Par King (Lincolnshire, IL) - Red Course

July 10, 2011, late afternoon

In 16 previous trips to Par King, we had played the Black Course 11 times, and it had been more than three years since we played the Red Course at all - and Alma and I hadn't played it by ourselves since my 23rd birthday!  It turns out - which I had suspected - that the Red Course is typically reserved for larger/slower groups, and that faster twosomes are usually put on the Black Course.  However, they were more than happy to let us play the Red Course when I specifically asked to, and so we did.  Things started well for me with a birdie at the first hole, but I totally squandered it at the second hole.  My first drive skipped off the fairway and I had to retake it; eventually I ended up with a double-bogey four.  Now I was already over par, and I wouldn't get back below it.  In spite of good putting on most holes, I was pretty much never in position for birdie and so it didn't really matter (in part because most holes on the courses are par two).  I took bogey 3 at #6 and #9 and could only par the two remaining par-threes on the front nine, making the turn at three-over 24, my worst-ever front nine on this course.  On the bright side, I had one of my better back nines, but it was still over par (I've never made or broken par on the back nine).  I came fairly close to holes-in-one on a few holes, in particularly #17 which has pretty much a direct shot at the hole from the tee, but Alma carded our only ace at the 16th, just after I had missed one by a couple inches.  I should have had a birdie at #13, but I hit my first shot so poorly that I simply had to start the hole over again - at which point I finished in two strokes, saving par.  The only actual blemish on the back nine was at #11, where my drive stopped just short of the place where the ball is taken in to be dropped onto the green and I had to go up and tap it in, ending up with a bogey that really should have been a par.  I also took a 4 at the roulette wheel, but of course there's nothing you can do about that.  Alma matched me on the front nine except for a rough 5 at the first, but her back nine was a bit tougher mostly due to trouble with the Old Shoe at #14, which has given me problems in the past (similar style to the Black Course's Jack-o-Lantern #12), and an unlucky 6 at the roulette wheel.

May 25, 2008, afternoon

Our mini golf season started later than usual in 2008, thanks in part to the generally cold April and May (and the fact that on the few days it had topped 70, it had often rained) and in part to the fact that I moved and was no longer a 15-minute walk from the Diversey course.  (My closest course now is Skokie, and fuck that noise.)  As with our last time out, Alma and I went with Justin and Margie to Par King, and found ourselves again assigned to the Red Course.  Justin and I both started strong; he aced the third and fourth holes, while I rolled an ace under Humpty Dumpty at hole #6.  The entire party struggled at Downhill Racer - a hole that gave Drew fits back on 4/23/06 (see below) - but I made the turn at par and Justin just one over, with Alma and Margie a few shots farther back.  As we made the turn, it started to rain slightly.  While it passed within a few holes, perhaps the rain stole our concentration, because the back nine was a mess for pretty much all concerned.  I was still at par through the 13th thanks to a second ace at #12, but on #14 ("Old Shoe") I had that old problem where it was difficult to hit the ball into the obstacle because if you hit it too hard it would bounce off the low ceiling and come back down, but if you didn't hit it hard enough it wouldn't be able to roll up the incline.  It took me three shots to get it through the shoe and I had to settle for a double-bogey four; I proceeded to bogey Sears Tower despite being on the green in one and then, just to compound things, I came close to a hole-in-one on #17, the Old Barn, but when I tried to tap in for par before Alma took her drive, I pushed the ball past the hole and ended up taking another bogey.  As if that weren't enough, I ended up with a 5 on the Roulette Wheel for a six-over 47, my worst score in five rounds on the Red Course.  I still had the best score on the day and was the only player not to make a 6 on the back nine, but I was also the only one of the four to make a worse score here than on our last trip.  Still, as usual, mini golf is a pretty good social outing, and apart from the brief rain it was good to finally have a nice day on which to play it.

