The Tom and Adam Report: We Went Miniature Golfing

So, as we approached the bastion of suburban entertainment that is Cool Springs (Bethel Park is also the home of the Pittsburgh Riverhouds, the just-above-college-level soccer team whose record is something like 3-13...family fun abounds!), I stared in awe at all of the fun. Batting cages, driving ranges, golf lessons for only(!) $30, and, the highlight of the trip, the biggest freakin' net that any of us had ever seen. It was probably two stories high...no, three, and it stretched so far into the distance that we could barely see the end about 300 yards away. Tom surmised that the net was for protecting those on the mini golf course, and though I agreed, I secretly hoped that it was for something more exciting like catching UFOs or for people to run and jump into, maybe even off of a ramp.

I really love this course. I hadn't been to it since I was probably 13 - actually, I remember my last visit, in summer 1992 with my perverted next-door neighbor (who stole the other next door neighbor's mom's underwear [and not just occasionally - he had probably 50 pairs] and got hold of a 1982 Playboy for $10) and our friend Bobby (the weird kid in the school who ate staples and could turn his eyeballs inside-out). We went in the middle of the afternoon a decade ago and tried to cause as much mayhem as we possibly could, though there wasn't too much we could do. Aside of "cheating" and "hitting our balls onto the highway", there wasn't anything really destructive we could do to whet our juvenile delinquent appetites.

Cool Springs is a pretty relaxed course. The emphasis is on the game instead of stupid windmills and doodads. There are obstacles, but they mostly just large rocks, which I thought was a very tasteful approach (echoing the natural Bethel Park environment). The one really challenging aspect was that the sides of each hole - the borders of the "green", if I may use that term - were standard housing bricks, arranged with about 1/2" of space between each one. If your ball struck these spaces - and oh, they did - then it would ricochet in an unpredictable direction, leading to much frustration.

All of the holes were par 2 or 3 - a surprising amount being par 2, actually. It's a difficult course, Cool Springs, definitely for the true miniature golf aficionado. To use the "movie" metaphor above, this course is like Jean Eustache's 1975 classic of Modern French Cinema The Mother and the Whore - long, difficult, without any bells or whistles, but ultimately rewarding.

I got one of the great clubs that my colleague Mr. Eigen wished he had. A bulls-eye on the actual striking surface (though I couldn't manage to see the bulls-eye when I was hitting the ball) and a line on the top of the club part to show me where the bulls eye was. My question: why put the bulls-eye on the club at all? Who sees it?

I'll echo Tommy's comments about the bricks...they were pretty tough to manage. My personal favorite part of the course, though, was the fact that the good people at Cool Springs had attempted to mimic "real" golf by makings roughs and sand traps out of fake mini golf grass of differing lengths. The "sand trap" "grass" was curly and white.

As we began, I noticed that we had a family ahead of us who were going pretty slowly, and a dad and his three boys behind us who had brought their own bottled water and were raring to go. The sight struck a pang of dread in my heart, and I feared possible interaction with one or both of these families. Tom and I don't deal well with others. Make note of this foreshadowing, because, as Chekov said, "The gun in act one will be fired in act three." I don't know if that's actually what he said or not, but you get the gist of it. I never really took drama classes, but I had friends who did.

Family in front: This was your typical white, upper-middle class family. The parents were in their mid-30's with three kids, one in a stroller who was too miniature even for miniature golf. The middle kid, whose name was Justin (maybe ten years old), was TERRIBLE at miniature golf. Seriously, he couldn't sink a putt from three inches away if his life depended on it. Not only was he terrible at mini-golf, but he had a terrible personality to match. He constantly whined and complained and threw temper tantrums when he missed his shots, which was always. He probably had to default to a 7 (the worst possible score) for every hole. His face would get all red and sometimes he would throw his club around. I was totally enjoying the drama, but also trying not to watch. His older brother nonchalantly golfed circles all around him. The family was really slow in general, and we usually had to wait for them to finish before we had our chance.

The family behind us were really into miniature golf. They were a party of four - three kids and a father, who most definitely was divorced and spending his obligatory one weekend per month with the kids. This guy was a total dipshit. He obviously treated his bright, eager kids like crap and didn't really take the game seriously. He made one kid carry their Evian water bottles around, always yelling at him to pick up the bottles, put down the bottles, etc. as if the kid wasn't intelligent to do it himself. He kept allowing them to change the rules, allowing "gimmies" and "retakes," but inconsistently. The kids seemed pretty cool though, or at least cooler than their Dad and cooler than Justin in front of us. Whenever one of us came dangerously close to a hole in one, they got really excited. At one point I got a "nice!" or "sweet!" from one of them, which I returned with "Thanks, kid."

