Crazy Golf in Seaburn, Sunderland

As part of Sunderland's annual illuminations each autumn, a mini-fairground has set up in Cliffe Park in Seaburn, which is just a few minutes walk from our house.  And this year, along with the big sightseeing wheel and kiddies rides, a mini golf course has opened up too. Of course, we had to go and take a look!

It's a really nicely constructed course. It's called Golden Putter and there are 18 holes. 

Based on the seafront it's in a lovely location tour. 

It's a temporary course for the duration of the illuminations and so there was a bit of an uneven playing surface on many of the holes but that really didn't matter.  It felt new and fresh, it was clean and inviting and at only £4 a game for adults, it was good value for money too.

You can see the portable course, that's currently in Seaburn, on the Golden Putter website where there's a hole by hole breakdown.   It's here.

All in all, this was a really enjoyable game to play with some tricky holes.

Final scores: Sunny Jim 53 and Flaming Nora 62.
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Crazy golf in Benidorm, Costa Blanca, Spain

Just back from a wonderful few days holiday spent in Alicante, Spain. 

As we were on the same Costa as the city of Benidorn, which we'd never visited before, we thought we'd make a day of it. Off we headed on the tram down the coast to Benidorm and had our eyes opened to the place. Far cleaner, happier and much more Spanish than we ever thought it could be, we can see what all the fuss is about now around having a holiday to "Benny".

And although we weren't looking for it, we found a mini golf course too!

Benidorm Mini Golf has its own facebook page here.

It was a nicely kept course in a shaded spot under trees, in a street just one step back from the main drag.

And the scores were in - a draw!

You can also read about a course we played in Alicante too.
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Crazy golf in Alicante, Costa Blanca, Spain

Just back from a few days spent on holiday in Alicante.  We never expected to find any Crazy Golf there and so it was a lovely surprise to stumble across this little gem.

It's in Parque infantil "Mundo de los niños" - and it has a website here.

It was a quick and easy course to play as it was meant for, er, children to play on, not adults. But did that stop us? No, it did not!  We had fun! I tell you, fun!

Loved the fact that every hole came with its own pen so you didn't have to carry a pen or pencil around the course in order to keep the score card updated.

There were lots of holes which had moving parts, which added to the childish fun too.

And this was wonderful (below). You had to hit the ball into a moving waterwheel. Once the ball went into the bucket of the waterwheel it was carried around and droppped out on the other side, ready to hit into the hole.

All in all, a good, fun course set on a lovely location by the marina in Alicante.

And the scorecards.  Barry won by 2 points.

You can also read about a game we played in Benidorm too.
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JD Golf Dome, Seaton Carew, Hartlepool

We took a trip to Seaton Carew on the Tees coast today. It's a seaside town that both of us had been to before, when we were kids, and we went back today for Glenda's birthday day out. Much fun was had including a chippy lunch in a great pub (The Marine Hotel) on the sea front and an ice-cream to follow, eaten by the magnificent, wide beach.

We also checked out the JD golf dome which we'd found about online.

It probably goes down as one of the most bizarre crazy golf experiences we've ever had - and we mean that in a good way, of course!

The golf dome is a short walk along the sea-front from central Seaton Carew. You can't miss it, it's huge. Inside, the crazy golf course, or golf trail as it's officially known, it was £4 each to play 10 holes.

The greenery isn't real, it's all plastic and the turf is artificial too. But it's a great surface to play on and being in the huge dome made the whole experience something very special indeed, if not a little odd. It was great fun with some tricky holes.

Each hole had two ways to play them - the easy way or the hard way, indicated by a yellow and blue dot at the start of each hole. 

We were also offered, when we went in, the choice of left or right handed clubs! This is something we've never been offered before, and was a first for us both.

All in all, a good game. The staff member was really friendly and helpful and there's a bar inside the dome too.

Final scores?  It was a rare win for Glenda with 31, Barry was on 33.

The website to find out more is at http://www.thesportsdomes.co.uk/thegolfdome/
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Saltburn - So good we played it twice

When we heard that UrbanCrazy were building a new Mini Golf course in Saltburn-by-the Sea we got excited. It's a lovely seaside town with a funicular and a pier and a miniature railway, with a gorgeous long beach and fantastic views. We like the place and it's only a fairly short train ride away from home. So on a sunny but chilly day we headed down there to try out the new course.

The course is down on the seafront just north of the pier and the bottom of the funicular. It's new, it's clean and it's a great deal of fun.

There's even a shed, or is it a beach hut?

As you can see from the pictures there are lots of curves. This means that bouncing off the edge of the holes can be a but unpredictable and you can easily end up back where you started.

As it's so new, the greens are very fast too so even a perfectly aimed shot can go bouncing over the hole if you're not careful.

And at the end there's a chance to win a free round. There's no skill involved, just get the ball up the slope and then watch it bounce around in the box and hope it lands in the part which makes the bell ring.

Here are the scores from the 1st round: Barry won and Glenda won a free round.

But that wasn't the end of it. After a walk along the beach, a pint at The Ship and some Fish & Chips, we went back for another game. This time Glenda won. Neither of us won a free round this time but we don't need that as an excuse to go back, just some free time and a sunny day.

To find out more about the course, check it out on Facebook.
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Saltburn Mini Golf

It's Sunny Jim's birthday this coming weekend. And as a birthday day out we're heading to Saltburn to play on the new minigolf course there.

We will be blogging after we've played the new course and will be tweeting on the day too.

You can find out more about the new Saltburn MiniGolf here.
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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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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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