Novelty Golf (Lincolnwood, IL) - Course 1

June 16, 2011, evening

It seems hard to believe this was my first time on this course in more than four years, but evidently it was.  Jazzed for some after-work mini golf on a nice day, I headed to Novelty Golf and decided to play Course 1 even though it was slightly busier because I had been looking at old stats recently and it looked like I'd had more success on it than Course 2.  As it turns out, my memory was a bit fuzzy - I averaged 53.75 in four previous attempts at Course 1 and 53.4 in five previous attempts at Course 2, but I was unbeaten on Course 1, which is probably what I was remembering.  Of course it didn't matter as I was playing alone, and it was just as well when my round started off poorly.  On the very first hole I hit the windmill blade and settled for bogey 3; on the second I also failed to get the ball through a target opening and ended up with double bogey 4.  After a par save despite driving it into the water at #3, I bogeyed #4, then missed a three-foot birdie putt at #5 and a three-foot par putt at #6.  At #7, I had the ball bounce back once and then ended up on every tier of the three-tiered green, finally scraping out a double bogey 5.  At #8 the high school kids in front of me offered to let me play through so I wouldn't be waiting for them.  I joked that it might not matter since I wasn't playing very well, then proceeded to perfectly hit a target barely bigger than the ball itself from 20 feet away, ending up with an amazing hole in one, my first ever on this course.  I then killed that momentum by lipping a par putt at #9 to hit the turn at six over.  The back nine was much friendlier - I've always played it lower than the front nine and today was no exception, as I didn't make a single bogey and flew in with a three-under 22, my best score ever.  Though I had three birdies, the standout hole was #16 - my drive hopped over the fairway wall, then glanced off the cement outside and bounced back into play, saving me a stroke, though it ended up a long way from the hole.  My second shot hit another small target and ended up hitting the hole but not dropping; I canned the par putt from three feet, birdied #17 to get down to +3, and made an easy par at 18 to close.

May 6, 2007, afternoon

Novelty Golf is kind of the go-to course when we don't necessarily want to play Diversey again.  Drew and Karen moped their way through most of Course 1, however, after struggling early - Drew took a five and two sixes on the front nine, while Karen had one six and three fives - while I made par after par to go out in one-over 26.   Nine shots ahead at the turn, I cruised in with a one-under 24 to finish at even-par 50, by three shots my best score on this course to date.  Drew came in smoothly but for another six at the thirteenth; Karen had two more sixes on the way to a 69.  Though Drew had played the course pretty well in our previous trip, it was not kind to him or Karen on this occasion, and we had to play the second course in attempt to make up for it.

April 15, 2006, afternoon

Drew and I were tired of Diversey and I remembered that Novelty Golf was pretty much the only other course that was relatively convenient.  Drew jumped out to an early lead on Course One; after we both struggled at the third, a difficult water hole, Drew bested my score for four consecutive holes, including at the sixth as a par putt lipped out on me.  I birdied the ninth to pull to three back at the turn.  We then traded scores for the next several holes - I got within two at the tenth, then dropped back to three at the eleventh and four at the twelfth.  We split the 13th and 14th as well, but on the fifteenth, I lucked out.  A tricky all-uphill hole, I managed to hit my second shot perfectly for birdie, while Drew scraped out a five.  I was just one back now, and we matched each other on 16 and 17 to go into the final hole with Drew one up.  The back of the hole had deadening panels, so I whacked my tee shot and ended up within a short par putt, which I would hit; Drew's ball somehow bounced up and got trapped under the obstacle.  His tap out at least put him in position to save 3, but we ended with an unsatisfying tie.

July 1, 2005, afternoon

The third round (or "Saturday") of Drew's and my 72-hole mini golf tournament, it wasn't a particularly inspiring round for anyone.  Alma, playing with us, recorded the threesome's only hole-in-one, at the fourth, but cumulatively the three of us racked up 24 bogeys to just seven birdies (plus Alma's eagle).  I went out in 30, two shots worse than my last attempt at the course, not helped by double-bogey fives at both the third and the eighth.  The back nine was much better, a solid even-par 25 with no score higher than a 3 and only two bogeys (threes at the par-2 fourteenth and eighteenth).  Drew matched me on the back nine, but had taken a 37 going out (probably due in large part to his unfamiliarity with the course's design) and so finished seven shots back in second - which at the time made him think the tournament was over, though this turned out not to be the case.

June 18, 2005, afternoon

I've played at Novelty Golf before, but this was the first time since I began to keep track.  My round was solid if unspectacular, but it was good enough to be the best in a foursome of myself, Alma, Alma's sister, and Alma's sister's fiancé by seven shots.  I failed to record a hole-in-one (Alma's sister had the only ace of the round, an eagle at the 15th), but Novelty Golf is a fairly challenging set of courses - the par on both is a fairly high 50 (25 both ways), a full nine shots higher than any other course I've played in the Chicago area.  14 of the 18 holes are par-threes, in fact (the remaining holes are par-two).  The course starts with consecutive par-two holes (I bogeyed the second), then has eleven par-threes in a row.  I didn't help myself by making four on holes three through six, putting me five over, but I birdied two of the final three holes to go out in three-over 28.  I mostly pulled it together on the back nine, though I threw away a chance at even-par for the round by making four on the eleventh and twelfth.  I birdied 10 and 13, bogeyed 14, then birdied 17 to finish with a back-nine total of 25, even par, leaving me at a respectable three-over 53 for the round.