‘In the same way a book written on lead might be called the world’s densest novel, ‘Uncommon Hazards’ claims to be the nation’s most challenging round of miniature golf. It is a grueling experience (in ways which the author will reluctantly leave unspoiled for those who wish to visit) that only lightly wears the skin of golf, but it must be admired for the thoroughness with which it achieves its vision. ‘Uncommon Hazards’ employs blurred lines and psychic gut punches in the humble task of adding a few points to your score. Its courses are degrading and its staff is apathetic at best. It is not a game any sane person would play twice.’
Without the author’s warning I would have assumed that when, on the first green, my ball was sucked up into the mouth of a cement clown where it was subjected to some sort of industrial grinder and returned a lopsided mess, that there had been some sort of mistake, that I would be issued a replacement. Thanks to the author, I was not surprised when an employee told me I would not get a refund, but that she would waive the ‘Ball Replacement Fee’ since the damages may have been due, in part, to the facilities and not entirely to my neglect. I putt the non-spherical ball in circles around the smiling clown while an angry man and his two daughters respectively huff and whine, waiting their turn behind me.
First round: 25
The second course is a clear, straight rectangle just ten feet long but the moment I approach the green a siren goes off and I’m asked to evacuate. I stand in the parking lot with someone who claims to be a manager for 15 minutes before he, having received no clear indication from anything inside the establishment, suggests we return. When we do, I find the second green is littered with invisible magnets, the most powerful of which is embedded in the hole itself, meaning that my final shot is actually just my having to press the levitating ball (presumably containing a magnetic core) forcibly into the ground for a few seconds so that it ‘counts.’
Second round: 31
I spend forty minutes in the liminal space between courses as a young man ahead of me talks loudly on his phone, which he holds pinched between his head and his shoulder as he attempts to play the round. He drops the phone every few minutes and dusts it off, continuing the conversation as though nothing had happened to interrupt it. The green is simple enough- crooked in several places and dotted with small, cement obstacles. The man weaves his ball around them over and over, unable to muster the fine motor coordination necessary to guide the thing to its goal as long as he’s preoccupied with the call.
At the forty minute mark I see that the man’s ball has not received the same rough handling in the mouth of the clown as mine and I take to the green myself, lining up a careful ricochet.
The man protests:
“Hey! I’m not quite done here buddy!” he says to me, and then, to his phone: “Yeah, some asshole’s trying to cut me in line at Hazzards.”
It does give me pause, but I take the shot and continue taking shots as the man’s outrage grows, as he waves his phone and hurls insults and generally hovers about- never stopping me physically but doing his best to disrupt me at every turn.
Third round: 12 (and over an hour of my time)
I’ve set up on the fourth course, which appears to be a series of sand-filled tubes, when the father and his daughters reappear behind me and take up their act again. One of the girls stands so close that I feel the leg of her plush horse graze the back of my knee and the man’s salty breath rustles my hair and all of the stress of today and of days before comes to an explosive head.
I shout at them, first degrading their employment at the course and briefly veering into broader, less meaningful abuse before receiving a powerful blow to the jaw and being escorted from the premises where a manager and I spend 30 minutes hashing out whether this is being done ‘in character’ or if this is an official banishment from the establishment.
It is the latter.
I walk back across the parking lot, fingering the lopsided golf-ball in my pocket, and find the bike silent, as it has been for several weeks.
-traveler
