Brookside Miniature Golf

Dear Aunt Peg:

We left DeKalb really early today, and got to Kearney, Nebraska at around 4:00.  So, we had an early dinner and then went to The Big Apple Fun Center - a big entertainment complex.  

 
It had bowling - like, 40 lanes worth - indoor miniature golf (Pirate themed. We didn’t play this course because we’d played Pirate golf in Dollywood),  video games and food, outdoor volleyball, go-carts, billiards, darts, a kids’ ball-pit . . .

OK, what on EARTH is a kids’ ball pit??  Aaron just showed me a little clip from the web-site - OMG!!!  It looks like a bizarre place where small children are PELTED with multi-colored plastic balls!!!!!!  In the clip the children seem to enjoy this activity.  I wonder, will it leave them psychologically scarred??

 . . . plus outdoor miniature golf.  Which is what we chose to play.  The black-light golf and the outdoor golf were the same price.  We thought these prices were a little high for such a small town in a remote area.  These prices displayed right here are the before 6 p.m. prices.  We considered doing “infinite bowling” which isn’t on this chart, but sounded like a great idea.  But we just golfed.

 Whoa.   Infinite Bowling.  I’m sure there’s something cosmic going on there . . .

This first hole was the most broken of all the holes.  I hit my ball into the red receptacle, which was a rotating wheel, and look where it came out! Argh!  This began to remind me of that horrifying Wii Golf that we played!!    

Mom’s ball came out here!  What was she supposed to do with that?!  

 Dad’s ball actually got stuck in the wheel!  So, um, do you use a 5 iron for that, or what?

 By this time “Guantanamera" was firmly lodged in my head!!!

Oh, wait, look at this score card.  See the upper portion?  That’s the layout of the whole course!  We thought it was supposed to be a message, but then we realized it was just the layout and nothing more.

HA!!!  It’s communication from an alien race!!!  That same alien race that created that minigolf course with the decorations that weren’t QUITE normal - and the ALIEN PIG!!!!!!   Why are aliens so attracted to minigolf, that’s what I want to know?????

After that first hole, the course really settled down.  The turf was slow, the sides were cement, and the cups were a little shallow.  But, basically everything worked.

LOOK at this cigarette butt (in the bottom of the second of the above two photos, boxed in red)!!!  Oh, man, they are in the WEST!!!!  When I asked about it, Barb said, “we went walking around Kearney, and there was a water fountain in the chemistry department at the University of Nebraska at Kearney campus, and there was a sign at the fountain that said, “don’t spit chaw in this fountain!”  SHEESH!!!!

These were the next three holes.

DIG that shadow!!!  That’s cool!!

See the artificial stream?  That's probably why this course was called “Brookside Mini-Golf”.  

 

Are these buckets ASH TRAYS?!?!? And look, the water is normal- colored!!
 

 Look at this photo!!!!  I THOUGHT it was Barb’s ball lying on the ground next to obstacles, and I couldn’t figure out how her ball could’ve gotten there, but in fact, Aaron caught her ball in mid-air flying from ramp to ramp!!!  Isn’t that amazing!!!  Perhaps he should consider a career as a sports photographer!!!

Mom got a hole-in-one on that hole.
 
Get OUT!!!!

On this hole you could go to the left, which was safe, or you could go over the bridge, which would send you anywhere BUT the hole because the steel has all kinds of texture on it!  Look at Dad’s ball flying off the bridge!

 
 

Look!!!  I love this hole!!!

 

 
 I actually went up this ramp perfectly, and didn’t get a hole-in-one.  But Mom DID get a hole-in-one.  What’s up with that?

See this fountain?  The water may not have been blue, but it smelled like a swimming pool.  But, they made the end of the course - the last two holes - so that you could be sprayed by this fountain. I didn't appreciate this feature.

 But you NEED that in Nebraska!!  Man, the heat there is TERRIBLE!!  

This hole is an uphill ramp, and this is where Dad got frustrated with the course and adopted a policy of just smacking the ball hard to see what would happen,  which is a bad idea on this course, when you need to get into the holes on the bottom of the lighthouse.  His ball flew up, banked off the lighthouse, and nearly hit the couple who was playing two holes behind us!

 
   
I hope he yelled, “FORE!!!!!!"
 
This is by far the longest hole I’ve ever played. It kind of reminded me of a go-kart track.  Here’s Mom, encouraging her ball to go a little bit farther so she wouldn't be stuck under the bridge.  It didn’t.  Luckily she could still kind of reach it with her putter.

 Hole 17 is where we had to actually take a trick shot.  Dad got his ball stuck in the tunnel, and had to use a pool shot to get out!

 
 The photo of the pool shot.

HA!!!!!

Hole 18 is the free game.  None of us won one, though as it was really difficult.  You had to hit the ball up the ramp, and then you’d get bonked around by all these pegs.  I couldn't get a great picture because the sun was at a bad angle and the whole thing was enclosed by this chain-link fence housing.

 
 
Statistics:

Par:  42
Aaron:  45
Barb:  43
Paul:  54

Difficulty (1-6 putts, 6 putts being the most difficult):  3 putts.

Rating (1-10 balls, 10 being the most wondrous):  7.5  The holes are rather long, and some of the obstacles don’t work the way they should.   And if you’re allergic to chlorine you’ll have trouble with the last couple of holes.

Coming next:  Mr. Mitchell’s Tiny Town - Estes Park, Colorado

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