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

Congo River Adventure Golf: Falls Course

The second 18 holes at Congo River Adventure was the Falls Course.

They had the same “scavenger hunt” thing going on - once again we loved it, and THIS time we found all the objects!!!  (Actually, we never found the spear, but the girl at the front desk gave us both the prize anyway!!  If you find all the hunt items, you get a yellow bouncy ball with a smiley face on it!!)

The over-under hole.

  
You know, this course was pretty full when we played it.  We started a little after 10:00 a.m., and finished at 11:50!!  Normally we play faster than that, but we were looking for the scavenger hunt items, plus there were people in front of us.

I love water falls.  Even if they ARE blue!!   A blue not found in nature!!

 
And I love the bridges.  And I love stepping over water!!

 
These holes - they actually are a lot like regulation golf.  Complete with really rolling terrain.

 
Oh, look at the ridges in this one!!

 
Ha!!  No Con Go!!!  It makes me think of the Star Trek episode “No Kill I”.  Remember that one??  My brother Dave just mentioned it last week.

 
You know, the amazing thing about this course - actually, both halves of this course - was that our balls NEVER bounced out of bounds.  Seriously, there were some pretty steep down-hills, and I often worried that our balls would be going so fast by the time they got to the bottom that they’d just bounce off the rocks and keep going.  But they never did.  Marvelous engineering, I’m thinking.  The same kind of engineering that made these holes all so friendly.

 
And look at these lovely picnic tables at the end - still in the Congo River theme.

 
I ought to mention that we both really enjoyed the music on this course.  It was REALLY diverse:  we heard Stevie Wonder, an Israeli folk song, some 50s doowop, some contemporary world music.  I don’t know if there was a central player that shuffled through that vast an array of music, or whether different holes had different genres.  But we really liked it!!

There was a game arcade at the end - with a Family Guy pinball machine.

 
Statistics:

Par:  40
Aaron:  46
Peg:  49

Difficulty (1-6 putts, 6 putts being the most difficult):  3.5 putts  (but higher for children on account of the really long fairways and steep up-hill holes).

Rating (1-10 balls, 10 being the most wondrous):  7.5 balls according to Aaron.  8 balls according to Peg.  Aaron liked how there were a lot of down-hills.  Peg liked the friendly, friendly cups!!

Coming next:  Wii Golf!!!

Congo River Adventure Golf: Rapids Course

Congo River Adventure Golf
1325 N. Barrington Road, Hoffman Estates, Illinois

First:  YAY!!!  Aaron is back from Dollywood!!  Wahooo!!!!

Dang!!  Look at this sign!!  Do you think they have a lot of broken putters???  Sheesh!!!

  
Hey, look at these low scores!!  We did WAY better than that!!  We should’ve told them our scores!!!  RATS!!!!

 
Practice green.  Gotta love that.

  
OK, so, at Congo River Adventure, there are two 18 hole courses - which you can play in combination for $11.95.  Not bad.

We played Congo River Rapids first.

  
One of my favorite things about this course was the “scavenger hunt”.  They had a bunch of decorations you were supposed to look for throughout the course.   If you saw one, you were supposed to write down what hole you were playing when you saw it.   If you saw all six of the hunt items, they’d give you a prize: a smiley-face superball!

Man, this was BRILLIANT!!  It meant that if you were waiting behind a slow party, you could spend your time looking for the hunt items.  It meant that kids who were waiting for others in their party to putt could also be looking for the hunt items.  It was just a BRILLIANT idea!!! (Pictured below is the "mask" item. It's mounted on the shack.)

 
Look how lovely this course is!!  Although, once again with the blue water!!

  
There were lots of bridges you got to walk on - I loved that.

  
You know, in general this course had long, interesting “fairways” that you really wanted to think about your strategy, and then they had exceptionally friendly cups.  Seriously, the cups were often just slightly depressed, compared to the surrounding green, so that if you were sort of headed in the direction of the hole, you’d tend to roll in.  This made you feel like a really super-competent golfer (and would be GREAT for kids).

 
There were a lot of holes where you putted into a hole on the top tier and then were spat out below - none of these gave automatic holes-in-one, though.
 
Look at this guy drooling blue water!!!

  
We got to this hole, and thought it was a hole with a couple of REALLY harsh gaps, and then we realized that the hole was set up so that once you were in the water you’d be automatically routed onto the green below.  I have to say, I love a hole where you get to putt into the water!!

