A look at Arnold Palmer Putting Courses in the UK.
Arnold Palmer Putting Courses are a design classic and include all the elements that make a Crazy Golf course great – the Windmill, the Waterwheel, an Obelisk, ledges, bunkers, traps, flat loops, hills and plateaus – everything laid out to make a course interesting, testing and most of all fun!
Crazy Golf - and Arnold Palmer Putting Courses - are as much a part of the British seaside as fish & chips, sunburn, buckets & spades and drizzle.
The Arnold Palmer branded miniature golf courses were part of the Arnold Palmer Enterprises empire set-up in 1961 that saw the legendary golfer's name licensed and franchised to a wide-range of activities and products including Dry Cleaning centres and an Arnold Palmer brand foot detergent.
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| My brother Christopher recently found this Free Game Pass for the Arnold Palmer Putting Course in Hastings while looking through our old family photo albums. One of us must have won it on a holiday there in the 80's or 90's! |
By 1966 there were 130 Arnold Palmer Putting Courses in the USA, with ten in Japan and some in South Africa.
The first Arnold Palmer Putting Course in the UK opened in Coventry in 1965 and was part of an Arnold Palmer Driving Range. A course was also located at a Driving Range in Sheffield.
Sadly over the years a number of Arnold Palmer Putting Courses in the UK have been closed, abandoned, demolished or converted beyond recognition.
In recent years the Arnold Palmer Putting Course in Exmouth has been demolished, while the two Arnold Palmer courses in Great Yarmouth have been replaced by one Adventure Golf course. The two courses in Cliftonville, Margate were closed in 2014 and removed shortly after. The course that was once in Folkestone is no longer playable - as it was used to make an art installation.
Luckily, one of the very best examples of an Arnold Palmer Putting Course can still be found at
Hastings Adventure Golf in East Sussex. The 18-hole Crazy Golf course is celebrating it's 44th birthday this year, having opened on
Saturday 21st March 1975.
The Hastings course was the
39th played on our Crazy World of Minigolf Tour back in 2007 and is one of our favourite layouts. We've played there a number of times over the years and competed in the World Crazy Golf Championships on the course between 2007 and 2015.
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| Playing in the 2015 World Crazy Golf Championships in Hastings |
You can still find playable examples of Arnold Palmer Putting Courses - in varying conditions and some with modifications - in the following locations:
- Bognor Regis - built in 1993
- Broadstairs
- Caister-on-Sea (Haven Holiday Park)
- Canvey Island (9 holes of an 18 hole course remain)
- Cleethorpes
- Filey (Primrose Valley Holiday Park)
- Gorleston-on-Sea
- Hastings
- Mablethorpe (Haven Golden Sands Caravan Holiday Park)
- Mablethorpe (Hooks Island)
- Prestatyn
- Skegness x2 (9 and 18 hole courses)
- Southend-on-Sea (1 of 2 courses remain - the 'East' course) - upgraded
- Southport
- Weston-Super-Mare
- Whitby
For a time there was also a new type of 'Arnold Palmer Putting Course' in Shanklin on the Isle of Wight. Formerly a Beton-style of Miniature Golf, it received a refurbishment a few years ago and became an oversized version of many of the courses listed above! However, it was recently renovated once again and is now a dinosaur Adventure Golf course.
Lost Arnold Palmer Putting Courses:
- Ayr (Haven Craig Tara Holiday Park, formerly Butlin's)
- Battersea
- Blackpool, Starr Gate
- Bognor Regis (Butlin's)
- Camber Sands - now a Car Park
- Cliftonville, Margate (2 courses)
- Coventry
- Eastbourne
- Exmouth
- Folkestone - now an Art Installation on Beach Huts!
- Goodrington
- Great Yarmouth (2 courses) - turned into Castaway Adventure Golf
- Hornsea Potteries
- Hove
- Ladram Bay
- Leicester
- Manchester
- Minehead (Butlin's)
- Nottingham
- Prestatyn
- Pwhelli (Butlin's)
- Rhyl
- Scarborough
- Sheffield
- South Shields
- Southend-on-Sea ('West' course demolished)
- Tynemouth
- Weymouth
- Whitley Bay
- Withernsea
Here's to many more years of enjoyment playing the Arnold Palmer Putting Courses that remain.
If you know of any Arnold Palmer Putting Courses missing from the lists above do get in touch.
We have been travelling on our
Crazy World of Minigolf Tour since September 2006 and in that time have visited 859 courses. 821 of them have been in the British Isles and 38 overseas.
Of the 859 courses we've visited, 25 have been Arnold Palmer Putting Course locations.
Related blog posts:
-
Arnold Palmer Putting Courses
-
Crazy World of Minigolf Tour
4 comments:
There is now a new mini golf course at Fantasy Island on Canvey Island.
Fantasy Island (previously Cheeky Monkey's) on Canvey Island in Essex was home to an Arnold Palmer Putting Course. That layout was the 87th visited on our Crazy World of Minigolf Tour. When we played it the classic course had been cut from 18-holes to 9.
It's now home to a new 18-hole mini golf course.
Here's a look at the Arnold Palmer Minigolf Course at the Haven Caister-on-Sea Holiday Park in Great Yarmouth, Norfolk.
Here's a look at the Arnold Palmer Minigolf Course at California Cliffs Holiday Park in Scratby, Great Yarmouth, Norfolk.
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