Crazy Golf at Fenton Manor Sports Complex in Stoke

A look at the Crazy Golf course at Fenton Manor Sports Complex in Stoke-on-Trent.

While driving to Leicester on Sunday Emily found another miniature golf course for us to visit, so we took a slight detour to Fenton in Stoke to have a look for it.

Crazy Golf Land! The UK is certainly a land full of courses

The Crazy Golf course at Fenton Manor Sports Complex in Stoke became the 902nd course we've visited on our Crazy World of Minigolf Tour.

It's amazing that after 13 years of our crazy golf travels we can still be shocked by what we find!

Having a wander round the course we were struck with how crazy the layout and obstacles looked.

The Crazy Golf course in Fenton is loopy!

It was only later that we realised that the course had been set up so that each hole was in the shape of a letter and the 9-holes spelled out the words CRAZY GOLF!

This is a C

We have seen that before on some fibreglass Crazy Golf courses, but never on a permanent, landscaped course.

Clearly an R

A

Z

Y

G

O

L

F

We noticed that hole 1 (C) used boules as obstacles! We're big fans of Petanque too so this was fun to see.

Hole C/1 and the Petanque obstacles. Crazy!

Four boules

Two boules

One of the boule obstacles

Related blog posts:
- Crazy World of Minigolf Tour
- Crazy Golf
- Staffordshire

Bar Billiards at The Railway pub in Stockport

Finding a Bar Billiards table at The Railway pub in Stockport.

We're big fans of the old pub game of Bar Billiards so were very pleased to find a table at The Railway pub in Stockport on Saturday!

Unfortunately we didn't get a chance to play it as the pub had problems with its water supply and had to close while the emergency works were completed.

Bar Billiards Rules

We're looking forward to returning for a game or two in the future.

The Railway Pub in Stockport - you can see the table if you look in through this window

In 2017 we played the Bar Billiards table at The Blossoms pub on the A6. Like The Blossoms, the table at The Railway uses the four peg arrangement.

The table looks to be popular!

Coming from down south we're more used to seeing three pegs. We haven't seen too many four-peg tables on our Barmy Bar Billiards Trail. The ones at The Cheshire Cheese pub in London and The Chequers Inn at Knebworth spring to mind.

The nice and 'easy' 50-point holes are guarded by the white mushrooms in the four peg game

Related blog posts:
- Bar Billiards
- Pub Games
- Stockport
- Pubs

New Adventure Golf course planned for Chorley, Lancashire

A new Adventure Golf course and Tenpin Bowling Alley planned to open in Chorley, Lancashire.

A new entertainment centre is being planned for the Market Walk Shopping Centre in Chorley, Lancashire.

The team behind Cheeky Monkey's Family Entertainment Centre in Whittle-Le-Woods, Chorley are planning to open the new Adventure Golf venue which will also be home to Tenpin Bowling, retro games, a bar and more.

It'll be another new local course for us to visit on our Crazy World of Minigolf Tour.

North Bay Mini Golf in Scarborough

A visit to our 900th minigolf course - North Bay Crazy Golf in Scarborough, North Yorkshire.

Last Friday we made the landmark 900th course visit on our Crazy World of Minigolf Tour when we had a round at the North Bay Mini Golf course in Scarborough, North Yorkshire.

At our 900th minigolf course!

We were staying near Peasholm Park and had seen a number of the other courses in the North Bay area shortly after arriving in the town. As it was a Friday - and a rainy one at that - none were open.

A view of the North Bay in Scarborough

While walking along the clifftop we spied the North Bay Crazy Golf course and I couldn't run down the hill quickly enough to get a closer look at the 12-hole course.

Luckily for us the course was open

It's always nice to find unique courses and the North Bay Crazy Golf course is that. There are some very nice hole-in-one opportunities and a few tricky second putts on the colourful course. What was really nice to see was that the borders had felt on them that allowed skillful shots to be rewarded.

A view of the course

  

In our round I shot a 24 to take the win, with Emily scoring a 26 and our friend Cat Patterson hitting a 33.

It was brilliant chatting to the course owners. They've got a real passion for the game and have created a fun and challenging layout. They told us that the course record was a 20, but not many players get close to that or even near to my round of 24. That was very nice to hear. If the weather hadn't gotten worse and if the day was longer I would've had another round or two to try and beat the record.

Luckily when we swung by the course on the Sunday of our weekend away the course was doing a brisk trade in the sunnier conditions. Before we wandered along the coast to the South Bay I managed to have another round, but didn't score as well as I had on my first go, shooting a 27.

The course can be easily found next to the main road and beach in Scarborough's North Bay.

Hole 1

Hole 1

Hole 2

Hole 3

Hole 3

Hole 4

Hole 5

Hole 6

Hole 7

Hole 8

Hole 8

Hole 8

Hole 9

Hole 10

Hole 10

Hole 11

Hole 12

Scarborough and its two bays are well worth visiting. We'll be heading back to the seaside resort and look forward to playing the North Bay Crazy Golf course again then.

The North Bay Crazy Golf course was the 900th visited on our Crazy World of Minigolf Tour since September 2006. When our travels began there were around 600 courses in the UK. We've now been to 862 courses in the British Isles and 39 overseas. The North Bay Crazy Golf course was the 520th we've played in the last 13 years as a number of courses we've visited have been closed, derelict, flooded or abandoned.

After our weekend in Scarborough we'd visited a total of 901 courses. The latest being the Holbeck Putting Green in the South Bay, a course that had been there since 1925!

The next leg of our Crazy World of Minigolf Tour and the road to 1,000 courses started in Scarborough

Related blog posts:
- Scarborough
- Mini Golf in Scarborough
- Crazy World of Minigolf Tour