUT of the putting area and all across the course A LOT!!  (This accounts for Aaron’s terrible score!).  Seriously, I’ve never played a course where we spent so much time running everywhere retrieving our balls!!

Oh, look at this lovely water wheel!!

  

This hole had a little tunnel under a fake rock.  Dad putted just perfectly - if the object was to lodge your ball exactly underneath the rock!!!  He had to sort of pool-cue it back out!!!  Aaron and Barb both got bounced back by the rock!!

 
 

Dad says to be sure to say that there weren’t enough benches for old people on this course!!  They had one about every 6th hole.

 
There was a windmill hole - but the windmill was TINY!!!  (Aaron says: "Note my perfect Fairway Solitaire pose!" Fairway Solitaire is a golf-themed solitaire game made by Grey Alien and Big Fish Games.)

 
Also, I would say MORE than 50% of these holes had a choice of cups to putt into!!!  Isn’t that odd??  

  

You know, the greens were so fast, and so lumpy, and the obstacles were so many, that often rather than strategizing our tee shots, we would just whack the ball and see what happened.  In other words, it was too much - whatever we did, the outcome seemed to be random.  Once you got your lucky or unlucky tee shot, then you could strategize.  I didn’t like that your tee shot had just too many variables to even have fun strategizing.

LOOK!!  Here was a ball that had bounced out - and no one had found it!!!  We asked another party on the course - the man was putting a walnut - if this was their lost ball.  But they said it wasn’t.  Wonder why he was putting a walnut, then????

 
But, this course was right on the banks of the Fox River, and it was gorgeous.  It could’ve been like that course we played in Sugar Grove where every hole was exactly the same and we would’ve loved it, on account of the river was beautiful and breezy!

 
Doesn’t this log look like a pig snout????  

  

OK, Aaron’s ball bounced out, and we spent FOREVER searching for it in this tall grass!!!  Something you expect from regulation golf, but NOT from minigolf!!!

 
Hole 18 was a lighthouse - and an automatic ball-return. 

  

And, look!!  A play-again special:  half-price on the second 18!!  That’s $2.50, which is an amazing bargain!!

  

Statistics:

Par:  42
Aaron:  64
Barb:  50
Dad/Grandpa:  54
Peg:  56

Difficulty (1-6 putts, 6 putts being the most difficult):  5 putts
Rating (1-10 balls, 10 being the most wondrous):  6.5 balls.   Aaron was aggravated by this course because it was fast and lumpy.  Barb loved it because it was beautiful.  Peg didn’t appreciate the randomness of the tee shots, but loved the river.  Dad wanted more benches.

Coming soon:  Big Apple Minigolf, Kearney, Nebraska