Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Mini Golf at the Downers Grove Public Library

It isn't often that we see brightly colored golf balls rolling through the mysteries, past the investment table, and down the stairs at a library, but that is just what we saw on Sunday at the Downers Grove Public Library. Bonnie and I were among the people who played an unusual and quite challenging mini golf coarse to support the Downers Grove Library Foundation. I shot a six on four of the holes, but I never had to take a seven. Once my ball bounced onto a shelf (in the 000s), and it left the course on several other occasions. I did, however, get a hole-in-one going down the stairs to regain a few strokes. We hope to get another chance at the course.

We should get that chance, as the Foundation purchased the easy-to-store course, planning to do it again. I have few recommendations for the next tournament:

  • Heavier blocks need to secure the sideboards so the curves don't come loose and direct balls off course. Books work well.
  • Plastic noodles should not be used on sharp curves. The balls roll right over and away they go.
  • Carpet around the cups be pressed to eliminate high lips.
I don't want the course, however, to be made too perfect. Having something unusual to talk about later is half the fun. We remember when our balls go astray.

Having now played a library course, I think it is probably a better event for larger libraries. I can hardly imagine getting eighteen holes into my smaller library. We might do nine, but that might not be enough. Most mini golf players expect eighteen.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the comments Rick, some good suggestions there. Regarding your comment about the event being best for larger libraries. We are the largest library that the Library Mini Golf organization has ever done. All of their other events have been in smaller libraries, some of them very small. They are quite capable of fitting 18 holes into almost any space. We did have over 2100 visiters on Sunday, including about 350 golfers!
Chistopher Bowen