designer mini golf

The differences between Louisiana and Minnesota can be summed up in a lot of ways: the weather, the stance on gay marriage, the target employees, the mini golf.

If you had asked me to play mini golf in Louisiana, I would have looked at you like you had three heads. No way would I spend my free time at the 50 year old Celebration Station, a half-abandoned place run by stoned teenagers. Not only was the place dirty and crusty, but I also found Celebration Station pretty darn cool as a kid, and I didn't want to ruin my former child-like wonder of the place. 

For this reason, I will never go to a Chuck E Cheese. (That and the fact that I would prefer not to be shot.) 

But last Friday I asked Y if he wanted to play mini golf. Because around here, it's an art. 

The Walker Art Center is Minneapolis's modern art museum, and we've been there three times: to take a picture with the iconic Spoonbridge and Cherry sculpture, to watch an internet cat video film festival, and to play putt putt. We're so cultured. 

For their putt putt course (open through September 8), the Walker commissioned artists and architects to dream up each hole. And although it was a lot of fun, and neither crusty nor dirty, let's just say I left more inspired to be creative than to play golf (I got a 35 on a par 4. Sorry, dad).

For this hole, you had to putt your ball up the long white PVC pipe, at the end of which it fell out onto a labyrinth. From there, the ball was controlled by your tilting of the labyrinth.

This is the hole that took me 35 tries. Y, of course, got it in two.

This hole was an overlay of all the greens at Augusta

This hole was centered around a miniature version of the Walker Art Center, but inside of a giant golf ball. INCEPTION. Or something.

To finish this hole, you had to play foosball with giant lawn gnomes.