New Mini Golf course opening soon in Cannon Hill Park, Birmingham

36-hole Miniature Golf centre opening at Birmingham's Cannon Hill Park in April 2014.

My fellow Minigolfer adventurers Paul & Owen Johnson and newly based in Birmingham Minigolf duo Steve Sturdy and Ruth Burke have let me know that a new 36-hole Mini Golf centre is opening at Cannon Hill Park in Birmingham in April 2014!

The sign on the fence displaying details of the new 36-hole Mini Golf course opening in April  (photo by Paul Johnson)

The venue will be home to two 18-hole courses that from the look of the plans and details in the news release sound like they'll be great.

Check out the photos of the new Golden Putter Mini Golf site in the photos below taken by Paul Johnson and Steve Sturdy in March 2014.

It was still a bit muddy when Steve Sturdy and Ruth Burke visited the Cannon Hill Park site (photo by Steve Sturdy)

One of the holes in the process of being built (photo by Paul Johnson)

Cannon Hill Park has an interesting Miniature Golf history, as many years ago it was home to a concrete Crazy Golf course that Owen 'Jackpot' Johnson unearthed on a visit in 2011.

The remnants of 'hole 3' of the very old Cannon Hill Park Crazy Golf course discovered by Owen Johnson in 2011

The park was then the site of a semi-portable Minigolf course that had made its way from Rotherham, to the Pier in Clacton-on-Sea and then back inland to Birmingham!

Emily and I didn't manage to play the course when it was in Cannon Hill Park, but did play the great (17-hole!) layout in Clacton in 2011.

The team at Golden Putter Mini Golf also operate the Lammas Park Adventure Golf course in Staines, the Minigolf at Wroxham Barns, the Minigolf at St Nicholas Park in Warwick and the Clifton Park course in Rotherham.

Apart from the Rotherham course, our Crazy World of Minigolf Tour has taken us to the rest of those operated by Greenspace Leisure / Golden Putter Mini Golf and really enjoyed testing our skills on them. We're looking forward to heading to play the new layout at Cannon Hill Park soon.

Links:
- Golden Putter Mini Golf
- Greenspace Leisure Ltd
- Birmingham City Council

Related blog posts:
- Crazy World of Minigolf Tour
- Minigolf on Clacton Pier - Crazy World of Minigolf Tour - Course Played #217

The Lost City Adventure Golf at The Cornerhouse in Nottingham

Playing the 330th and 331st miniature golf courses on the Crazy World of Minigolf Tour at The Lost City Adventure Golf in Nottingham.

The Lost City Adventure Golf at The Cornerhouse in Nottingham

On Friday 28th March 2014 Emily and I visited the two-course, 36-hole Lost City Adventure Golf centre in Nottingham.

A view of the course from the balcony

The Temple Trail course was the 330th course we've played and 551st visited, with the Sacred Skull Pass the 331st and 552nd respectively on the Crazy World of Minigolf Tour.

In our match-up on The Temple Trail I defeated Emily 43 to 44, while on the Sacred Skull Pass Emily beat me 37 to 38 - which meant over the 36-holes it was a tie! We'll have to return one day for a play-off.

We played both courses before 12 noon and so the 36-holes cost £9 per player. Check out The Lost City's website for details of costs and opening times.

The entrance to The Lost City. It's all very well themed.

Emily playing at The Lost City Adventure Golf

Richard putting at The Lost City Adventure Golf course

Emily at The Lost City Adventure Golf course in Nottingham

Richard playing at The Lost City Adventure Golf course in Nottingham

Richard on The Lost City Adventure Golf course

The course is well designed, looks great and is well maintained. It's well worth a visit if you're in Nottingham.

Links:

- The Lost City Adventure Golf

- The Cornerhouse, Nottingham

Related blog posts:

- Indoor Minigolf, Crazy Golf and Adventure Golf courses

- Crazy World of Minigolf Tour

Congo River Adventure Golf at Blaby Golf Centre

Playing the 329th miniature golf course on the Crazy World of Minigolf Tour at Blaby Golf Centre in Leicestershire.

Blaby Golf Centre is home to an 18-hole Minigolf course - the Congo River

On Thursday 27th March 2014 we visited Blaby Golf Centre in Leicestershire to play the Congo River Adventure Golf course.

A previous visitor to the Congo River Adventure Golf course in Blaby!

There's a crashed plane on the course too!

On the day of our visit we were told that three of the 18-holes were being cleaned/repaired so we'd only be able to have a partial round.

One of the closed holes

As we'd travelled to Blaby specifically to play the course we weren't put off by the prospect of not having a full game.