 

See this cork-screw hole??  There were a lot of holes like this, where, really, you just teed off in the general direction that seemed logical, and then you got spat out on a very friendly green.

 
Wait a minute!!  What happened to this guy??  Is he a guy who’s dead and sunk into the sand??  Or is he just a sleeping stick figure??  And why does he make me want to sing “Particle Man”??

 
Statistics:

Par:  41
Aaron:  53
Peg:  46

Difficulty (1-6 putts, 6 putts being the most difficult):  3.5 putts  (but higher for children on account of the really long fairways and steep up-hill holes).

Rating (1-10 balls, 10 being the most wondrous):  7.5 balls according to Aaron.  8 balls according to Peg.  Aaron liked how there were a lot of downhill putts.  Peg liked the friendly, friendly cups!!

Coming next:  Congo River Falls

Sugar Grove Miniature Golf

NOTE: You can click on the embedded photos to make them larger.
 
 Our intended course for today was the Sugar Grove Family Fun Center at 9 S. 825 Route 47, in Sugar Grove, Illinois.  You know, I mapquested it, but it seemed like you just head south on route 47, so I didn’t really pay much attention to the address.

So, we were headed south on route 47, and it seemed like we were going kind of a long way.  And then we saw a minigolf course on the left, so we figured we had reached our destination.  We pulled into the parking lot, and it seemed like there was another minigolf course just down the road, which looked more like what we thought we were looking for.  But, since we were already parked, we decided to play the Sugar Grove Miniature Golf.

This course was hilarious.  It took us about two holes to realize that ALL THE HOLES ARE EXACTLY THE SAME!!!!  WOW!!!  Seriously,  the decorations are all different, but - look at this shot of the polar bear.  Cool bear, but look at all the other holes!!  It was so funny!!


The course was astro-turf, and it was in great shape.  There was a driving range immediately next to the mini-golf.  It’s a great place to practice - and for $6.00 for 18 holes a little cheaper than in Chicago. 

And another thing:  dig this knight carrying a shield!!  Do you recognize the shield??  It’s the Tri-Force shield!!  The Hylian shield!!!  The shield that Link uses in the Legend Of Zelda games!!!  They just STUCK Link’s shield on this anonymous knight!!!  The decorations are so crazy like that. 

 

For instance, look at this statue of Darth Vader.  It’s CLEARLY Darth Vader.  Only, look at his eyes!!  Those aren’t Darth Vader’s eyes!!  These eyes are big and sympathetic!!  You’d never make an evil emperor with droopy anime eyes like this!!!  And, what’s that barbeque skewer he’s holding??  Perhaps he’s hosting a party for wookies???  What’s up with these decorations???

 


And:  LOOK AT THIS!!!  Doesn’t this look like a giant butt??  With a tail??  We got to this decoration and I said to Aaron, OMIGOD, it’s a giant butt!!!  And he said, “no way!”  Of course, when we got around to the other side . . . I was so WRONG!!!!

This hippo hole was WAY better than the hippo hole at Skokie Sports Park!!!  And, dig this warped Pinocchio.  See what I mean about the decorations??  They’re all just a little off.  Like somebody made them in their garage from their memory of the characters.  And, why does this gorilla have such a pointy head??

 
AHA!!!  A loop-de-loop!!  There were two of them on this course.   The hole is STILL exactly the same - only there’s a loop-de-loop on it.  HA!!!

 

Oh, and see this hole with the seal - look!!!  The hole is different!!  Not counting the loop-de-loops there were exactly TWO holes that were different from the rest.

 

On the back 9 we noticed that the actual holes, the cups, were no longer “finished” with plastic or metal in the bottom.  They just were sand.  And they had lots of ants in them!!!  I hope we didn’t harm any ants!!

The 19th hole was a ball return, just like at many courses.  Only, this 19th hole was a legitimate hole on the course - you put it on your scorecard just like any other hole!!!

Statistics:

Par:  45
Aaron:  50
Peg:  51

Difficulty (1-6 putts, 6 putts being the most difficult):  2.5 putts
Rating (1-10 balls, 10 being the most wondrous):  4.5 balls

This was a great warm-up course, great to practice.  But not very exciting.

Coming Next:  Sugar Grove Family Fun Center