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Family Daze
Family adventure included a castle and a hole-in-one
By Debbie Farmer
'Let's take the kids miniature golfing," my husband said one Sunday afternoon. "They'll have a wonderful time and I can practice my putting."
I stared at my husband. I barely recovered from our last family outing, and I wasn't sure if arming our children with a blunt metal object on the end of a stick, was such a good idea.
"Do you remember last time we went pee-wee golfing, and you broke the fire-breathing dragon when you hit the ball into its mouth and your arm got stuck down its throat?"
"That was an accident."
We finally decided on a miniature golf course several miles out of town, where we wouldn't be recognized.
When we arrived we paid the fee and got four different colored balls, a set of clubs and a score card. Then my husband gathered us into a huddle.
"We're going to each take turns trying to hit the ball in the hole. The person who does it with the fewest tries wins. Understand?"
My son took his thumb out of mouth and nodded.
"Why don't we just play for fun," I said. "We don't need to keep score."
My husband shook his head. "Where's the sport in that?"
We approached the first hole, where we had to hit the ball straight down the alley, over a bump and through the door of a cute little windmill.
"Let me show you how it's done," my husband said, as if he were a professional golfer in a PGA tournament. He aligned the ball with his club, lay down on the grass and closed one eye. When he finally hit the ball, it ricocheted off one of the windmill blades and landed in a bush.
"Cool," my daughter said.
"Keep your eye on the ball," I said. "Like this." I aimed, swung, and made a perfect shot--if I had been playing with the family 14 holes ahead of us. Then, my daughter approached the tee, gripped her club and hit a home run over the top of the windmill into the parking lot.
By the seventh hole we had run out of room on the card to write our points, and almost everybody on the course was waiting in line behind us for their turn.
We hurried to the 14th hole, which had a lovely miniature replica of Sleeping Beauty's castle surrounded by a moat.
"OK, kids," my husband instructed, "just tap the ball right down the center, over the drawbridge and into the gate."
We were improving. My ball and I stayed on the same course; my daughter hit hers in the general direction of the castle, and my husband barely missed our son, who had waded into the moat.
"Isn't this fun?" my husband said.
My idea of fun was sitting at a table in an air-conditioned clubhouse sipping an ice-cold drink, but my children seemed to have a good time running around the topiary and drinking soda out of other people's cups. Besides, I could see the 18th hole, just past a herd of juniper elephants.
"This is your last chance to improve your score," my husband said, as we approached it. He held up his finger to test the direction the wind was blowing.
My daughter picked up her ball and threw it toward the hole, while my son kicked it in.
"Yippee!" they shouted as they got a hole-in-one.
After my husband calculated the score and figured he beat us by 987 points, we turned in our clubs. As I staggered to the car, I realized we had a nice day, after all: the children had fun, no innocent bystanders got hurt, and the people at the course would probably forget about our visit by the time I recuperated enough to go miniature golfing with my family again.
Debbie Farmer can be contacted at familydaze@home.com.
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Saratoga, California Since 1955
