Ahoy me hearties! Pirate golf in South Shields

To South Shields for a game of adventure golf at the Smugglers Cove on the sea-front. It's a game we've reviewed on our website and one that we've played many times before.  It's the closest mini-golf game to our home, so as it was a nice sunny day today we thought we'd make the most of it and set out on the bus for the 20 minute ride. 

It's a 12 hole game, costing £4 per person (£3 for children and OAPs).  It's in a lovely spot right near the sea and opposite North Marine park which is worth a look in and if it's running, a ride on the mini steam train that runs around the park too.

The game is pirate-themed (why are so many crazy golf courses pirate themed? anyone know?). The course itself appeared to have been relaid with a new surface on each hole. This felt like walking on new carpet, quite spongy underfoot. It also meant that the playing surface was quite slow and it took a little bit of getting used to.

Most of the holes aren't particularly difficult but there are a couple of nasty things which can slow down play such as banks that you think the ball will go up more easily than it does!  Definitely a good course and one we'll be back to play next year when it reopens after the winter.

Scores:
Sunny Jim 34.
Flaming Nora 38.
Loser bought fish and chips.
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Ahoy me hearties! Pirate mini-golf in Scarborough

To Scarborough (again! wahey!) for a weekend away. It was a gloriously sunny and warm early October Friday afternoon when we arrived and so we headed to the pirate adventure golf on the sea-front in the North Bay.

It's a course we have played a few times in the past but due to its popularity, it's quite difficult to get on the course some times so we haven't played it for a while.  We have often turned up to play there only to find the course full of families having fun and that's great, but it means a long, long, long wait for us two crazy golfers as we wait for groups of family and friends to crack on and get going ahead of us.

However, this sunny Friday afternoon we had the course to ourselves. Just us. Just the two of us playing a round on the pirate golf, it was marvellous!

 It's a 9 hole course and costs £4.50 per person which is a bit steep, admittedly. But there is the fun of lots of pirates all over the place, a hole (above) with running water in it to help the ball down the chute and two pirate rafts you have to stand on and pull yourself over to the other side of the course.

And then there's the "Yo-ho! Yo-ho!" song that goes on in the background which will ear-worm you for days.

The pirate golf is part of the sea-life centre in Scarborough and is well worth playing.
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Mini golf in Puerto de la Cruz, Tenerife

A holiday without a round or two of crazy (or mini) golf just doesn't feel right. So whenever we go away we search around for somewhere to have a game or two. Before our recent trip to Puerto de la Cruz in Tenerife we did a little research and found this site on the internet. We headed up into the hills above the old town to search for it but I couldn't remember the address, however I'd checked the place out before we went on Google streetview and soon recognised some landmarks which led us right there. Unfortunately they don't open until 10am and so we went and had a cafe con leche while we waited.

The wait was well worth it because it's an absolutely wonderful course. The setting is very pretty with the holes set in a lovely garden with palm trees, banana trees, pomegranate trees and other luscious vegetation making it one of the finest landscaped courses we've played on, on a par with the course in Leopoldpark in Ostend.

The 18 holes are in excellent condition with the artificial greens running very fast. A delicate touch is definitely required which took us a while to get used to. Most of the holes are fairly straightforward but the speed of the playing surface and a slightly smaller cup size then we're used to made some of the quite challenging. We still managed a few holes-in-one between us though.
 

There is also a bar and restaurant attached so after our initial morning visit we went back for another round one evening and had dinner there afterwards. With a late flight home and a checkout from our hotel at noon on the last day we found ourselves with a few hours to spare so what better way to end our stay in beautiful Tenerife that another trek up the hill and a final round and a couple of beers at Minigolfclub.

If you are in the area it is well worth a visit and can be found just down the hill from the Jardin Botanico (worth seeing as well) on the main road.

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Crazy golf in Scarborough - North Bay adventure golf (again)

We're just back from a few days holiday in Scarborough and we managed to sneak in a round of crazy golf

We played on the North Bay sea front, simply called Adventure Golf. This is, by far, our favourite course to play because it's quiet, peaceful, it has wonderful views of the North Bay and castle, it's been there forever and you can wave at the people going by on the North Bay railway train.

