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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
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
