Holey moley – backyard putt putt
Each Wednesday an enormous battle is undertaken for the glory of winning a game of backyard mini-golf.
If you manage to make it through a round without losing a ball, your name makes it on the hallowed ‘‘members board’’.
And if you take out the game, then you’ll nab a meat pack.
There are four six-hole homemade backyard courses dotted around New Plymouth backyards.
These courses are the setting for Wednesday club nights, which take place during daylight savings, with anywhere from four to 40 people showing up for a shot to be crowned putt champion. There’s no dress code, people come straight from work, some in jandals and others in work boots.
It’s taken seriously though, well as serious as backyard mini-putt can be, with the spectators referred to as ‘‘the gallery’’, and the greens are rolled.
The games are competitive, but as one of the course owners, Viv Treweek, says, those that are ‘‘the most competitive and the best are different things’’.
But it’s not really about the golf.
‘‘It’s basically run by a bunch of numbnuts,’’ Treweek says with a laugh.
A lot of the night is spent looking for balls in hedges and misplaced beers and golf tees.
‘‘It’s a good way to use the space, like no-one has spent that much time in that part of my garden before,’’ another course owner, Mark Armstrong, says, and laughs while pointing at three men fishing through trees looking for balls.
Armstrong’s course is immaculate with rolled grass, in fruit trees and vegetable
There’s no dress code, people come straight from work, some in jandals and others in work boots.
gardens, with the holes spaced out over his three-tiered yard.
The origins of this club was in the back yard of a flat in Auckland’s Mt Albert.
Someone mowed the lawn creatively and the flatmates thought ‘‘there’s a bit of a golf course here’’.
‘‘It just went from there and we put our own bar in and brewed our own beer,’’ Armstrong says.
‘‘Back then we had time on our hands.’’
Fast forward 15 years, they are now living in New Plymouth, and wanted an excuse to come together for banter and beers. Some of that banter is around who has the best course.
‘‘Mark’s put a lot of effort into this course so it deserves credit, but mine’s better,’’ Tom Roberts, who created his own backyard course two years ago, says.
‘‘It’s the only reason I garden.’’
The course owners all say it’s given them a bit of a green thumb, showing off their patch of Kiwi paradise.
At the end of the night, when the balls have been located, rounds complete, and the clubs put down, everyone gathers around for a barbecue and a jam session at the seventh hole – the bar.