The Minigolf Offensive

The main entry to the local showgrounds lies directly opposite a minigolf establishment.

I should really say *the* minigolf establishment as it’s the only one in town.  It may very well be the only one in the region.  To the best of my knowledge, none of the neighbouring towns have minigolf… places.

What do you call the location where one plays minigolf?  Is it a field?  A park?  A centre?  Greens?  “Minigolf greens” sounds silly, but so does “minigolf links”.  It’s certainly not a club – you don’t join it, you just turn up and play.

I’m going to go with “centre”.  It’s a nice generic word that could mean almost anything (except, perhaps, “circumference”, “fringe” or “periphery”).

Anyway, as I was saying, I believe our minigolf centre is the only minigolf centre in the region.  It has been there for at least a decade and a half – possibly two decades.  I remember going there at east once when I was in high school.  I went again about seven or eight years ago for a party.  And I visited for the third (fourth?) time in my life this year, when I went to the Show.

I have often thought of going there again over the years, but I’m one of those lazy people who never visit places in their own town.

On this occasion I walked out of the showgrounds and noticed the centre was open, and thought I may as well go in and play.  Now, I have actually been to a couple of other minigolf centres while on holidays, so this wasn’t the third (fourth?) time I’ve ever played the game, just the third (fourth?) time I’ve been to this particular establishment. 

The last two (three?) times I didn’t really pay any attention to the grounds or the design of the place.  This time I couldn’t help it.  

The current owners had taken one of the two courses out of action and replaced it with a rather sad combination of messy-construction site and unused jumping castle.  The remaining course was in a severe state of disrepair.

The fake turf on the greens was ripped and fraying.  Many of the original obstacles had been removed and either replaced with common garden ornaments (as in, terracotta pots and those little stone temple thingies), or simply hadn’t been replaced at all.  Everything was so worn and dilapidated that you couldn’t help but note how simply it had all been put together in the first place – and how simply it could have been repaired.

Sure, there was a few thousand dollars worth of hardware involved in fixing the place up – but this is a business, for goodness’ sake.  If you can’t invest a few thousand dollars in maintaining the grounds that your livelihood depends on, then what is the point of you?  Why are you doing this if you are going to do it so badly?

But I noticed something while I was going around the course.  I noticed how simply it had all been done in the first place.

This was a space no bigger than some of the back yards in the old suburbs.  Parts of the grounds were just lawn and gardens:  some nice spots to sit with a drink or a picnic and a pergola with a barbeque for parties.

The actual “links” (or whatever you call them) were just a bit of clever landscaping, really.  A strip of concrete with a hole at one end (a bit of plumbing pipe), covered in fake turf and made “interesting” with the inclusion of obstacles.  Some plants or mini-rock gardens separated the links from each other to create a sense that each was is own little space, and the use of a bit of raised dirt and steps gave it some different levels and made it a bit more varied.

And the original obstacles weren’t even that clever.  They were much more clever than their common-garden replacements, but they were basically blocks of painted wood with holes cut in strategic places, or sculptures with a bit of tubing running through them.  It was the paint (now quite worn and faded) that made them look interesting in the first place.

Looking at this sad, dilapidated excuse for an activity centre, I suddenly realised just how easy it would be to make your own.

Seriously.  I want to make one now.