My favorite hole in the middle part of Cool Springs remains hole #10, a big long downhill ramp. It curves around the outermost point of the Cool Springs grounds and begins the trek back to the entrance, where holes #1 and #18 sit side-by-side. I golfed pretty decently, though not nearly as good as Adam. I did beat Mrs. E by a few points though. I had lots of trouble adding up the scores because math is hard when it's sunny out.

I got a hole-in-one on one of the middle holes. It was one of those great shots where the ball rolls ever so slowly towards the hole and then drops in right as you think it's going to stop. I was pretty happy because I felt that as long as I had gotten a hole-in-one, the day couldn't be a total loss.

The dad behind us was pretty annoying most of the time. So were his kids. They yelled at us to get off of the green when we were done playing, then walked around as we shot and put their water bottles in the grass so that we almost stepped on them. The only time that Mr. Golf impressed me was when he said "Doesn't it feel good to do well at golf? That's why daddy plays every weekend." It was at this moment that I realized that he was, in fact, a really good father, and it was probably his ex-wife's fault that they were divorced. He's just a guy who likes his golf, and knows that great feeling of doing well at golf, and if his wife couldn't deal with that, tough enchiladas. It was touching to hear him explain the joys of golf to his sons. I wanted to weep, but I'm like that Molly girl in Neuromancer whose tear ducts run into her mouth, so all I could do was spit.

I drew a picture about how much I love mini-golf

Anyway, the last few holes were the most interesting. There was one where you got to choose whether to hit the ball through this giant boulder or around it - the other two players hit it around and scored 3, but I hit it right through the boulder and it went right into the hole! If I wouldn't have screwed up my first shot, it could have been a hole-in-one.

The last hole was the fucking rake. It had this pool of water that presumably your ball could roll into, since they provided a net to retrieve it. I didn't do that badly, but my ball kept rolling back into this little corner. I think I scored a 5, giving me a total of like 65 or so. I think Adam scored 60, and Mrs. E pulled a 71 (but I still love her).

When we left, I checked those score lists for the leagues. I had defeated most kids ages 9-11, and some of the teens. There were only a few adults whose scores were higher than mine. I think they might be blind, but I don't know. I guess maybe it's best that I didn't enter that league, anyway.

We thought about getting some ice cream treats afterward, which is just what Tubby needed. Not! Luckily, Sir Eats-a-Lot passed on the treats and we made our way to the car. I was really stoked, because I had been thinking about getting to ride shotgun the whole time we were playing...when I wasn't thinking of Mrs. Eigen's supple thighs, that is. She was wearing this sleeveless MASH shirt, and I have a crush on Alan Alda, so that made her even sexier.

As we walked through the parking lot, we noticed a car with a door open, which isn't that exciting, I guess, but it was odd. A red car, with a back door just hanging open. Why? I don't know...I never bought those TIME books on the paranormal. We got in the car, I marveled at that really big net one more time, and then we drove off, waving goodbye to Cool Springs, and all of the great friends that we had made that day. I know we'll be good friends forever.

We really wanted Pop Rocks-flavored Ice Cream, but they were out. But even better: they had "Blue Moon"-flavored ice-cream, only in soft-serve form! I'm not shitting you guys and gals, it really was non-vanilla/chocolate soft-serve. I don't think I've ever encountered anything besides chocolate, vanilla and twist soft-serve ice-cream in my life. Of course I had to get it, and I had them dip it in cherry wax. They had tons of different cones - the standard sugar or cake cones, plus the pretzel cone (which Mrs. E got) and the Oreo cone!

Yes, in my hands was the absolute strangest ice-cream cone I had ever seen. It was red, on a black cone, but once I bit through the cherry dip, it was bright blue inside. I was proud. And it was pretty damn good, except the Oreo cone was denser than I would have liked.

Yes, Sweet Lixx was intense (but in a good way, not like Empty Nest-intense). In fact, they had a brochure about how to open your own Sweet Lixx franchise, but I decided starting another business would not be a good idea this quarter. Maybe in the fall though?

Yes, miniature golf was a wonderful experience for all of us. We heartily endorse the Cool Springs miniature golf course as our #1 choice for golfing in Pittsburgh's lily-white suburbs. Oh wait, we did see a black guy at Sweet Lixx, but that was a lot closer to the city than Cool Springs was.

Okay, look, we know this isn't nearly as funny as The Ned and Daron report, but we thought we'd try, okay? When we go to see that Vin Diesel movie xXx we'll definitely write something better than this mediocre drivel. Or maybe we'll take a trip to the public pool.