Four Oaks Golf Course in Pittsburg, Kansas, US, has replaced its traditional concrete mini-golf course with a new 18-hole course.
The venue enlisted the help of Adventure Golf & Sport to replace the original course, which was built in 1996 but had poor drainage.
Toby Book, director of parks and recreation for the city of Pittsburg, said: “It had affected playability enough that our numbers were decreasing. It was not economically repairable.”
The new course utilised the Modular Advantage Mini Golf System, which Book, a 28-year veteran of the parks and recreation department, said had solved the drainage issue. “We had a couple of rains that were like four or five inches overnight, there might have been one or two sport where we had to take a blower and blow some water out of a cup, but it proved without a doubt that it was a very much improved drainage system and took the water away. It was playable the next day.”
The course uses a number of types of synthetic turf, with the AGS system consisting of interlocking and flexible panels that provide the look and feel of a concrete course, but which can be shaped to resemble a variety of topography and are 100 per cent water-permeable.
Book explained that the city didn’t want a mini-golf course with over-the-top clown or volcanoes, but wanted to add theming that would give it more appeal. Book explained: “I think from hole one to the sixth hole there’s almost a three-foot elevation change and not noticeable because they kept it in all within the ratios for ADA. But the holes themselves have contour; they have cup placement so that it’s not just a straight shot. It’s not 18-holes of playing billiards. There’s some strategy. There’s some challenge to it.”
