When you see something like this advertised (see photo below), you think you’re in for a good family day out. After all, adventure golf parks are pretty reliable fun, so what could possibly go wrong?
Well, this is what one family found when they arrived at the very same ‘state of the art’ crazy golf course advertised above:
Michelle Marshall, from County Down, took her daughter Arianna on a family trip to the crazy golf attraction as a treat before going back to school. But she described what they found as ‘like a playground left behind after a civil war’. Located next to Titanic Belfast, a genuinely good tourist attraction, the course lies on waste ground and is made of rotting wood with nails sticking out. The most attractive feature is a shipping container. If you were into Urban Exploration and enjoyed watching 28 Days Later, you’d probably love it, but a family with a small girl who booked a day of minigolf in good faith were so disappointed they just laughed.
With good humour, Ms Marshall said, ‘It was so hideously awful my sister and I just laughed and laughed. We’d been taken for mugs by a glossy ad and no one is even embarrassed enough to try to tart the place up.’
The story is similar to the famous ‘Winter Wonderland’ attraction in Milton Keynes that closed after just a single day of business following an outcry from customers. There have been numerous such stories and they are always hilarious, but this is the first time we have seen a minigolf attraction that looks like something inside the Chernobyl exclusion zone. Look through our past blog posts to find some proper crazy golf attractions!
Continuing in a tragi-comic vein, here’s a video of Mr. Bean playing crazy golf:
Smithy wins again!
In the British Open held on September 17th and 18th at Hastings Adventure Golf, Michael Smith once again triumphed, finishing 80 under par and winning by 2 shots from Adam Kelly with Will Donnelly taking 3rd. See the full results here. Over 10 gruelling rounds, Smith scored just two 3s and very nearly achieved a clean sheet at the ninth hole, dropping just a single shot there in the first round.
And here’s a bit of minigolf news from abroad:
African Minigolf Summit held in Kenya
The World Minigolf Sport Federation has organised a pan-African conference to discuss investment in minigolf on the continent. Representatives will attend from Botswana, Cameroon, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania and Togo. A WMF representative said, ‘There are a lot of minigolf courses in different African countries, but there are also many opportunities to develop minigolf from a ‘street’ level towards a professional sport and Continental Championships in the near future.’
