Crazy Golf on Southend Pier

A look back at our visit to play Crazy Golf on Southend Pier.

We headed to the seaside town of Southend on Sea for a day out of fun and games back in June 2016.

It was the last seaside trip we made while still living down south. We started the big day out with a visit to the brilliant Southend Pier Crazy Golf course - 1.3 miles out to sea!

The view back towards dry land

Playing above the sea

  

Related blog posts:
- Swedish Felt Mini Golf courses in Essex
- Crazy World of Minigolf Tour
- Essex

------------------

Check out the Crazy World of Minigolf Tour Newsletter archive and sign-up to receive future editions

Pitch & Plakks indoor miniature golf game

Check out the Kickstarter for the new Pitch & Plakks minigolf game - there are only 11 days to go.

Post contains affiliate links

We love playing minigolf - whether it's a full size course, a video game or a board game we're super competitive!

In May we found out about Pitch & Plakks, an indoor minigolf course board game toy. It's the second game from the team at Plakks after they successfully launched the Plakks football game in 2019.

If you are interested in finding out more about Pitch & Plakks and supporting a growing business with a great product please use this link. Any pledges made through it will also support us to continue bringing you brilliant minigolf content.

Pitch & Plakks will be a nice addition to our collection of minigolf toys, games and board games.

More information, FAQs, photos and videos can be found on the Pitch & Plakks Mini Golf game Kickstarter campaign page.

WINNERS DON'T USE DRUGS

Who is your favourite Director of the FBI?

I'd have to go with William S. Sessions.

Show me a better arcade game attract screen. I'll wait

Happy National Video Game Day!

Mr Mulligan's Lost World Adventure Golf in Stevenage, Hertfordshire. July 2016

A look back at our visit to Mr Mulligan's Lost World Adventure Golf in Stevenage, Hertfordshire.

We visited Mr Mulligan's Lost World Adventure Golf in Stevenage back in July 2016. It was the last course we visited while we still lived down in Luton.

There are two 18-hole indoor adventure golf layouts at the centre at Stevenage Leisure Park - the Jungle Explorers and Ocean Adventurers courses.

The courses were the 685th and 686th visited on our Crazy World of Minigolf Tour.

You can also find Mr Mulligan Adventure Golf courses in Basildon, Birmingham, Bournemouth, Castleford, Cheltenham, Milton Keynes (indoor and outdoor), Newcastle, Nottingham, Sidcup, Tonbridge and Woking.

We've visited them all apart from Basildon, Bournemouth, the indoor course in Milton Keynes, Nottingham and Tonbridge.

-------

Check out the Crazy World of Minigolf Tour Newsletter archive and sign-up to receive future editions

Where in the world was this miniature golf course?

Can you identify where this miniature golf course was?

Clue - it's a lost course

Happy National Video Game Day

Today is National Video Game Day.

This is some of the video game graffiti art at the Ghetto Golf indoor minigolf courses in Birmingham and Liverpool.

Putting in the Kitchen

Pandemic Putting at Home has now moved into our kitchen.

Does that look an adverse camber to you?

I'm looking forward to competing in the new Putt18 World Pro League.

The season tees-off tomorrow, Wednesday 8th July and players from around the world will compete every two weeks for a total of seven events.

More information can be found on the Putt18 website.

Putter Madness face masks

The team at Putter Madness have some very nice branded face masks for staff to wear at their upcoming minigolf events.

We are all prepared for our first event next week, it’s been a while! ⛳️ #Event #CrazyGolf #MiniGolf #MiniPutt #StaySafe pic.twitter.com/iE3oJElXAg

— Putter Madness (@Putter_Madness) July 2, 2020

Cranford Golf Centre in Heaton Mersey, Stockport

A look at a lost golf centre in Heaton Mersey, Stockport.

The gates at the entrance to the old golf centre

In May we found a lost golf centre on one of our daily walks in Stockport during lockdown.

This building will not be standing for much longer

We were in Heaton Mersey again yesterday and had a walk round the Common and Nature Reserve next to the centre.

The fence at the back of the centre

A view of the rear of the golf centre building

There's some graffiti on the buildings

Cranford Golf Centre was a golf driving range. It closed down on the 31st October 2014.

The range and bays

A closer look at the bays

A view of the overgrown driving range

Looking online there were plans for the area to be turned into housing. We saw a notice with more details of the demolition of the golf centre buildings on the gate yesterday, it was dated 22nd June 2020.

The public notice about the proposed developments on the site

Ghetto Golf face masks

Ghetto Golf has a range of branded face masks for sale at their venues. More info is up on the Ghetto Golf website.

Social distancing at Teezers Crazy Golf in Coventry

Teezers Crazy Golf in Coventry is reopening tomorrow, Wednesday 8th July.

Pubs of Stockport

A look at the pubs of Stockport during the coronavirus pandemic lockdown.

Pub number 1 - The Kings Tap on Station Road in Cheadle Hulme. A lovely Art Deco building. We'd never seen it shuttered before the lockdown

We've spent some of our new-found outdoor exercise time during the coronavirus pandemic lockdown visiting the pubs of Stockport.

