The
four tourists arrived at their destination.
“Here
we are, folks!” Tourist 1, their leader by unspoken agreement, announced as they
stood at the main entrance. “The world’s
first, and currently only, Life-Size Miniature Golf Course! Isn’t it a thing of beauty?”
They
surveyed the acres of windmills, fields configured as
pinball machines, unnatural sand, unnatural lakes, and waterfalls – so many waterfalls.
“Is
it 18 holes like in a real golf course?” Tourist 2 asked.
“Well
yeah, mini-golf has 18 holes, too.”
“Oh,
right.”
“Can
we move the ball away from the wall a bit if we hit it too close?” Tourist 3
asked.
“There
aren’t any walls here, and there’re no stroke limits, either,”
Tourist 1 said. “Wherever the ball lands, you have to hit it from there no matter what.”
“Aw
man, that’ll take forever,” Tourist 3 pointed out.
“We’re
in the big leagues now, people; no more fooling around!”
Tourist
4 chimed in: “If it’s ‘Life-Size,’ why is it still called ‘Miniature?’”
“ALL
RIGHT WHO WANTS TO GO FIRST?!”
They
picked up their neon-colored balls and adult-sized putters, along with the
score card and a dinky pencil, and began their trek to Hole 1. Ten minutes later, Tourist 2 swung by with a
golf cart to carry all their stuff the rest of the way.
Upon
arrival, Tourist 4 lined up the shot and then stared at the club: “I dunno, I
don’t think these things are going to hit the ball far enough to reach the
hole.”
“Just
do your best,” Tourist 1 said. The
four amateurs already were sweating profusely in the summer sun, and it was getting
gross.
Tourist
4 drove the ball mightily, which then landed halfway to the ramp that
eventually dropped off to the hole.
“Yeah,
this is gonna take forever,” Tourist 2 said, driving over to the Tiki Bar
stationed at Hole 3.
Hole
5 featured a windmill, but there was no tunnel through the bottom to drive the
ball through: this was an actual working windmill, grain and all.
Tourist
3 was having difficulties getting the ball out of it.
“Did
you find it yet?” Tourist 1 shouted up to the second floor; the other two
players were settled on a dune having a picnic lunch.
“I
think so,” Tourist 3’s voice carried from inside. “I think – nope, no, just another mouse. Ah!
Here it is!” [Whack!] “Hit the wall again! But I should have it out in another 15
strokes – 20, tops!” [Whack! Whack!
Whack!]
A foursome approached their group.
“Hi, you guys
mind if we play through?” their unspoken-agreement leader asked.
“Not at all!”
Tourist 1 said, stepping aside. “I see
you’re using woods and irons?”
“Oh yeah,” the
leader said, teeing up the shot. “This
course is too big to use just putters; it’d take all day, and that's if you started early. You do know most of this stuff is from the
mini-golf course that closed down last year, right? They merged with this course so the country
club could stay open.”
“…Oh.”
Two hours later,
they had moved on to Hole 6.
“Right,” Tourist
1 said, using the putter to put on the appearance of measuring the distance
from the tee to the hole that was half a mile away. “This is a tricky one, and we’re not even at
the halfway point of the course yet.”
“Arrrrrggggghhhh….” Tourist 2 slumped in the golf cart.
Tourist 1 peered
into the distance: “We’ve got a dogleg around that apple orchard and then have to simultaneously avoid the sand trap, the water hazard, and the silverback
gorilla that is taking up the rest of the fairway. I see that the designers of this course are
optimistic about our chances, though: the scorecard lists this hole as a Par 3.”
“Ha!” Tourist 4 barked from up a tree. “More like Par 30!”
Tourist 1 set
the ball on the tee, calculated the angles, tested the wind sheer, and hit the
ball into the water.
Tourist 2 drove
over to the spot: “It’s floating! You’ve
gotta play it from here!”
“Rats,” Tourist
1 muttered. “Now I’ll never avoid the
gorilla.”
The gorilla’s
speakers roared in agreement.
On Hole 13,
Tourist 1 suddenly noticed that Tourists 3 and 4 had disappeared.
“Oh yeah, they
went back to the clubhouse for ice cream about an hour ago,” Tourist 2 said while stretched
out in the back of the golf cart.
“What?! How could they?! When could they?!”
“It was either
while you were trying to get over that last mini-mountain or while you
kept knocking the ball off the pinwheels – nope, scratch that, they left while
you were going through the clown maze. That one kind of freaked them out, plus the
ball kept getting shot back to the tee so I think that might have been the last
straw.”
“I see.”
Finally
arriving at Hole 18, Tourist 1 and Tourist 2 faced a double hole where the
first actually was a tunnel that led 10 yards away to the final destination.
“At
last!” Tourist 1 shrieked, parched of
throat and burnt of skin. “The end is in our grasp!”
Tourist
2 settled down for another nap: “Um-hm.”
In
order to reach the tunnel, Tourist 1 did battle through thickets, prancing
dolphins, another windmill (although painted brighter), Niagara Falls-style
rapids, and random rough, reaching the double hole in just under 50
strokes.
Tourist
1 lined up the shot carefully, tapped the ball, and watched in shock as it
received an assist from the sloped ground to land directly into the final hole.
“It’s
done? It’s done! Victory, ahahahahaha!”
Tourist
1 collapsed onto the ground, feebly waving the putter in triumph.
Tourist
2 stirred briefly: “Hm – yaaaayyyy – snoooorrrreeee….”
One
of the course owners was observing from a distance.
“Huh,
no one’s ever finished the whole thing with just putters before. Better not let them find out those are
being replaced with actual golf clubs tomorrow.”
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