Wednesday, March 20, 2013

3/20/13 Hole-In-Wonderfuls Round 2!

As my Mom mentioned, when she was feeling better we took advantage of the lack of nausea to head off to the most adventurous miniature golf course ever! The "Hole-In-Wonderfuls," as we call ourselves, met for the second time in south downtown Seattle for the "miniature golf apocalypse" that is Smash Putt. Thank you to various friends for suggesting this to us! 

I don't know how to accurately describe Smash Putt, as I have never seen or heard of anything like it until now, but I would say that Smash Putt is one part mad scientist, one part modern art installation, one part hipster hangout and one part miniature golf. According to their website, golfers will "Putt past pesky pitfalls and profoundly protuberant impediments in the ultimate test of skill, luck, n’ patience". Also, we were warned repeatedly, that death was likely! A far cry from the friendly, suburban, cleanly-landscaped Rainbow Run miniature golf course at Willows Lodge! 


Mom and I took off to South Downtown not knowing what to expect. When we walked in the doors to a derelict loft-space south of Safeco field and I saw the flies buzzing around bare light bulbs and graffiti-covered walls, I knew we were in for a treat! Each one of the 15 holes at Smash Putt is unlike any other miniature golf hole you've seen. The first hole seems fairly normal, until a button is pressed (by a sabatouer) and the hole is lifted up and back down at random intervals, causing the golfer to putt hap-hazardly not knowing how long the hole will 
be reachable. See video I took below: 



We were excited to see each unique, crazy hole! Mom's favorite was the "Mission Impossib-hole" where you entered a dark room filled with fog, and laser alarms were set in all different directions. One  must expertly put to the hole while ducking and crawling around lasers a la Catherine Zeta Jones in the film "Entrapment." If you hit the laser beam, an alarm went off and 1 penalty stroke was added to your score. My favorite was "Ball Maze" where you put your golf ball in the top of a circular maze and had to rotate it until your ball emerged from the maze, at either 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5 strokes. I got 2!

Children and pregnant women beware! Smash Putt includes a machine-gun style hole where balls are shot through an air cannon at blazing speeds towards various pieces of scrap metal in a large caged room. This was a miniature golf course for the books! I have to admit it was extremely enjoyable to shoot golf balls at high speeds and watch them ricochet off pieces of metal. Each target I imagined as a cancerous cell and I obliterated all of them! Hooray! 

Amazingly enough, the score was a perfect tie! 53 strokes for each of us! But mom would have won if she had elected to sabotage me on one of the holes. I sabotaged her and added several strokes to her card, but she was too kind and ethical to sabotage me! :-)I highly recommend going if you are in the mood for something new and exciting! I felt like I was in an episode of Portlandia! 

Successful round 2 of miniature golf for team: Hole-In-Wonderfuls!

Me with mascot, Mrs. Potato Head!
Mom with mascot!
Mom Putting on the skeeball-style hole!
Me with ball maze hole! So fun!
Mom and living room hole. Complete with working vintage Nintendo!
 


Golf ball cannon! Whee!!
Headgear required!




1 comment:

  1. Hilarious. I can imagine the waivers you had to sign before they'd hand you your clubs. You really should charge a membership to be able to read your blogs. They're great! (and if you want to raise funds, reading them appeals to me more than rubbing Steve's head). I love Mrs. Potato Head all glammed up for the occasion too.

    Hugs, Janet

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