Pub number 73 - The Crown Inn on Heaton Lane in Stockport town centre

It's been interesting to see the variety of architecture, different signage, parts of the town we haven't been to for a long time and other parts of the area we've never been to. I've been documenting them on Instagram using the #StopfordianPubs tag.

Pub number 222 - The Bull's Head Hotel in High Lane, Stockport. Our daily walks around the town took us to the borough's canals on a number of occasions

This is us outside pub number 265 - The Nursery Inn in Heaton Norris on Friday 3rd July 2020.

At the 265th pub on our lockdown 'pub crawl'. Not a drop was drunk on our daily walks in April, May, June and July

It was the last of all the pubs in the Metropolitan Borough of Stockport we visited on our daily outdoor exercise between Wednesday 1st April and before pubs were allowed to reopen with social distancing measures on Saturday 4th July.

Pub number 185 - The Crown in Hawk Green, Marple, a part of the borough we never knew existed before our walks began

We saw a real mixture of pubs, bars, club and social clubs, along with a few lost and closed pubs. There were also some new pubs getting ready to re-open post-lockdown.

Related blog posts:
- Pub
- Pubs
- Stockport
- Lockdown

A token from the Boondocks

One of the minigolf tokens in my collection came from a visit to play the two miniature golf courses at Boondocks Fun Center in the town of Northglenn, Colorado, USA.

It was one of the arcade machine tokens in use at the fun center when I visited in March 2009.

Do you know of any minigolf courses that still have tokens when you win on the lucky last hole, or in use at attached arcades or fun centres?

Happy National Fried Chicken Day

Today is National Fried Chicken Day.

We've seen a lot of different chicken shops on our travels including a few alternate KFCs

New minigolf courses in the UK

A look at new miniature golf courses in the UK.

There are a number of new minigolf courses being built, in development or planned to open in the UK.

It's great to see that the game's popularity is continuing. Before the coronavirus pandemic minigolf was booming, with new courses opening up every month.

Over the last few months we've found out about the following minigolf courses:

• Wolverhampton Adventure Golf, an 18-hole dinosaur-themed adventure golf course at Perton Park Golf Club in Wolverhampton. It was the first brand new course to open during the pandemic.
• Mini Golf at Sea Acres Holiday Park at Kennack Sands in Cornwall. This is a Swedish Felt type of course.
• Crazy Golf at Ighton Leigh Social Club in Burnley.
• Adventure Golf at Fairhaven Lake in Lytham St Annes on the Fylde coast.
• Adventure Golf at China Fleet Country Club in Saltash, Cornwall.
• A new Crazy Golf course is planed to open at the Filwood Community Centre in Knowle West, Bristol. They have a Putt at Home Crazy Golf Club in the meantime.
• The new Roxy Ball Room at Withy Grove in Manchester will include minigolf among the games on offer.
• Jungle Rumble Adventure Golf are creating a course in Putney, London.
• A new Caddyshackers Crazy Golf bar could be heading to Nottingham.
• Work will soon be underway again at the Princess Parade Crazy Golf course in Blackpool.
• There are plans for a new Ghetto Golf venue in Sheffield
• An indoor Adventure Golf centre is planned for Birmingham's Bullring shopping centre
• A Crazy Golf course is planned to open at Kingsway West Retail Park in Dundee
• A new Adventure Golf course is planned to replace the old layout in Andover, Hampshire.
• Work is also almost complete at the new Crazy Golf course at Pembrey Country Park in Wales.
• Boom Battle Bar will have a minigolf course when it opens in Norwich.
• The new Gravity venue in Northampton was completed just as lockdown was announced and is ready to play when it is safe to reopen.

If you know of any other new minigolf courses opening, or are planning to create one please do get in touch.

Our Crazy World of Minigolf Tour

Before the pandemic we were closing in on visiting the final 40 courses of the original 600 we set out to play in 2006. We're also very close to hitting 1,000 course visits overall.

Before the lockdown hit and our out-of-home putting was paused we'd visited 948 courses since September 2006.

We're now up to 949 course visits as we found a Pitch & Putt course on one of our daily walks last month.

We'd had a very strong start to the year and visited 20 courses in the first 20 days of 2020.

Who knows where and when our 950th course visit will be...?

Links:

• New courses
• Crazy World of Minigolf Tour

---------

With over twenty years of marketing and sales experience each we offer consultancy services to people and businesses looking to set-up miniature golf courses, review their operations, hole designs, contests, tournaments and more.

Do get in touch for a chat to see how we can help and work together.

------------------

Join our Crazy World of Minigolf Tour enewsletter mailing list

Minigolfing in Worthing a decade ago

A look back at Splash Point Mini Golf in Worthing's Denton Gardens as it was ten years ago.

Playing hole 13 ten years ago today

This is how the hole looked in April last year.

Take a look at the history of miniature golf in Worthing's Denton Gardens in this blog post. The game has been played there for 96 years.

New Crazy Golf course at Ighten Leigh Social Club in Burnley

Ighten Leigh Social Club in Burnley has a new Crazy Golf course.

