Par-King Skill Golf, Part 1: Red Course

 NOTE: You can click on the embedded photos to make them larger.

Today’s course was Par-King Skill Golf at 21711 Milwaukee Avenue Lincolnshire, IL 60069.  This is a course with a lot of history.  It began life as George's Gorgeous Golfing Gardens.  That original course (built in the 50s) is gone, and the current course dates back to the 60s, although some of the original decorations are still in use in this course.  The clown and the turtle were created for the original course.  Every winter all the decorations are taken indoors and re-painted and maintained.

There are two eighteen hole courses at Par-King, and there’s no discount for playing both eighteens!!  Man, ALL the courses we’ve played before had a discount for playing both courses!!!  $7.00 is the fee for 18 holes here, and that seems about right.  But most other courses give you the second 18 for half-price, and Par-King doesn’t.  Bummer.

Anyway, there’s a red course and a black course.   We played the red course first.

You know, they had a different type of putter here than I’ve seen anywhere else. These putters didn’t have a line on top.  You know - a line on top of the head of the club - so you could see which way you’re heading your ball, sort of.  I have to say, I really missed that line.   But then, I’m geometrically challenged.

We liked the plastic tee plates.  They didn’t seem to trip us up the way the metal tee plates did at Novelty Golf.  They weren’t as pretty as the metal plates, but we liked that there were three different tee options.

 
The second hole, Totem Pole, had a really cool red silhouette that was slightly sunken, so once your ball got into there you couldn’t roll any further from the hole.  
 



 


On the Carousel hole - I got a hole-in-one!!!!  Wahoooo!!!

 

The Statue of Liberty was the first water hole.  You were supposed to hit your ball

across a narrow bridge.  You know, I have to say, there were signs by all the water holes saying that there was a TWO stroke penalty for going into the water.  TWO strokes!!!  Who ever heard of a two stroke penalty???  My sister, who was our guest golfer today, said they just weren’t explaining it right, they meant that we should just pretend we were teeing off at our second shot.  Hmmm.   In any case, the two times one of us went into the water, we didn’t use the TWO stroke penalty - we just used the one stroke penalty, like in real golf.  Sheesh!!

 

This hole rotates!!!  

Super Looper!!  OK, we loved this hole!!  You putted into the center, and your ball goes up the elevator and then comes out at the top of a loop-de-loop.  Man.  It was so fun to watch the mechanics.  It reminded me of the game Mousetrap.  Man, I loved that game.  






 
The Buck-a-Roo is great if you get your ball in the designated area, because then the bucking bronco statue moves and the cowboy rides him.  But, my sister’s ball got STUCK inside the mechanical thing - here she is attempting to free her
ball, which had gotten stuck on top of a ledge in the corner.   She says we should re-name this the Big-Butt-Blog!!!



 


Barb got her ball stuck on the Queen’s Castle, too.  Huh.  

 

The Sears Tower (right, the Willis Tower) had an elevator inside - it just comes out the other side, though.   (But, wait, if this is a REPLICA of the Sears Tower, built while the Sears was still the Sears, then is this replica STILL the Sears???)

 

Barb got a hole-in-one on this heart hole - she’s a straight shooter!!!

 

Oh, look, it’s a Farmville hole!!

Hole 18 was a roulette wheel.  Man, we REALLY didn’t like this hole!!!  If you’re a
kid, and you’re getting sixes on all the holes this might be a nice hole, but the thing is, you just putt in and your ball goes to a roulette wheel, and you just take the score of where your ball lands!!  How much does that suck???  There is a one in 32 chance that you’ll win a free game on this hole, but to me that doesn’t make up for getting a SIX or SEVEN that ruins your score!!!!!!!  SHEESH!!!!!!

Statistics:

Par:  41
Aaron:  47
Peg:  47
Barb:  43

Difficulty (1-6 putts, 6 putts being the most difficult):  3.5 putts
Rating (1-10 balls, 10 being the most wondrous):   6.5

You know, there was too much randomness on this course.  We LOVED the goofy decorations, and the Rube-Goldberg-like contraptions.  But there were way too many holes where you couldn’t figure out where the ball needed to go into the contraptions in order to come out the pipe that would give you a good placement.