Finding Indoor (and Outdoor) Courses

Just because winter seems to have finally arrived doesn't mean your mini golfing activities should go into hibernation. It can be difficult to find listings of indoor mini golf courses. In fact, I didn't find any that specifically listed only indoor golf, but I found several websites that compile master-lists of mini golf courses which you can use as a base to find the indoor golf course of your dreams:

Excite - List of U.S. and international courses
Miniature Golf Courses - Alphabetical list of US courses by state
Quicknetguide - Random list of courses
Reference.com - Alphabetical by name of course - mostly U.S. some international
Professional Miniature Golf Association - List of courses by state
Planjam.com - An excellent source of courses that you search by zip code

Visual cacophony surrounds you when you play glow golf.

Another strategy to find an indoor golfing venue is to use your favorite search engine to enter the terms "glow golf." All the rage right now, a new glow in the dark course seems to be built every week. Using black lights and dizzyingly painted scenery and obstacles, mini golf has learned what bowling did many years ago, that by adding darkness and neon glowing paint you can transform an ordinarily fun experience into an extreme sport of sensory overload.

An additional way to find courses, as unlikely as it may seem, is to go to flickr.com, the photography site, and enter the terms "glow golf" or "indoor mini golf." Not only will you see great photographs of courses, but usually, the photographs have search tags indicating where the photographer took the picture. A couple companies I know of, The Putting Edge, and Monster Golf are building glow golf empires. The Putting Edge has several locations including: Chicago (suburbs), Denver, Detriot, Memphis, and St. Louis. The website lists all of the locations.

Monster Golf has a bit more subdude color scheme but is more interactive. You can read an extensive review of the course here. They have several New England locations and others in New York, New Jersey, Ohio, Georgia, and Pennsylvania.

I played at the Putting Zone's Lincolnshire, IL course a couple of years ago, and I have to say the course was not challenging, but it felt as though I entered a fantastical landscape and it certainly beats going months without playing golf.

Image: Amarnath

tags: mini golf | minigolf | miniature golf | crazy golf | pop culture