The Adventure Golf layout is interesting and has some unique hole designs. Some of the holes have a carpet-like surface, while others are felt coverings.

Emily putting at Blaby Golf Centre

  

Richard putting by the crashed plane

One of the holes sees you Putting over a bridge walkway

A view of the Congo River. In Blaby, Leicestershire!

Emily playing hole 17 on her way to a slight victory over Richard

In our match-up Emily and I tied on a score of 49 apiece, although as Emily scored a hole-in-one and I didn't she picked up the victory.

The course was the 329th played and 549th visited overall on our Crazy World of Minigolf Tour.

Link:

- Blaby Golf Centre

Related blog post:

- Crazy World of Minigolf Tour

Crazy Golf at Mundy Play Centre in Markeaton Park, Derby

The landmark 550th miniature golf course visited on the Crazy World of Minigolf Tour.

While on our trip to the East Midlands on the 27th of March 2014 we visited Derby's Markeaton Park.

At Derby's Markeaton Park

Unfortunately the 17-hole (!) Crazy Golf course at the park's Mundy Play Centre wasn't open - it was an 'out of season' Thursday - so while it became the landmark 550th course visited on our Crazy World of Minigolf Tour, it wasn't added to our played course tally.

Looking at the satellite image of the course on Google you can see it used to be an 18-hole course - but old hole 8 has been removed!

Photos of the remaining seventeen holes of the course are below.

I've been looking forward to visiting the Crazy Golf course for ages as I first saw David Cameron MP playing it on a visit to the town (back when he was the leader of the opposition) and I have some correspondence from him about Minigolf following his visit!

Unfortunately I didn't get started on playing the course. This time.

Markeaton Park is currently part way through a restoration project and there was a lot of upgrade work going on while we visited. Many of the facilities are still open at weekends - my local source Jam Trubridge told me that the Crazy Golf was open today, as was the bouncy castle. You can find out more details about the restoration project on the Derby City Council website.

Interestlingly the park is also home to a Miniature / Light Railway!

Mundy Halt on the Markeaton Park Light Railway line in Derby

Links:

- Mundy Play Centre on Derby City Council's website

- Markeaton Park on Derby City Council's website

Related blog posts:

- Crazy World of Minigolf Tour

Finding the Jan Van Haasteren Crazy Golf Jumbo Jigsaw Puzzle in Derby

A long quest to find an elusive Mini-Golf jigsaw puzzle is over!

After much searching on our travels around the UK, Emily and I finally found a missing piece of our Crazy Golf collection as we spotted the Jan Van Haasteren Crazy Golf jigsaw puzzle by Jumbo in Derby!

The Jumbo Crazy Golf jigsaw puzzle by Jan Van Haasteren comes in 1500 and 3000 piece sets

Derby's indoor market has a set of stalls - called Poynton's - consisting of a newsagent, a sweetshop and a treasure trove of jigsaw puzzles!

Emily is a big fan of Wasgij puzzles and together we've been hunting for the Jan Van Haasteren Jumbo 'Mini Golf' jigsaw since we spotted it in a temporary Christmas shop in Ipswich a couple of years ago (and we've rued the decision to not buy it then as it was at the start of a bout of Christmas shopping and we never made it back to the shop).

Emily scores a big win by finding the Jumbo Crazy Golf jigsaw puzzle by Jan Van Haasteren

Faced with a choice of the 3000 or 1500 piece puzzles we opted for the 1500 piece one as we'd need to buy a bigger dining table for the 3000 piece one to fit on!

The puzzle has four titles - Crazy Golf, Midgetgolf, Mini-Golf and Minigolf - and depicts a very crazy miniature golf course! Emily and I might have visited over 550 courses on our Crazy World of Minigolf Tour, but we've never seen one as wild and crazy as the one conjured up from Jan Van Haasteren's imagination!

On another recent road-trip we visited the village of Easingwold and spotted The Yorkshire Jigsaw Store there. It's another shop that is worth a look, and while the Jan Van Haasteren Minigolf jigsaw puzzle wasn't in stock, they did say they could've ordered it in for us.

Back in October 2013 the team at Putterfingers put together a great blog post entitled "5 Reasons a Crazy Golf Puzzle is Great Fun!".

Related blog post:
- Jigfest 2012!

Links:
- Derby Market Hall
- Poynton's
- Jan Van Haasteren's website
- Jan Van Haasteren on Twitter
- Jumbo Jigsaw Puzzles
- Jumbo Games UK on Twitter
- The Yorkshire Jigsaw Store
- The Official UK Puzzle Club