Links to the Past
Someone once said to me; “Golf is great, you get to beat something much smaller than yourself with a stick, what’s not to love?” I however have never felt that way. There is in fact not much about the sport that I enjoy. Golf for me has always been several yards short of exciting. Perhaps it is golf’s rather stodgy image that has kept me from being a fan and even Tiger Woods with his modern take on fidelity has not been able to win me over.
But all that has changed. Recently while I was traveling across USA, I came across a golf course, which made me rethink my view of golf as an unlimited yawn fest. And of all things, the course that made me reevaluate my attitude was a mini-putt course.
I know what you’re saying, I can hear it being trumpeted far and wide “That’s not real golf!”. True, mini-putt has always occupied the trailer park portion of the golfing spectrum; silly at best, embarrassing and ghetto at worst. Normally checkered with windmills and gaping clown mouths, mini-putt has earned the stigma as a blight on civilization. This course is the exception and what raises it above the norm is its overarching theme, which is declared in its name “Great Assassinations Mini-Putt and Family Amusement Park”.
Let me say that the owners Carson and Bev Moore have tried their best to represent all countries and historical periods on this course but somehow America ended up with the most holes. Maybe it’s a cultural thing; their love of guns and their tolerance of everything including intolerance have made their society more susceptible to violence as a solution than most. Perhaps it was the elevation of firearms into their constitution and ultimately their founding mythology; Rome had Romulus and Remus, America has Smith and Wesson. Whatever the reason, violence is pervasive. Even their most beloved maxims have a sinister side. “Walk softly and carry a big stick”. A life lesson from a president or just sound advice to a would be assassin? I asked Carson about it and he just shrugged and said “Maybe we just don’t much care for our presidents”.
The first hole ‘A Night At The Theatre’ is of course a nod to President Lincoln. The correct spin seemed to be the key in attacking this par 3. For those of you unfamiliar with this term, suffice to say that spin on the ball entirely depends on how the clubface hits it. Some swings will make the ball turn left, some right, some will even deaden the ball so it stops at the spot you want it to. This hole is on 2 levels with the green separated from the tee by a fenced gully. After careful study I could see that it required a certain delicacy of shot. Just as I stroked the ball, I jumped to left, over the gully and fencing which gave the ball the required spin. After it hit the backdrop of the play, it rebounded off a footlight and then came to rest within inches of the hole. I easily tapped it into Lincoln’s head and scored my first birdie.
The next hole was not as easy, which I guess is really the appeal of the course, some holes were fairly easy, a few required forethought and others immense physical skill. This Par 4 ‘A Tough Day at the Senate’ is a lively recreation of Julius Caesar’s final morning. Tough though doesn’t describe the half of it. The difficulty with this hole is that you can’t see the cup at all, for surrounding it were over a dozen men dressed in togas. It took a full 9 shots on my part to finally sink the ball and even then chance played a large role as my shot bounded off 3 pairs of ankles before it finally fell into the cup.
The fifth hole, ‘A Very Long Siesta’, was of course, an homage to Trotsky. This was one of those holes that I described earlier, a challenging hole that required not only skill but a bit of brainpower also. After taking 2 shots, I realized that there was no way on earth to sink the ball going straight towards the hole and this was because there was an almost invisible lip surrounding the front of the hole. The only way to sink the ball is to approach the hole from behind. With that knowledge, my next shot went around the far side of the hole, bounced off the office walls so that when it came to rest, it was directly behind the cup. Then quicker than you can say ‘ice pick’ I sank the ball for a much earned par 4. At this point I was still 2 over par but not a bad start at all.
I continued to do well for a number of holes. The par 2, 7th hole in particular, was one that I thought was unnecessarily easy. Entitled ‘Pick a Gandhi, Any Gandhi’; there were 3 holes on the green to choose from. At first I thought there might be some sort of trick to it but sadly there wasn’t, any and every hole was correct. A hole-in-one.
The superiority I was feeling was quickly dashed on the next one however. This hole was the only hole dedicated to Canada and their lone assassination entitled ‘Who’s That At the Door D’Arcy McGee?’. The difficulty with this hole lay in the fact that the green was elevated onto what appeared to be a door stoop. At first I assumed another trick much like the Trotsky hole but no. Here spin was required once again, this time to both knock the ball onto the elevated green and then have the backspin to make it stick. Needless to say I bogeyed this one.
After that I had a number of successful holes. The Archduke Ferdinand, Phillip of Macedon, and the extremely satisfying Reinhard Heydrich. There was even a hole for James Garfield, which much like his presidency, I have no real recollection of.
I wasn’t really challenged again until the final hole; ‘Welcome to Dallas Mr. President’. A very tough hole. I took a couple of practice swings to get the feel of the hole but no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t get the ball anywhere near the hole. Every shot went entirely in the wrong direction. I started to get the feeling that this hole was impossible. Then I examined it one last time, and I realized that if I just moved the ball from the book depository and instead teed off on the grassy knoll, the hole was a cinch. Another hole-in-one.
I finished the course at 5 under but best of all; I finally discovered a course that I enjoyed. Not only was this course challenging but it also served as a great refresher for any upcoming history quiz. . As a further note, Carson and Bev are looking to add another 9 holes, so that every time you play, there will be a different combination of holes; so you may never play the same course twice. And best of all, if you mention this article, you will receive a 10% discount. So what’s stopping you? Great Assassinations Mini-Putt and Family Amusement Park; fun for the whole family.