Putt-Putt at Home

While it can be exciting to go to a miniature golf course with the whole family, sometimes it can be even more fun to create your own backyard miniature golf course. Children can especially get into the crafting of your "hazards" and goals, coming up with parts and pieces from art supplies and scraps using just a pair of scissors, some glue, and some tape. In your backyard miniature golf course, you'll never have to wait for the tee to clear, and you don't have to worry about a par 3. Your children can make use of plastic clubs and balls purchased inexpensively from the local supermart and have fun all day long!

What do you need to create your own backyard miniature golf course? You should start by finding the most level area of your own backyard - while most putt-putt golf courses have a bit of a hill or two, these are very minimal, and most of the game is played on level ground. Plus, this makes certain that it will be easier for your children and avoid a lot of frustration. Now, grab the garden supplies and let your children do a little digging; after all, most kids love to delve in the dirt. You should have some small 4-inch flower pots lying around somewhere or can probably collect a few used empty ones from a nearby nursery. These will be placed into the holes as your goals. You can create the flags for your backyard miniature golf course with simple felt or paper glued or taped to wooden dowels or even long popsicle sticks.

Now, you are ready to create your obstacles. You can get as creative as you want and make the course easy or challenging. Use some old pipes to create tunnels, or build a small bridge out of some scrap wood. Create a sandtrap by piling up some sand from the sandbox or even using sawdust from the wood you cut for the bridge! If you want to really challenge yourself and your children, you can create water hazards with more holes dug in the ground into which you can drop buckets or plastic bowls full of water. Think how inexpensively you can build your backyard miniature golf course by using all these items that are probably lying around the house or in your garage anyway.

If you want to make it competitive, you can either let the kids draw up their own scorecards or, to make it look official, you can print out scorecards from your computer at home. With a little creativity and a little love, you can help your kids build themselves a backyard miniature golf course that will be enjoyable to them any day of the week!