As the cooler days finally come around, we can start turning our thoughts to afternoons spent outside an air conditioned sanctuary, and if you fancy a break this weekend from the traditional beach, brunch or bar-b-q, the new HDS Minigolf in JLT could be just the ticket.
Thanks to a childhood spent touring around the seaside resorts of England courtesy of my parents, I have a sizeable emotional investment in the mini golf concept, or crazy golf as we preferred to call it, in large part due to the former champion golfer Arnold Palmer’s Crazy Golf empire, which was an ever-present on the prom of any UK seaside town you cared to visit.
There’s no celebrity endorsement at HDS Mini Golf (I’m not allowing HDS Group, the developer of the adjacent HDS Business Tower, the mantle of celebrity), but that didn’t detract from the fun. Indeed, it would seem I’m not alone in holding fond memories of childhood mini golf. Within seconds of emailing a few friends to see if anyone wanted to accompany me for a round, my inbox was bulging with ‘affirmatives’.
Our, possibly over-subscribed, party of seven met in the curiously abbreviated Take a’ Break Cafe by the course, which is also where you pay and get your clubs, balls and score sheets, then it was out on the fairway (ok, the astoturf.)
With eighteen holes, as opposed to even Palmer’s more common nine, you certainly get decent value for money, and we took well over an hour negotiating the course. Admittedly, we did take a half time breather. We were perhaps a little too optimistic about quite how much it had cooled down by mid-October, and a unanimous vote at the ninth hole agreed we needed a break, a drink and some air conditioning in Take a’ Break before taking on the back nine, as they say in the golf world, but no one took issue with that and we set out refreshed to find the sun had sunk a little lower too, offering more shade during the second half.
Most of the usual attractions were there – water features; inexplicable large concrete animals with tunnels, ramps and drain pipes for you to hit your ball through; bumps, ditches and that one hole, usually different for everyone, that takes about 10 shots even though your competitors have all nailed it in three, which at least keeps the scores interesting till the end.
One notable omission, we all agreed, was a windmill. I actually thought a windmill, with the double-edged challenge of getting the ball into the door while avoiding the spinning sails was a compulsory part of any minigolf planning application, but we didn’t let it ruin our day.
I’d hate to go on too much of a flight of fancy and suggest that the arrival of a crazy golf course is a major sign of how much Dubai is maturing as a city, but there sometimes does seem to be a genuine lack of things to do as a group that doesn’t involve the beach, shopping or a five-star hotel. All of these are great for tourists, but can become a bit samey for the resident population. HDS Minigolf is definitely one to add to the list, and most of us are keen for a rematch to work on our handicaps.
*HDS Minigolf is located at lakeside level, Cluster M, JLT, Dubai. A round costs 35AED per person including club and ball hire. Concrete animals and frustration at ruining your previously well under par score on hole 11 are complimentary.
