Do you remember Little Chef?
A very nice addition to my collection |
A blog about our Crazy World of Minigolf Tour. With a sprinkling of nostalgia and urban exploration for good measure.
A very nice addition to my collection |
Minigolfers, golfers and other players from around the world have been playing the Putt18 golf game mat for fun and in competitions during the pandemic.
As well as official events players with the Putt18 game mat have been having friendly matches with the games shown online.
The next tournament is a Battle of the Brits taking place across the UK later this month.
Check out the Putt18 website for more information.
Emily and I competed in the first Putt18 Four Nations Cup in May last year and I played in the inaugural Putt18 World Pro League that was completed in October 2020.
The Putt18 World Pro League was a fun and interesting way to keep on putting and compete during the pandemic. It was also a first in terms of getting players from around the world to compete on the same playing surface in a regular league format.
With no end in sight to the coronavirus pandemic and with Stockport in the highest level of restrictions it looks like we'll be doing a lot more putting at home and socialising via competitive isolation activities for some time to come.
Related blog posts:
- Putt18
Boom: Battle Bar Oxford will be the fourth venue from the brand.
As well as a minigolf course - known as 'Crazier Golf' - Boom: Battle Bar in Oxford will no doubt be home to other competitive socialising sports and games such as axe throwing, darts and shuffleboard.
The first Boom: Battle Bar opened at the Castle Quarter shopping and entertainment centre in Norwich in July 2020.
There are also plans for a Boom: Battle Bar to open in Liverpool in 2021.
Boom: Battle Bars are a relatively new entrant to the world of competitive socialising and retailtainment. A number of shopping malls, town centres and retail parks are adding minigolf, crazy golf, adventure golf and other experiential entertainment and activity leisure offerings to their sites to attract and retain customers.
Blimey, that was quite a year of blogging here on the Ham & Egger Files!
Thank you for reading.
Many thanks to everyone who has contributed photos, info and guest posts too.
It's all much appreciated.
All the very best for 2021.
We wish you all the very best for the year ahead.
We received our copy of the Mini Golf Designer board game by Thematic Games following the successful Kickstarter campaign earlier this year. We're looking forward to giving it a play.
There are plans for a new Flip Out trampoline park to open in a former BHS store in Aberdeen. The centre will also be home to an indoor crazy golf course.
The latest Flip Out trampoline and adventure centre opened in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire last month. That too opened in a former BHS.
Visit the Flip Out website for more information.
A number of shopping malls, town centres and retail parks are adding minigolf, crazy golf, adventure golf and other experiential entertainment and activity leisure offerings to their sites to attract and retain customers.
Salford Shopping Centre opened as Salford Precinct in 1972 and was renamed Salford Shopping City in 1992 |
Even though the shopping precinct is now called Salford Shopping Centre the huge sign on the block of flats clearly points out where the shops are in Pendleton, Salford.
This is the Salford Shopping Centre location in Pendleton, Salford, Greater Manchester.
The company was founded in 1996 and ceased operations on the 28th March 2018.
As a brand with shops in the North of England and Scotland I only became a regular shopper there when I moved to Stockport in 2016.
My recent hunts for Happy Shopper shops led me to find out about the Family Shopper brand. The stores are part of the same retail group. The first one I noticed was in Ashton-under-Lyne earlier this year.
Driving back from Salford Shopping Centre we spotted this Family Shopper on the corner of Cross Lane and Culverwell Drive.
The building looked like it used to be a pub and looking on the excellent Pubs of Manchester blog I found it used to be a pub called the Golden Gate. It was originally known as the Craven Heifer.
A long hole on the NIFO Steel Minigolf course at Solna Bangolfklubb in Sweden |
The Eternit Miniature Golf course at Solna Bangolfklubb in Sweden |
Bad Santa graffiti in Blackpool by Seca_One |
Bad Santa graffiti in Blackpool by Seca_One |
It's Christmas-time!
Playing a Christmas Crazy Golf hole at Teezers Retro Golf in Coventry at Easter in 2019 |
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 were also very close to hitting 1,000 course visits overall.
Before the first national lockdown hit and our out-of-home putting was paused we'd visited 948 courses since September 2006.
We had a very strong start to the year and visited 20 courses in the first 20 days of 2020 (some of those were revisits). We had hoped to hit the BIG landmark of 1,000 course visits this year. That plan was obviously out of the window come March.
We've still been able to visit a total of 46 courses in 2020, including revisits. 15 of them were new layouts to us. We've been able to visit eight courses during the pandemic (March to December), playing two of them.
One of those played was the Gator Adventure Golf at Escape Entertainment in Chorley, Lancashire in August. It was the first new minigolf course we played in almost six months and the first course we played during the Coronavirus pandemic.
The second course we played was the Cae Glas Park Crazy Golf course in Oswestry, Shropshire in September. We first played that 18-hole layout in 2009 and had revisited it in 2012.
The last new course Emily and I played together was the Sunnybank Gardens Crazy Golf layout in Hatfield, Doncaster on the 19th January.
The last new course I played before the first Coronavirus pandemic lockdown was the CLUB GOLF pop-up minigolf in King's Cross, London on the 25th February.
The last course of any kind I played before the Coronavirus pandemic lockdown was at Junkyard Golf on First Street in Manchester on the 9th March.
We've now been to a total of 956 courses since September 2006. 917 of those have been in the British Isles. 39 have been in eleven overseas countries including Australia, Austria, Belgium, Finland, Hong Kong, New Zealand, Poland, Singapore, Spain, Sweden and the USA.
New course visit numbers year by year:
We've continued to research, monitor and promote the game and know about at least another 50 new courses now open, being built, in development or planned to open in the UK. It'll be nice to swing by them when it's safe to get back out on the road again.
2020 was also a year for Putting at Home and we've enjoyed competing in Putt18 tournaments with players from the USA, Australia and New Zealand. It's also been a pleasure to be a part of the Filwood Fantastic Mini Golf Club in Bristol.
You can also check out our Big Mini Golf Bucket List for ideas of minigolf things to do during the pandemic.
Many thanks to my friend and minigolf rival Lavdim Zylfiu for sending me a scorecard and notebook from the 2016 World Adventure Golf Masters tournament held at the Prishtina Pro Mini Golf course in Prishtina, Kosovo. Two very nice additions to my minigolf collection.
Check out the Kosovo Minigolf Federation website for more information.