The first blog post of the year

It's a new minigolf year, so we've put together a list of resources that you may find useful and interesting throughout 2017 and beyond.

Emily playing the 700th minigolf course we've visited - at Vickersway Park in Northwich

Visiting 720 minigolf courses in ten years we've seen and done a lot and we hope our adventures might inspire you to get out and explore the marvelous world of miniature golf too.

The views from the Putting courses at Looe Bowling Club in Cornwall are some of the finest we've seen

Useful and interesting websites
The number one minigolf course review site in the world can be found at the Putting Penguin. The US-based team have written and posted reviews of 281 courses in 35 US States and ten countries.

Playing the Putt in the Park mini golf course in London as Pat Sheridan from the Putting Penguin looks on

Also over in the USA our friends Tom and Robin aka A Couple of Putts are on a similar mission to us - if they see a minigolf course they have to play and review it. They've certainly played some wonderful layouts - the hot dog hole they played in Minneapolis immediately springs to mind!

Matt 'Mattie 5' Bellner is a real minigolf character. The Putt Putt Pro built a miniature golf hole on his balcony for the Christmas season and his antics on social media and beyond are well worth following.

In 2016 Minigolfnews.com was relaunched and as well as carrying results and interviews from the competitive side of the sport, the site publishes articles from the quirky and fun side of the game too.

Minigolf 'Days'
There are two quasi-official annual 'days' when you can celebrate the game.

Emily playing the Putt in the Park mini golf course in Battersea Park, London on Miniature Golf Day 2015

- National Miniature Golf Day falls on the second Saturday in May. In 2017 this will be on Saturday 13th May.

- Miniature Golf Day is always on the 21st of September, which is on a Thursday in 2017.

#MiniGolfMonday
Every Monday is #MiniGolfMonday on Twitter. Do get involved by posting your tweets, pics and videos using the hashtag. Don't forget to add #minigolf to all of your minigolf-related tweets. It'd be great to get minigolf trending in 2017.

Trying to trend in 2011 - Minigolf Bloggers Seth 'Sethers' Thomas (l), 'Squire' Richard Gottfried (r) and Oliver 'The Machine' Florence (lurking in the background) at Dorridge

Minigolf turns 150 years old in 2017
2017 sees the 150th anniversary of the world's first Miniature Golf course. The Himalayas Putting Course at St Andrews in Scotland is still open today and we visited the Links Minigolf landmark in 2012. It's a brilliant course to play.

Playing The Himalayas in 2012

Don't forget to check out The Crazy Golf Museum - home to a range of artifacts and memorabilia from the game.

The Original Crazy Golf course in Skegness turned 90 last year

Competitions
If you've got a competitive nature you may be interested in entering a serious minigolf tournament.

The World Minigolf Sport Federation is the umbrella organisation of 62 Minigolf sports associations worldwide. There are more than 38,000 competitive minigolf players registered with the WMF via the 62 member nations, with 900-plus clubs between them. Over 1,000 courses are approved for official competitions and over 1,500 minigolf tournaments are held each year.

We've competed in numerous domestic tournaments as well as representing Great Britain in competitions in Finland and Sweden

The British Minigolf Association, the UK governing body for minigolf sport, organises a number of events throughout the year. In 2017 there will be minigolf competitions held in England and Wales.

Course suppliers
There are a number of minigolf course suppliers, designers and builders in the UK and around the world.

Putting on an UrbanCrazy layout. A Crazy Golf course in a London back garden!

Check out the links below for more info on our friends in the business world of minigolf:
- UrbanCrazy
- Putterfingers.co.uk
- Castle Golf (UK and Europe)
- Castle Golf (USA)

- 3D Minigolf

- Funsports
- City Golf
- HM Adventure Golf
- Putting Edge

Courses around the UK
After hitting our landmark 600th and 700th course visits we had a rough guesstimate that there were about 50 left for us to visit. But with new courses opening up all the time this figure is certainly a movable feast! We've always been fans of buffet minigolf so there's no problem there.

The 400th course we played was at Les Mielles in Jersey in 2016

If you find a new (or old/abandoned) course do let us know as we'd love to get along for a game, or just some photos.

Wherever you play and whatever you get up to we wish you all the very best for the year ahead.

Related blog posts:
- The last blog post of the year
- Crazy World of Minigolf Tour

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