Cosmic Golf – Eden Prarie, MN

Played on December 27, 2012

Reviewed by the Pink Putter

On the same cold, snowy day that we ventured out to Chaska to play Big Bear Mini Putt we also played Cosmic Golf. This 9-hole course is nestled in the depths of AirMaxx, a giant industrial building turned into a trampoline park and entertainment mecca, including an arcade, laser tag, bowling, basketball courts and most important, mini golf. It was an odd location, to say the least. This indoor, black-light course had literally just opened a week or so prior to our arrival so we knew we had to be one of the first to play it.

Rating:

Sandtrap – This is one of those courses that looked decent, but frankly just wasn’t very fun to play. To its credit, everything was clean and superbly maintained, although I suppose that should be expected considering how new it is. And in my opinion, as an artist and maker, the fabrication company (appropriately named Cosmic Golf) actually did a quality job with their foam carving and painting. Its theme is Egyptian, depicted through iconic and very tacky glow-in-the-dark characters like the mummy, a Sphinx, Anubis, an Ankh, etc. But what this course lacked was interesting play. The terrain of every hole was almost identical and consisted of flat carpeting, shaped obstacles like circles, triangles and Egyptian symbols and holes placed either behind said shapes or on the tops of shallow hills. Only a few of the holes actually integrated the decorative sculptures as obstacles to hit your ball through, and none of these routes were clever or in any way more fun to take than the straightforward carpet path. The only thing that made this course worthy of a Sandtrap (other than its reasonable admission price) was the final hole, in which a Sphinx came to life with low-quality audio and blinking LED lights behind its eyes. Although Cosmic Golf only had 9 holes, it definitely felt too long.