Thursday, May 20, 2004
Art, junk and miniature golf
My wife Rocky teaches a small art class in her studio (our livingroom). Her approach to kids' art is to give them opportunities to become familiar with a wide range of materials. A recent project: create a golf-course in a shoebox lid.
In preparing for the class, Rocky asked me to look up any references I could find to Miniature Golf - so we could collect some photos to further inspire the kids. I came across Mika's Down-Under Miniature Golf Course and have been chortling with nascent glee ever since.
The story: "Matt built the course for Mika in the basement of their house in December, 1996, as a Christmas present. It was assembled in pieces in the paint room, then secretly laid out the evening of December 24th, 1996. The total cost was around $340.00, which included about $100 of plastic toys not actually used in the final course, the rest going mostly for random bits of lumber, the golf turf, a putter, and several overpriced automatic golfball return devices. It was gradually disassembled by random cat activity over the course of eight months, and was finally disassembled in September, 1997, because we needed to use the laundry table."
Fact is, albeit an evanescent wonder, Matt managed to build an 18-hole golf course in his basement, and a half-year of significant miniature-golf-like fun for his family. For Matt's illustrated guide to basement golf, see the webpage.
Building one's own miniature golf course is apparently a semi-approved educational activity. Here's a story describing how Students Design Miniature Golf Course out of Legos. Legos. But of course (so to speak)!
So inspired was I by these stories that I sought out that repository of all half-baked ideas, Halfbakery for evidence of advanced thinking along these lines, wherewithin I found Extreme Miniature Golf and The Miniature Golf Version of Anything.
Of course, you can further miniaturize golf, until you find yourself playing mini-miniature golf on paper or even on the computer.
Something is telling me that designing one's own miniature golf course is an invitation to potentially preternaturally deep fun.
Something tells me that designing a mini-golf course is actually more fun than playing mini-golf. I don't know why, but I've always been bored with mini-golf.
However, I believe there must be *some* way to make mini-golf into something ridiculously fun. It has so much potential, but it's just missing something. Maybe something as simple as a new set of rules, I don't know. Any ideas?
Extreme mini-golf looks like it would be a lot of fun if it wasn't so life-threatening!
BTW, for a really challenging computer version of mini-golf, check out the version on http://www.candystand.com
Peace,
Noise E Piranha
http://www.NoiseEPiranha.com
I do agree that the game could be made far more fun, and that it has a lot to do with the rules (like suppose two people played at the same time? or two teams? and the first to get their ball in wins or something?
Bern
Hmmmm that might be a good starting point, turning it into a "race". One other thing I don't like about mini-golf is the wait time when the course is busy. A line of ten or more groups can get stuck behind a group that moves very slowly, and unlike real golf, there doesn't seem to be any tolerance for "playing through".
Peace,
Noise E Piranha
I was thinking less of a race and more of a head-to-head competition. Maybe there are two or several tees and players start simultaneously.
Bern
I think we're thinking the same thing, just using different terminology -- two people would tee off at the exact same time, and see who could get the ball into the hole first. Right?
Are you assuming the game would be played on an existing mini-golf course? That would work well, because it would allow "traditional" groups of players to keep playing the way they always have, while allowing other groups to play the modified game.
For score keeping, instead of counting strokes, would you just maybe put an "X" in the blank for the person who got the ball in first on the hole, and whoever has the most "X"s at the end of the game, wins?
There's still the matter of the long lines that form behind groups that are very slow. One solution might be to wander the course (probably just to the hole *after* the slow group's hole) looking for holes with no lines.
Check out www.miniaturegolfer.com - it's a great site with lots of pictures of courses around the world.
Yes designing a mini-golf course is actually more fun than playing mini-golf.It's a great pleasure playing and learning golf at such beautiful location. I surf Golf lessons .I'm a big freak about golf.