Putting the crazy into crazy golf

My intrepid girl, unwisely traversing a waterfall

I’ve just gone back to work full time, which has meant kissing goodbye to any time we used to get to spend together (as well as any energy I used to have to do anything apart from teach and all the related paperwork exercises). So, as it was nice and sunny (if a little nippy) last Sunday morning, we decided to go out for a round of crazy golf at a local course.

You can just see the pure joy on her face… no, wait…

We arrived just after a kid’s birthday party, so pushed ahead started out at hole 8. Maybe she thought I had my eye on her unwieldy miniature plastic club, #jealous but Stella was pretty reluctant to be helped. Her strong natural instinct for ownership continued, as she spent most of the round collecting everyone’s balls from their resting place on the green and shouting, “Mine!” at the top of her voice.

Jet tees off about four holes ahead of the rest of us. Nothing like a nice bit of time spent together as a family…

Perhaps it was this that led Jet to rush ahead? Ever the trail blazer, he seemed to approach the game as a task to be completed as quickly as possible, speeding through each hole, before retrieving his ball from the cup and moving on to the next. This he did regardless of whether or not there was another group already playing that hole. He found that by getting in their way as much as possible and ignoring all social conventions governing personal space, he was able to progress through the course at breakneck speed. His golfing etiquette left a lot to be desired, as did his technique, which was more akin to hockey.

Jet’s considered advice on club selection falls on deaf ears

Stella’s focus quickly switched to doing her best balancing on all the little walls around each hole, quietly discarding her stick and ball behind a fern, then demanding they were presented to her immediately she decided she needed them again. Her traipsing all over the green did have its benefits though, as one of Chris’ shots ricocheted off her foot and into the cup – a hole in one!

Meanwhile, Chris attempted to keep some sort of score, which was made impossible by Stella’s ball collection, Jet’s distance from the rest of us and my lack of attention to how many shots I’d had, as I was carelessly trying to make sure neither of the children fell in a water feature. On hole 6 a genuine hole in one momentarily made keeping track of my shot count easier 🙂

It was an unexpected pleasure to catch up with Uncle Will at the 18th hole

The kids seem to have taken their cue to behave like monkeys from all the fibreglass animals dotted about the place, whose disembodied calls were being amplified deafeningly across the course through the PA. It was completely bonkers and a lot of fun – I’ve never laughed so much whilst carrying a small red plastic golf club and all of the kid’s discarded winter outerwear.

If you enjoyed that, you can read about another of our days out here