Just opposite Manchester Piccadilly train station lies Piccadilly Place, where Junkyard Golf is to open again on Thursday, September 1. The folks at Junkyard Golf have been raiding charity shops and eBay for enough junk to make two new nine-hole courses, called Freida and Pablo. Expect new layouts and surprises from this creative crazy golf popup as it returns to Manchester after a successful London Opening. Freida will have a ‘small-town nightclub’ theme where people who’d ‘like being 18 and living in Swindon in 2003’ will find their paradise. Pablo is a polluted jungle strewn with litter and featuring an oil-soaked ocean. More topical than tropical, by the sound of it. Expect junky fun and book early because it’s going to be BUSY!
OPENING TIMES
MON-THURS 4PM – 12AM
FRIDAY 2PM – 12AM
SATURDAY 12PM – 12AM
SUNDAY 12PM – 10PM
If you want your own minigolf course, though, there’s no need to go rummaging through skips. We supply ready-made obstacles that you simply plonk down on the ground or on our AstroTurf minigolf tiles, and you’re good to go. Check them out here.
Over in Southend, there are plans to build a new 18-hole adventure golf course at Garon Park in Eastern Avenue. Planning permission has been applied for, and if approved, construction should start this winter with a view to opening for Easter 2017.
Garon Park Golf Course owner Alan Walker hopes that the adventure golf format will appeal to youngsters and get them interested in golf. It’s a large course, covering two acres, and will take about an hour and a half to play. He believes that adventure golf is the future: ‘We have a good location. The course is right next to our par three course and we hope for natural progression to the par three. It’s to introduce golf to young children and bring everyone in. Crazy golf was a Sixties thing and this is much more interactive and visual, there is much more participation.’
There isn’t any information yet on what the theme will be. Dinosaurs, jungles and pirates are three of the most popular options for new courses. But let’s wait and see first if they get permission to build it.
A view from across the pond reckons that minigolf is the hippest thing to do in London. The Toronto Star lists Swingers, Junkyard Golf Club, and Birdies in Stratford as the most with-it places to hang out in London. It also mentions the defunct Trafalgar Square plan as evidence of how hot minigolf is over here. They’re not wrong, either. Apparently post-Brexit vote, air fares from Canada to London are a lot cheaper, so maybe we can expect our crazy golf clubs and bars to be full of Canadians soon. I’m sure they won’t mind.
Putterfingers are pretty darn hip too. We have hired minigolf courses to the likes of Facebook, don’t you know. And Tommy Hilfiger. And … well, we could go on but we’re just too cool to bother.
