Holiday Entertaining - Mini Golf Style

Even though it all started innocently enough, as an alternative approach to celebrating Valentine's Day, Leslie Crawford and Steve Fox's brilliantly inspired idea translates well to almost any celebratory event. And as we enter the "entertaining season" we all can use a little inspiration.

In 1993 the couple invited a few friends over to a "bring-your-own-mini-golf-hole" party which, little did they know, would eventually become an at-times yearly (now they host it bi-annually) jam-packed 200 person charity event.

Teeny-tiny mini golf holes accompany their larger cousins at the
May 2006 CrawFox Mini-Golf Benefit

On their site, crawfox.com they have a wonderful photo archive of each event from 1993 to the present and accompanying narrative that highlights each year's outstanding mini golf creations. Some notables include an Evel Knievel canyon jump hole, an interactive experimental hole where players donned goggles that played video of themselves playing the hole (very existential), and a hole that featured a perfectly-scaled miniature replica of Pac-Bell park in San Francisco. Now THAT is one huge bunch o' creativity.

A mini-golf cake doubles as a hole at the 2006 event. Players needed to place the chocolate golf ball into the cake top with the goal of having it land in a hole at the center of a cupcake.

Their last event was held this past May which means we have to wait until 2008 for the next extravaganza. Perhaps it could become your own new tradition, a remedy for what I find to be an always disappointing New Year's Eve. Now I just need to find friends who have any time to spare to create some mini golf magic.

Images: Jez and Brooke and crawfox.com


tags: mini golf | minigolf | miniature golf | crazy golf | pop culture | entertaining | benefit | build your own mini golf