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If you want to teach somone about miniature golf - this is not the course to take them. There are two courses, the easy one and the difficult one and we decided to play the difficult one because there was no line. Well now we know why. They start you out with 2 or 3 easy holes and then the heck begins because whomever was allowed to design these last 15 holes was masochistic and none of our group had anywhere near anything called fun after hole 3. Very unfair pin placements and very bad for beginners. Any child who plays this course will not want to play mini golf again. EVER ! Nuff said !
Richard Cranium - User Review (August 2005)
Terrible. If I had to describe this course in one word that would be it- terrible. At the time of this review, this is the worst mini-golf course most of us have ever played. There are many
reasons for this and I'll try to sort them out the best that I can. The only thing we likes about this course is that they gave you metal-head putters instead of the normal rubber-head. The first reason
this course is terrible is the overall condition of the course. Much of the ancillary parts of the course, such as the waterfalls or little rivers, are dry and any objects set along this course (as
opposed to the obstacles course) are poorly constructed and in disrepair. In many places the mats are worn down almost to the concrete and there are many seams showing on almost every hole. This makes
putting very difficult in that one can never tell where the putt will go when it hits a rut or a seam. In addition, there are many divots or canyons in which the ball can easily get stuck. Much of this
is due to the design of the drainage system on this course. Instead of doing something real with the drainage, the proprietors obviously felt that the easiest and cheapest solution would be to make sure
all the holes have a severe slope to them, and that the mat forms a chasm in some places for the water to run off, or for a ball to get hopelessly stuck.
This leads us to the second problem of the course: hole design. On 90% of the holes on this course, if you don't nail the hole in the first shot, you're doomed to at least a 3, more likely a 4,5, or 6.
Trying to hit a two after missing the first shot is near impossible. Part of this has to do with the severe slope all the holes have thanks to "drainage" or poor workmanship. If you miss the cup by a ¼
inch, you're doomed to watch the ball roll 15 feet, no matter how hard you hit it. If you hit the ball a bit too hard or soft off the tee, it's almost guaranteed to fly over and land in a ditch or roll
back helplessly to the tee. Any skill you have in putt won't help you much on this course, save for a few flat, decently built holes, but those are rare. Another drawback is that on at least 50% of the
holes, the cup is set on the top of a little mound, making landing anywhere near the cup out of the question. If you don't put it in the hole, you're easily looking at a 5-10 foot putt every single time.
There are no "tap-ins" on this course. One hole was even designed so that the mat was push about a ½ inch up the back wall so that it is impossible to bounce the ball off the wall. Since the hole sloped
towards the back, unless you hit the ball right in off the tee, or are lucky enough to get it away from the bottom of the hill and right into the bottom of the cup, you're doomed to a 5 or 6. Further
proof of the poor design of the holes is the "clumping effect" that we saw on nearly every hole. This effect is simply that no matter where you hit the ball, no matter how hard you hit it, the design of
the hole brings all the balls to the same spot. This furthers the theory that you have to be one and out, or suffer dire consequences. What may be the worst hole on the course is the "Criss-cross" of
holes 5 and 15. Essentially these two holes form and "X" with tees on one end and holes on the other, sharing the same green space. Now, this causes a problem when two different groups arrive on this
hole at the same time. Because of the lack of signs to tell you what's going on, it seems as if you can shoot at either hole, causing a huge headache for everyone involved. Players and balls get in the
way of each other and the place turns into a mess. There was no creativity at all on this course, as most holes are just knock-offs of the standard mini-golf holes.
It's because of all these factors that this course ranks a 10 in difficulty. However, this is a bad 10. The holes themselves are not designed to be difficult in a good way, with fancy water hazards, sand
traps or other devices that we have seen on other courses. Granted, they may have more of this on the "obstacles course", but something on this course would be nice. The poor design of these holes makes
the difficulty rating a bad 10. (See the Farmington Mini-golf for a good 10 difficulty course.) Now, we know this may seem like the disgruntled ramblings of a bunch of people who didn't do well, but it's
not. In fact, one of our group hit under par, and two of our group hit within eight strokes of par. Basically, this course is terrible and provides no fun whatsoever. It's so bad that we couldn't even
bring ourselves to play it's sister course and we love to play mini-golf, if you couldn't tell. Stay away from this course at all costs; it's not even worth the lower than normal price they charge.
Pat Sheridan (2001), The Putting Penguin
Best score reported: 52 - MD
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