Pop-Up Crazy Golf in Bishop's Stortford

A free Crazy Golf course will be available to play in Bishop's Stortford, Hertfordshire this Easter.

The 9-hole layout is free to play, but donations to the East Herts Chairman’s chosen charity, Isabel Hospice, are welcome.

You can play a game of Crazy Golf on Thursday 4th, Friday 5th and Saturday 6th April.

Visit the East Herts Council website for more information.

Art Mini Golf at The Minories in Colchester

An art-based Mini Golf course has been created at The Minories in Colchester, Essex.

The artist created minigolf course will be open from the 11th February to the 25th February.

Visit The Minories website and the Cuckoo Farm Artist in Residence: Tom Armstrong - Mini-ories Golf page for more information.

Crazy Golf at The Dreadnought Hotel in Callander

There are plans for a Crazy Golf course at The Dreadnought Hotel in Callander, Scotland.

The course will be a temporary, season-long attraction and will operate under the name Pee Wee's Crazy Golf.

Visit the Pee Wee's Crazy Golf Facebook Page for more information.

An old Crazy Golf course at Alum Chine in Bournemouth

A look at an old minigolf course at Alum Chine in Bournemouth.

I bought a number of superb old postcards at the last fair I attended, one of them was this cracking old card showing a temporary / portable Crazy Golf course at Alum Chine, Bournemouth. It was printed by Deardon & Wade Bournemouth. It's postally unused and undated.

Postcard of Alum Chine, Bournemouth. Printed by Deardon & Wade Bournemouth.Postally unused. Undated

It's brilliant seeing old, long-gone miniature golf courses depicted on postcards. Portable and pop-up minigolf courses are very often seen as a modern thing. However there have been a number of seasonal set-ups at seaside locations over the years.

We were really looking forward to revisiting Bournemouth, Boscombe, Southbourne, Poole and Sandbanks next month. That trip is now postponed until next year.

Free Crazy Golf at Affinity Outlet Staffordshire

There's a free to play Crazy Golf course at Affinity Outlet Staffordshire this summer.

A free 6-hole miniature crazy golf course has been set up at Affinity Outlet Staffordshire for the summer.

More information can be found on the Affinity Outlet Staffordshire website.

Cathedral Crazy Golf in Rochester

There's a new Crazy Golf course at Rochester Cathedral in Kent.

Plans for the temporary Crazy Golf installation were announced earlier this year and the new course is now open to play.

The 9-hole Crazy Golf course is free to play and is a partnership between Rochester Cathedral and Rochester Bridge Trust. The layout has been supplied by HM Adventure Golf.

It's fair to say the pop-up Crazy Golf course's appearance in a religious setting has caused some controversy.

However, it's not the first time minigolf and cathedrals have mixed. Back in 2017 a complaint was made about a devil obstacle on a Crazy Golf course at the Winchester Hat Fair. That course was set-up in the grounds of Winchester Cathedral.

The Rochester Cathedral Crazy Golf course is from the same range as the course I recently played at The Palace Fun Centre in Rhyl.

 The HM Adventure Golf course at the Palace Fun Centre in Rhyl

You can play the Rochester Cathedral Crazy Golf course until the 1st September.

Leisure Land Crazy Golf at York Art Gallery

Playing Doug Fishbone's Leisure Land Golf course at York Art Gallery.

A look at the first three holes

On Sunday 3rd September we swung by York Art Gallery to play Doug Fishbone's Leisure Land Golf course. The 7-hole layout became the 451st we've played and 763rd visited overall on our Crazy World of Minigolf Tour since September 2006.

Playing hole 2

In our match-up on the course I picked up the win with a score of 16 to Emily's 38.

My score was enough to top the leaderboard - the previous best on the day had been 26. Although when we walked back through the gardens just as the course was closing a score of 15 had been made later in the day

Doug Fishbone's Leisure Land Golf

The minigolf layout consists of holes and obstacles created by different artists from the contemporary art world.

Hole 1 - Reactor - Alligator Resort

Hole 1

Hole 1

Hole 2 - Yinka Shonibare MBE - Football Cloud

Hole 2

Hole 3 - Eyal and Ines Weizman - The Bridge of Königsberg

My favourite hole - it's always great to score less than 1 on a hole!

Hole 4 - Hetain Patel - Coloured Processor

Hole 4  not the easiest hole(s) to play!