It's a proper, old fashioned crazy golf course, no gimmicks, just fun. This crazy golf course has been featured on CBeebies who voted it their favourite too. It's easy to see why. It's also the course used for the Yorkshire Championships. 

Here are some pictures of the course:

Barry even scored a hole in one!

Read all about our crazy golf games in Scarborough.

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Crazy golf in Sunderland - Roker sea front

There's a new, albeit temporary, mini-golf course on the Roker seafront in Sunderland.  You can find out all about it in this news item from The Sunderland Echo.

The news article says it's open every day until the end of August unless it's raining.

Well, it wasn't raining today so we walked down to have a game and do a review for the blog.

Sadly, this is what we found. It was shut.

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A crazy place to play golf - Seaburn beach in Sunderland

Took this photograph today on Seaburn Beach in Sunderland.  A golf club and a golf ball washed up on the sands.

A crazy place to be playing golf. The Lighthouse hole must have a par of several thousand!

Perhaps someone's in training for the Seaburn Beach festival on Thursday 6 August which will feature mini-golf on the beach.

Full details are here and we'll be blogging from the event too!
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Crazy golf in Scarborough - the one we didn't play

This was a crazy golf course that we didn't play this holiday to Scarborough.  It's situated in the North Bay and that large brown building you can see top right of the photograph is the North Riding pub.  If you like real ale and proper beer, you'll love the North Riding.

But anyway, back to the golf.

The reason we didn't play this crazy golf is that we've done it before and were left very disappointed. The holes are nice and colourful but they're all set on painted concrete bases, not on grass or astro turf or anything like that but concrete.  This means that no matter how soft or hard you hit the crazy golf ball, it just runs and runs and runs and runs...  it's infuriating and takes the fun out of the game.

So we gave this one a miss and went to the North Riding pub instead.

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Putting it about in Scarborough - Peasholm Park putting

This was a new one for us as we'd never played it together before. It's the putting green in Peasholm Park in the North Bay at Scarborough.

@Flaming_Nora remembers playing this as a child on family holidays.

It's a 12 hole game of putting so it's not crazy golf or adventure golf.  It's set in a gorgeous park with views out over the lake and beside the Buttercup Kiosk for ice-creams. We celebrated with an ice-lolly after playing a round.

If in any doubt, here's where you start playing.

And there were unexpected but very cute obstacles at Hole 10.

And the scores? @SunnyJimBaz won on this one by just 1 point.  Note that @Flaming_Nora got a hole in one (it was our only hole in one all weekend!) on Hole 5.

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Putting it about in Scarborough - Holbeck putting green

Holbeck putting green in the South Bay of Scarborough has an enviable position high on the cliff top. 

Have a look at an old picture of the site here.


It's situated over the road from the building used as the hospital in the TV show The Royal.


It's not crazy golf or adventure golf, it's a putting course in a beautiful location with views out to sea, the cliffs and the South Bay beach.  Truly lovely location for a spot of putting it about.  It's an 18 hole course and here are a couple of photos from our game there.

And the scores? @SunnyJimBaz won this one by just three points.

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Crazy golf in Scarbrough - The Sands

This was a fun 12 hole crazy golf course, situated in the North Bay in front of the Sands in Scarborough. 

It had a real air of 'home-made-ness' about it as you can tell from the pics. A nice little game.

Here are two pictures of two of the 12 holes.

And this picture shows an aerial view (*) of the course.

(*) not really, we were just up the bank.

And the scores?  @SunnyJimBaz won this one by just three points.

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Crazy golf in Scarborough - North Bay adventure golf

We're just back from a few days holiday in Scarborough where a wonderful time was had by all. We even managed to sneak in a few rounds of crazy golf

The first game we played was on the North Bay sea front, simply called Adventure Golf. This is, by far, our favourite course to play because it's quiet, peaceful, it has wonderful views of the North Bay and castle, it's been there forever and you can wave at the people going by on the North Bay railway train.

It's a proper, old fashioned crazy golf course, no gimmicks, just fun. This crazy golf course has been featured on CBeebies who voted it their favourite too. It's easy to see why. It's also the course used for the Yorkshire Championships. 

Here are some pictures of the views from the course:

And here are some pics from the course itself.

And the scores?  Well, @sunnyjimbaz won this one by 5 points.

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