Bay Area mini golf rankings
Short reviews from a two-time (under-12 🙃) mini golf tournament winner 😁
Context:
- I tend to prefer what Washington Post describes as "resort style" golf courses: courses that "have an emphasis on landscaping and challenging green designs that mimic more serious, full-size ranges"
- Things that contribute to the experience that aren't strictly golf-experience-related (Urban Putt and Stagecoach Greens have access to drinks; Golfland USA has an arcade) aren't included in the reviews
- I haven't yet tried Subpar in SF, but I'd like to!
1. Urban Putt (SF)
+
- Incredibly creative nontraditional hole designs; great uses of technology
- Fun aesthetic
- Minimal jankiness to holes despite the intricacy of construction
- Indoors, so good winter/rain spot
-
- A bit short (only 14 holes)
- Low-ish replayability—much of the draw to the place is experiencing the theming, not the putting
- Not a very "golf"y feel
2. Golfland USA (Sunnyvale)
Golfland USA has 2 courses -- this review is for the eastern course. The western course is more straightforward and blander-feeling.
+
- Decent hole variety
- Skill is rewarded fairly well, though not always
- Some holes that let you swing pretty hard
- Concrete walls give a fairly consistent bounce
-
- Theming is sparse and inconsistent
- Kinda ugly putting surface
- Final putts are generally uninteresting—there's not a lot of (intentional) sloping near the hole
3. Stagecoach Greens (SF)
+
- Consistent San Francisco theme with interesting facts about the city
-
- Taking the more difficult/interesting path leads to a worse result on almost every hole where a high-risk path is offered
- The entries to the high-risk path are often finicky, and even once on the path, there's little to no benefit in closeness to the hole vs. avoiding the high-risk path
- Seemingly always windy and cold (but I guess that's on-theme 🤔?)