Friday afternoon and the Finest team descended on to Junkyard Golf, which offers two unique crazy golf courses all mixed up with beers, cocktails, food and banging tunes.
When I think of golf a few images come to mind. One is of terrible trousers. Another is Lee Carvallo’s Putting Challenge. But mostly I think of tanned rich men, slowly walking around some grass while their employees toil and work – making enough money for them to afford the yearly Golf Club membership fee and a new chin for the wife.
Walking into Junkyard Golf on Friday night though – despite my prejudice towards sports and golf in general – none of those images actually came to me. The reason for this, and probably the main reason that so many people actually go to Junkyard Golf and have an enjoyable time – it’s not really anything like real golf at all.
It’s a crazy golf place. Which already sets it higher up the ladder than any actual real golf-based activity – it ‘puts’ (brilliant!) everyone on the same level – there’s no messing about with Drivers and Sandwedges – just hit the bloody ball and see what happens.
What happens is that the ball will hopefully travel through a series of obstacles and traps and end up in the hole at the end. These obstacles are made up to create two 9 hole courses – each with its own theme. There’s Pablo which is a sort of beach/jungle/exotic theme, and then there’s Freida which is a kind of club/UV/rave theme.
On Friday we played on Pablo and so we experienced boats and sharks and volcanoes and bath tubs and jungle canyon rope bridges – all of which were frustratingly hindering any chance of me crowned the winner. In the end, as is usually the case, I ended up coming last out of our group – mostly because I have the coordination of a lizard that’s spent 2 hours in a tumble dryer, but also because I was slowly but pleasantly getting sloshed.
One of the redeeming features of any sort of sport or physical activity is how easy it is to get drunk while doing it. I’m pretty sure that’s why people love watching football so much, and why nobody really ever plays tennis any more. The fact that they just drink Robinson’s squash at the side of the court instead of a frosty can of Stella just excludes the common man from the sport and is the main reason why Wimbledon is full of posh people eating fruit and wearing blazers.
Golf is much the same but Junkyard Golf offers everyone the chance to take your drinks around while playing. I was never short of somewhere to rest my drink while I failed miserably to hit the ball up a pyramid, and it was all the more enjoyable for it. There was even a half-time bar conveniently located on the course so we didn’t have to go all the way back to the start for a bevvie. Selection wise they have a great choice of craft beers and lagers, as well as some pretty great looking cocktails. On top of this you can also grab some food while going around – which may be helpful if you have too many drinks.
As I disastrously blundered my way around the course, losing 2 balls and all of my dignity, we had a proper good laugh – the perfect remedy for a rather annoying Friday day in work. Junkyard Golf proved to be an immensely enjoyable endeavour, much against my initial expectations and even though we only did one of the courses, it leaves me with the perfect opportunity to go again and try the other.
Junkyard Golf, 3 Piccadilly, Manchester M1 3BN
https://www.junkyardgolfclub.co.uk
