Nightlife
12 of the UK’s coolest crazy golf courses
There's little better than tapping a hole-in-one as your friends flounder around a windmill or roll into a water feature. These crazy golf courses are perfect for an evening out with mates.
Mini-golf: like regular golf but infinitely better.
Tiny pencils? Little bridges with rope on the sides? Loop the loops? Rotating windmill obstacles? And how about those final holes with the stupidly high ramps that you NEVER putt first time? THIS is what the PGA tour is missing.
Well their loss, we say, as unlike its elder sport, crazy golf doesn't require membership, or for you to fork out hundreds of pounds on a driver you'll inevitably smash against a tree in anger. No, all you need are some friends, a true aim, and a little putter.
To help get you into the action, we’ve scoured the land for the best courses around...
1. Paradise Island, Glasgow/Manchester/Sheffield
The Indiana Jones of golf courses
© Paradise Golf
Say what you will about the bloody child sacrifices of the Aztecs and Incas, but they weren’t half good at crazy golf, were they? In fact, they’d probably be proud to know that there are hundreds of mini-golf courses paying homage to their ancient jungle-style games today. Some of the best belong to Paradise Island, which have sprawling indoor 18-hole courses available in Sheffield, Glasgow and Manchester’s Trafford Centre.
2. Ghetto Golf, Liverpool
Ghetto Golf
© Ghetto Golf
Stanhope St, Cains Brewery, Liverpool L8 5XJ
Ever wanted to organise a piss-up in a brewery? Well now you can. Housed in Liverpool’s old Cains brewery in the city’s trendy Baltic Triangle area, Ghetto Golf combines crazy golf with theatre, cocktails, DJs, street art and glow-in-the-dark effects – very well too, we might add. Over-18s only, so if you don’t want to be stuck behind squabbling families, this is the place.
3. Swingers, London
The Lighthouse course
© Swingers Golf London
Golf is a sport with a refined and, some would say, elitist appeal. So it makes perfect sense that Swingers, perched in the shadow of London’s Gherkin and featuring two stunning 9-hole courses and a two-storey clubhouse and gin bar, proves mini-golf can be highbrow too. Street food options include the great Patty & Bun and Pizza Pilgrims, while you'll also enjoy the novelty of a live DJ playing banger after banger, ensuring nobody hears you cursing because you missed again.
If that wasn't enough, there's also another Swingers in the West End, so when you've finished your first round, head west down Chancery Lane for even more fun!
4. Jurassic Parrr, Glasgow
Great Western Rd, G81 2XT
A thrilling crazy golf course dedicated to gigantic beasts and prehistoric fossils (no, not Colin Montgomerie), Jurassic Parrr is worth a trip for giant dinosaur builds and clever course design alone. But if you need your arm twisting some more, well, it’s spacious enough for big groups, and there’s also a 72-bay driving range nearby in case your golf appetite gets whetted. Simply put, if you’re worried your social life going extinct, rectify that here.
5. The Lost City, Nottingham
Get jungle fever inside Nottingham's Lost City
© Lost City
The Corner House, Burton St, NG1 4DB
Yes, another course that will have you thinking you’ve stepped into a real-life incarnation of Crash Bandicoot, Nottingham's Lost City is easy on the eye, but less so on the score card, with a few fiendishly difficult holes even the pros would struggle with. More blockbuster than boutique, you’ll find two whopping 18-hole courses under one roof.
6. Birdies, London
Birdies
© Birdies / Roof East
45a Broadway, E15 1XD
Over at Roof East, a rooftop car park in East London, you’ll find a baseball batting cage, roller disco, urban lawn bowls and – naturally - lots and lots of hipsters. Luckily for you, there's also Birdies, a boutique nine-hole course featuring loops and half pipes galore – just watch out for the elevated 5-foot drop onto the sixth hole. Due to re-open for a winter season at the beginning of November, clear space in your diary now.
7. Junkyard Golf Club, Manchester
Nothing goes to waste at Junkyard Golf
© Junkyard Golf Manchester
1 First Street, M15 4FN
London has one. Oxford has one. But there is no doubt that the spiritual home of Junkyard golf remains in Manchester - and having recently moving from its original site at Great Northern Warehouse to First Street, next to arthouse cinema Home, there’s never been a better time to acquaint yourself with its eclectic course. Best go on an empty stomach: putting the ‘junk’ into junkyard, you can gorge on fairground style hotdogs, nachos, popcorn and pick-n-mix.
8. Plonk, London
Not your usual front nine
© Plonk golf
204 Ferndale Rd, Brixton, SW9
Featured on our list of unique UK bars – so you know it’s good - this 9-hole crazy golf course and Tiki Bar is currently in residence at the back of one of South London’s best beer gardens. Beware though, with fearsome marble runs and major loops, you’ll need to bring your A-game to this domain.
9. Adventure Golf Island, Fife
Like being inside a massive golf ball
© Adventure Golf, Fife
North of the border? Get yourself down to this course. Looking a bit like Disney’s Epcot, albeit where everybody’s Scottish, Fife’s Adventure Golf is a place to enjoy the great game of crazy golf come rain or shine, or let’s face it, rain. Putt your way through waterfalls, fountains and palm trees and feel at one with nature, in a way.
10. Pirate’s Bay Golf, Devon
Devon: a strong minigolf game
© Pirate's Bay
Esplanade Rd, Paignton, TQ4, 6AG
One for the Instagram brigade, this. Pirate’s Bay Golf in Devon pays homage to the region’s swashbuckling connections in some style, with vast pools of water, sunken ships and enough questionable looking buccaneers to put Pugwash to shame. Round up a crew of your own and make haste while the weather’s notably not awful.
11. Adventure Island Minigolf, Birmingham
20/21, Star City, Watson Rd, B7 5SA
As everyone knows, the biggest problem with basing a tropical-themed golfing utopia in Birmingham is that when you leave it you’re still in Birmingham. Credit where it’s due then, for the makers behind this course who made it as authentic as possible by recently altering lighting for players in the evening to get as close to a dusk experience as you would find on an actual tropical island.
12. Dragon Quest, London
Not so mini, actually
© Dragon Quest, Croydon
175 Long Ln, Addiscombe, CR0 7TE
To borrow a line from Lee Carvallo’s Putting Challenge, we recommend ‘feather touch’ for this course, which finds itself surrounded by a lot of water. It would still take a fair old whack to make a splash but considering the skills of most average crazy golfers, we wouldn’t rule it out. A gem of a course.