Owner vows to rebuild miniature golf course after flood

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

A windmill, a lighthouse and a porta-potty were swept away in a rainstorm that caused extensive damage to the Red Carpet Miniature Golf course that has been in business in North Strabane since 1946.

Longtimer owner John Goettler refuses to say the course is destroyed, and he vows “it will be up and running” soon, one way or another.

“No matter what happens, I will die before this course dies,” said Mr. Goettler, 57.

The mini golf course on threefourths of an acre at 2534 Washington Road, Route 19, is next door to the township’s police department and fire station.

“They’re a little higher up than we are. They’re OK,” Mr. Goettler said of the heavy rain that fell July 30.

“There was 5 feet of water here,” he said. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

He found the portable toilet a mile or so from the golf course along with pieces of the windmill, the lighthouse, flower pots and benches. Carpets were wrenched from the putting greens, and he found remnants up and down Route 19, some of them wrapped around trees. The storage shed was destroyed, as were lawn mowers that had been stored inside.

The 12th-hole wishing well survived intact, as did flags that decorated flower beds, he said.

“This is an old-school mini course,” Mr. Goettler said, referring to its beginnings in 1946. His uncle, Norbert Tompel, bought it in 1959, and Mr. Goettler took over in 1996 after his uncle died.

In all those years, there was never flood damage like this, he said. He blames it on construction at a nearby housing development and he’s talking with local officials