Skokie Sports Park, Part 1: Kid's Quest

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

Today’s minigolf course is Skokie Sports Park - Part I - the Kid’s Quest.  This course, run by the Skokie Park District, is at 3459 Oakton in Skokie.  This is actually the course that made me want to write this blog.  For YEARS I’ve been seeing this course from the road (OK, the adult course part) and thinking how much I wanted to play this course with my nephew, Aaron.

ANYWAY, the Kid’s Quest is a 9-hole course.  Instead of them giving you your ball at the front desk, they give you a token, and then you go to these gum-ball

machine things where you can put in your token and get out a golf ball!!!  I wanted a purple ball.  The purple ball machine was broken.  ARGH!!!  Luckily the very nice boy behind the counter was kind enough to exchange my token for a purple ball they had in the office.  Yay!!

And look at these funny beavers they have on the metal flap covering the place

where your balls come out.  Isn’t that amazing??  That they’d make such a beautiful decoration for something so . . . mundane!!  I love that.  And why beavers??  Really.  Are golf balls somehow related to beavers??  Were they ever made out of beavers??  I’ll save that question for another day.

So, Kid’s Quest.  The first hole is called Lego Land!!!  Aaron reminded me that he’s actually BEEN to the Lego Land in Billund, Denmark!!  I remember seeing their photos of that vacation.  They had a replica of Mt. Rushmore made completely out of Legos!!  Seriously!!!    I can’t figure out why you’d do that to a mountain in the first place, but then to follow it up with making a Lego replica - WOW!!   Our culture has jumped the shark.

But, the Kid’s Quest hole called Lego Land was some giant Legos that looked like something a real kid would make.  Cool.

The third hole was kiddie nirvana.  You teed off, and then got in the slide, to slide

across the river, directly to the hole!!  Kids who followed us on this course were SQUEALING over this!!  The hole crossed the river, too.  It was, I think, an artificial river that ran through the entire course. 

 
Hole Five - Into H2O - was the coolest hole EVER!!!  You were meant to actually putt INTO the river!!  I couldn’t believe it!!  Aaron putted into the river, and sure enough, his ball got swept up by the current and dumped out by the hole!!  I was amazed.  I was so excited to see that happen to my ball, too, so I putted in to the river, just like I was supposed to.  But my ball got stuck behind a rock.  See - Aaron took photos of the whole sorry process.  See my ball happily flying towards the river???  Now, this next photo is where the ball got tragically stuck.  You may have to click on the photo to enlarge it - it’s inside the red box that Aaron added.  I tried making waves with my putter - so I wouldn’t actually have to take an extra stroke.  But I wasn’t able to make good enough waves.  Sigh.  OH, here’s another photo of my sad, stuck ball.  So, I actually stood on a rock and putted it out of there.  I wonder if that hole gets a lot of people stuck like I got, or if that was rare?  

Hole 6 - Lion’s Head - was one of several where kids could actually sit in the decorations - so that they could become a PART of the decorations.  I think if you’d brought a little kid, they’d really dig sitting in the lion’s mouth while their siblings putted under them.

You know, my ball went flying right off the Lion’s Head.  Maybe I’m just not cut out for kid’s courses.

Aaron says he has a giant butt in this photo.  I say he doesn’t know what a giant butt is.  Aaron’s ball went into the river from the only place it was possible to leave this green.  Sheesh!! 

 

Look, see what I mean about people being able to sit in the decorations??  I’m parking the jeep for the end of this course.  9 holes really fly by!!

Statistics:

Par:  24
Aaron:  24
Peg:  28

Difficulty (1-6

putts, 6 putts being the most difficult):  3 putts
Rating (1-10 balls, 10 being the most wondrous):  7 balls

Oh, man, usually just the rating would be the end of this, but we ended up having a

big discussion about the rating.  You know, this course is astro-turf.  I don’t think I’ve ever played on astro-turf before.  It rolled really true, which was nice.  In general, the condition of this course was great.   The holes were pretty linear, without really many obstacles, but the Into H2O hole was SO brilliant it lifted the score of the course to 7 balls from 6.

Coming soon:  Skokie Sports Park - Part II - Traveler’s Quest