Miniature Golf, Passion and Art

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.