Hopefully we'll get to play the layout in the future. Burnley isn't too far from us and we're looking forward to visiting the town again when it's safe for us to do so.

It'll be interesting to see what the Ighten Leigh Social Club Crazy Golf course layout looks like.

New miniature golf courses in the UK

It's the second brand new minigolf course in the UK to open its doors for the first time during the coronavirus pandemic. The first was the 18-hole dinosaur-themed adventure golf course at Perton Park Golf Club in Wolverhampton.

A new Mini Golf course has also been installed at Sea Acres Holiday Park at Kennack Sands in Cornwall.

There are a number of new minigolf courses also being built, in development or planned.

A new adventure golf course is under construction at Fairhaven Lake in Lytham St Annes on the Fylde coast. A new adventure golf layout is nearing completion at China Fleet Country Club in Saltash, Cornwall. The Filwood Community Centre in Knowle West, Bristol is planning a new Crazy Golf course and have a Putt at Home Club in the meantime. The new Roxy Ball Room at Withy Grove in Manchester will include minigolf among the games on offer. Work will soon be underway again at the Princess Parade Crazy Golf course in Blackpool. There are plans for a new Ghetto Golf venue in Sheffield, an adventure golf centre at Birmingham's Bullring shopping centre, a crazy golf course at Kingsway West Retail Park in Dundee and an adventure golf course in Andover, Hampshire. Work is also almost complete at the new Crazy Golf course at Pembrey Country Park in Wales and Boom Battle Bar in Norwich. While the new Gravity venue in Northampton was completed just as lockdown was announced.

Our Crazy World of Minigolf Tour

Prior to the coronavirus pandemic we were closing in on visiting the final 40 courses of the original 600 we set out to play in 2006. We're also very close to hitting 1,000 course visits overall.

Before the lockdown hit and our out-of-home putting was paused we'd visited 948 courses since September 2006.

We're now up to 949 course visits as we found a Pitch & Putt course on one of our daily walks last month.

We'd had a very strong start to the year and visited 20 courses in the first 20 days of 2020.

Who knows where and when course visit number 950 will be...?

------------

Check out the Crazy World of Minigolf Tour Newsletter archive and sign-up to receive future editions

Resident Needle

I don't think I could've seen a better business name, sign and shopfront during my pandemic lockdown daily outdoor exercise than this one in Woodley Precinct, Stockport!

What voice would you use to say this shop name out loud?

Link:
- Resident Needle Tattoo Studio

Back to the Future is 35

Back to the Future was released in the USA on this day in 1985!

On Friday 13th March I managed to see a Back to the Future DeLorean at Media City in Salford.

It was brilliant to tick that off my bucket list.

Putt-Putt tokens from the USA

A look at some 1980's Putt-Putt tokens from the USA.

From the Crazy Golf Museum's collection.

The very first Putt-Putt Golf course was created by Don Clayton in Fayetteville, North Carolina, USA back in 1954.

In the 1960's Putt-Putt franchises began opening outside of the US, in locations such as South Africa, Australia and Japan. There were also courses in the UK, the first of which opened in Sunderland in 1968. Others followed at Flamingo Land in Yorkshire and in Buxton, Derbyshire. However, information on these UK courses is limited.

Do you know of any courses that still have tokens?

NO GOLF in Compstall, Stockport

We saw this NO GOLF sign on our daily outdoor walk at Pleasant View in Compstall, Stockport.

No horses allowed either

How to play mini golf (in Swedish)

A look at a minigolf guide in Sweden.

We saw this minigolf instructions sign at Solna Bangolfklubb while on a trip to Sweden in February 2018.

Så här spelar vi bangolf

"Så här spelar vi bangolf" translates as "This is how we play golf".

During that trip we managed to visit nine minigolf courses in 42 hours!

Unfortunately the outdoor minigolf courses at at Solna Bangolfklubb were closed as it was out-of-season and they were covered in snow.

Related blog posts:
- How to play mini golf (on Southend Pier)
- How to play mini golf (in three languages)

---------------

Check out the Crazy World of Minigolf Tour Newsletter archive and sign-up to receive future editions

A look back at July 2017

A look back at the 2017 Dull Men's Club calendar.

We featured in the Dull Men's Club calendar for 2017 where our Crazy World of Minigolf Tour was highlighted for the month of July.

July 2017

What a year. Halcyon days.

The dullest people in the UK in 2017

The 2017 Dull Men’s Club calendar celebrated the men and women who were born to be mild

The Dull Men's Club is where dull men, and women who appreciate dull men, share thoughts and experiences about ordinary things. Visit the Dull Men's Club website for more information.

Check out the latest blog post on the Dull Men's Club website, it's about us and how we've been coping during the coronavirus pandemic lockdown.

I've spoken at Dull Men's Club conferences and events in Preston and Manchester.

Related blog posts:
- Calendar
- Dull Men's Club

Happy National Hot Dog Month

July is National Hot Dog Month.

This year National Hot Dog Day is on Wednesday 22nd July.

Find out more about National Hot Dog Month and National Hot Dog Day on the National Hot Dog and Sausage Council website.