Playing the Franky Stine hole on the Crazy Golf at the North Marine Putting Greens in Bridlington
A Couple of Putt's post for Day 24 of Puttober reminded me of the Franky Stine obstacle we played on the Crazy Golf course at the North Marine Putting Greens in Bridlington.
It was a nice touch to have the windows looking down on the site
The new Puttshack venue will be home to three 9-hole high-tech minigolf courses, with technology enabling tracking of player scores on screens around the course.
One of the entrances to the course will be via Bank underground station
Puttshack Bank is due to open on Saturday 23rd November.
Puttshack's first location opened at Westfield London in White City in 2018. The second of the Puttshack venues opened at intu Lakeside in August this year. There are plans for a new Puttshack to open in Watford next year.
The course is well worth a visit. If you gain the lowest score of the week or season you earn yourself a spot in the annual tournament. You can also buy into the two-round competition with a £5 charity donation at the course.
Ever since I first spotted tripe on a butcher's stall at Wigan Market in 2012 I've been following the Tripe Marketing Board with interest. Although not enough interest to have actually eaten tripe. I'm fairly certain that cow's stomach is something of an acquired taste. I do believe it's gluten free though.
The Tripe Marketing Board is dedicated to educating the public about eating tripe as part of a healthy, balanced diet and was formed as an industry-wide response to the continuing post-war decline in tripe sales in the UK. This was due to the ending of rationing, increasing affluence and a widespread perception that it is not fit for human consumption.
The Tripe Marketing Board told me that up until the 1960s you could find hundreds of tripe shops throughout Lancashire, with many of the shops run by United Cattle Products (UCP) and offering nose-to-tail food at the attached cafes and restaurants.
Celebrating 89 years since the first National Tom Thumb Championship was contested in Chattanooga, Tennessee.
Garnet Carter created the first artificial miniature golf course in the USA in 1926. The first of the 'Tom Thumb Golf' brand of miniature golf course was an 18-hole layout located near Lookout Mountain in Chattanooga, Tennessee.
By 1930 there were some 25,000 miniature golf courses in the USA, 3,000 of which were the now patented Tom Thumb course franchises.
The course and fantasy theming caught the imagination of visitors and on the 23rd October 1930 the final of the first-ever National Tom Thumb Championship took place.
Qualifying events had taken place in all of the then 48 states of the USA, with 200 players representing 30 states in the grand final. The event had a total prize fund of $10,000, with the champion winning $2,000!
Today hundreds of miniature golf competitions take place around the world and new courses are opening up all the time.
We haven't played a Tom Thumb Golf course on our travels, but we do have some nice old postcards of Tom Thumb courses in our collection. This one is of a course at Westende Bains in Belgium
There were some quite tricky holes, although with a bit of practice most could be aceable. Emily shot holes-in-one on holes 4 and 9.
Emily with a tricky second putt on hole 8
We've always found Swingers Crazy Golf courses to be extremely well done. From first entering the venue until the point you leave it's a pleasure to be there. The obstacles and greens are well designed and are very pleasing to look at. The putters and balls are high quality and the scorecards are incredibly well done.
When you see the full fold out scorecard it's a thing of beauty
There's always a BIG loop-di-loop at Swingers Crazy Golf
During our round we enjoyed some drinks on the course. Each hole has a little table to hold your drinks which is a very nice touch.
After our round Emily ordered some delicious food from Breddos Tacos and had a very nice Old Fashioned with it.
There's a private bar area between the two courses
Having a nice sit down
We played the first Swingers pop-up Crazy Golf course in Shoreditch back in September 2014. The brand has grown since then, with Swingers in The City opening next to the Gherkin in 2016, a course I played in 2017.
We're looking forward to playing at Swingers Crazy Golf again in the future.