June 22, 2007, afternoon

I had the day off work, and Alma and I headed to Par King with another couple, Justin and Margie, friends of ours from Alma's school.  Everyone started off fairly well; I bogeyed the opening hole while Alma and Justin parred and Margie made birdie, but I settled down with pars on the next four holes and an ace at #6.  Alma and Justin largely matched me, while Margie had a couple of tough-luck sixes to fall to the back of the pack.  I bogeyed #8 and #9 to make the turn at two-over; Alma matched me while Justin was just one-over and in the lead.  Everyone else ended up exploding on the back nine, however.  I played one-over up to the roulette wheel at #18, with a bogey 3 at the par-2 14th my only blemish, but Alma made 5 at both #13 and #14, Justin made 6 at #11 and #14, as well as 5 at #13, and Margie opened 5-4-5 before settling down a little.  Then the roulette wheel shocked us all.  Going first, I was stuck with a 5, leaving me with a disappointing five-over 46; Alma went next and got a hard-luck seven, the worst score you can make; Justin matched me with a 5.  Then Margie gave hers a little tap down the chute, rather than firing it in like I had been accustomed to doing.  Instead of spinning around the outside and then dropping, it simply fell right into the wheel - where it landed in the 0 hole!  Bells went off and the attendants (who could not possibly have seemed more bored with this turn of events, despite our excitement) came out to present Margie with her free game token.  A fun ending to what had been a fun social outing, if a disappointment in terms of scoring.  Even for me, that's not always the point.  (Although here I am with the scorecard anyway.)

April 23, 2006, afternoon

I had par.  I really had it.  This was going to be the first time I made - or even broke! - par at Par King... and then the wheels came off on two holes.  Drew and I started by hanging with each other for the first five holes.  Then we got to the 6th and things started to break open.  I holed an ace, but Drew had a couple bad breaks and took a four.  Suddenly four shots off the lead, he pretty much gave up the next hole, carding a six while I made two to fall to eight back.  The next hole, "Downhill Racer," was just a fiasco for him.  No matter how hard or how soft he hit the ball, it either didn't go far enough or careened off the walls at the top and bounced back down.  I don't think I've ever seen worse luck on a single hole.  Twelve back at the turn, Drew was all but out of it, and while he actually beat me by a shot on the back nine, I worried less about the head-to-head and more about trying to make or break par.  I didn't make a single bogey until the 15th hole (a horrible case of bad luck, as my shot for the Sears Tower's elevator was just offline enough to bounce off and stay in the fairway rather than heading for the green), but I also didn't have a single birdie because of the back nine's low par.  I nearly made a hole-in-one at 17 (Drew had one at 15, giving us each one for the round), but I went into 18 needing no worse than 4 to make par or three to better it.  Of course, if 18 were a real hole, I might have managed.  As it was, Drew and I both took sixes on the stupid roulette wheel, and I shot to 43 to dash my dreams once again.

August 29, 2005, early evening

For the first time since our first trip to Par King, Alma and I actually got to play the Red Course.  It's probably slightly less exciting than the Black, but you're not buried in bushes half the time and the water holes aren't as scary.  I started out pretty well with a birdie on the first hole and back-to-back holes-in-one at #3 and #4, but the rest of the round was pretty pedestrian.  I didn't put up any scores worse than 3, which is nice (and the first time that's happened in four Par King rounds), but four of those were bogeys on par-2 holes, so I ended up at one-over for the round.  This was my best score at Par King to date, but I felt like I could have done better.  Alma's round was slightly worse than her previous effort on the Red Course, but she did knock in a hole-in-one on the 17th.

June 23, 2005, afternoon

The course in Morton Grove ended up being closed, so the only recourse Alma and I had was to venture to the one up in Lincolnshire.  It's plenty cool, as it happens.  We were assigned to the red course the first day (unlike most places, you don't really get to choose).  I had no birdies and two bogeys on the front nine to go out in 23; Alma matched me thanks to two birdies, including an ace at the third.  The back nine was better for me: two holes-in-one, the second an eagle at the par-3 18th, a hole which is actually a roulette wheel and thus getting a hole-in-one takes really no skill to speak of.  However, I was lucky enough to make it.  (Alma did as well.)  The only blemish on my back nine was a 5 at the 13th, where I went into the water.  (Well, I bogeyed two other holes, but getting a 3 on a par-2 isn't much of a blemish in my book - it's scores of four and above you need to worry about on the mini-golf course.)  In the end I totaled 21 on the way in, leaving me at 44 - a mere three over par - for the round.