Hole 4

Hole 4

Hole 5 - John Akomfrah - The Turkey Shoot Galactico

Hole 5

Hole 5

Hole 6 - Doug Fishbone - SOS

Hole 6

Hole 6

Hole 6

Hole 7 - Ellie Harrison - Life Raft

Hole 7

X marks the spot

The green on hole 7

Doug Fishbone's Leisure Land Golf course was open at York Art Gallery throughout the summer following its installation as part of an Art Happens campaign to bring the course to York. It was originally created for the Venice Biennale in 2015 and last year was in Nottingham and Derby. I played the course in Nottingham - it was 10-holes then. And indoors.

Who knows where it'll be installed next...

Emily playing hole 2

Minigolf is a popular theme for artists and we've played a few other art-installation pop-up crazy golf courses on our travels. Our friends of at A Couple of Putts have also created a few holes, obstacles and courses for art galleries and shows!

Visit the York Art Gallery website for more information on the exhibition.

Links:
- York Art Gallery

Related blog posts:
- York
- Crazy World of Minigolf Tour
- Doug Fishbone's Leisure Land Golf in Venice
- Doug Fishbone's Leisure Land Golf in Nottingham

Videos of the course:
- Hole 1
- Hole 3 - scoring a '2'
- Hole 3 - scoring another '2'
- Hole 3 - scoring a hole-in-none!
- Hole 4
- Hole 5
- Hole 7

Crazy Golf course at the Ipswich Maritime Festival

My brother-in-law Rob Harper was at the Ipswich Maritime Festival over the weekend and spotted they had a Crazy Golf course there! Minigolf courses certainly do pop up everywhere!

It looked like an interesting 9-hole layout - hole 7 appears to be Stonehenge!

Always nice to see a windmill on a Crazy Golf course

Not the Orwell Bridge

Related blog posts:
- Ipswich
- Crazy Golf

Not playing Crazy Golf at Clerkenwell Design Week 2014

Having heard that one of the showrooms at Clerkenwell Design Week 2014 was going to set-up a Crazy Golf course themed with its office furniture and chair designs as obstacles I was intrigued and interested in giving the course a play. Especially as it was a temporary course available to be played between 9am and 7pm at the GGI showroom during the three days of #CDW2014.

A group of us had registered to attend and were really excited to be heading to play the course.

The first of our party arrived at the GGI showroom at 5.25pm on the 20th of May (the first day of CDW) to find the course closed - as Emily and I have found a number of courses closed when we arrive to play on our Crazy World of Minigolf Tour I assumed it was a rib from them.

But it wasn't! We arrived at 5.35pm to find the showroom (one of over 60 taking part in Clerkenwell Design Week) to be closed.

Outside the closed GGI showroom at Clerkenwell Design Week. A disappointed Richard Gottfried (centre) with from l-r Chris Jones, Brad Shepherd and Paul O'Connor. Not pictured is a distraught Emily Gottfried

The closest we got to playing the course was peering through the high windows from street level and spotting a bucket of putters.

The bucket of putters and some chairs. Yesterday

Annoyingly when we checked our emails later in the evening we'd received an email from Clerkenwell Design Week which had details of the GGI Crazy Golf course and a reminder of the opening times!?

I hope other visitors are luckier than our group was and get to play the course.

Check out my blog post on the Adventure Golf, Crazy Golf, Minigolf and Golf Putting Green courses we've played in and around London since July 2008.

We have been lucky in London before and played some interesting temporary courses and installations over the years, including at Devonshire Square, the roof of Selfridges, Alexandra Palace, Golf Apocalypse, the Tintype Gallery, Wooly Golf, Carnaby Street, the London Golf Show, Regent's Place and at the 2012 Brewmaster's Open at the Camden Town Brewery.

London will soon be getting a brand new minigolf course, as Moby Adventure Golf opens in Chadwell Heath, Romford later this month!

Minigolf Course Visit No. 155 - Devonshire Square, London

On Wednesday 28th October 2009 we also visited and managed to play the Minigolf Course at Devonshire Square in London (near Liverpool Street Station).

The course visit was 199 overall (including derelicts and closed courses) and the 155th course we have played on the Crazy World of Minigolf Tour.

The 18-hole indoor course was tricky with some very interesting moving obstacles.

Great fun to play too.





Video - Introducing the 155th Crazy World of Minigolf Tour visit to Devonshire Square


Video - Hole 1


Video - Hole 2 (A very tough moving obstacle!)


Video - Hole 4 (Crazy Golf AND Bowling! What could be better?)



In the "Richard vs. Emily" Irregular Minigolf Tour match-up it was Emily who won by a stroke, with a score of 46 to my 47.

The course manager told us that in November, December and January the course will be changed to have a Christmas/Winter Wonderland theme! Hopefully we'll get a chance to return to play the new course layout then.

View other courses visited on the Crazy World of Minigolf Tour.

Link to a blog post about other Mini Golf, Crazy Golf and Adventure Golf courses in and around London.