Mini Golf in Minnesota in 2021: Update on the State of Putting

Created by Mr. Tee in July 2021

Since we published our 2018 Minnesota Putting Guide & Top 5, the two of us have had the opportunity to further travel across the great state of Minnesota and been fortunate to play and see a lot of new (to us) miniature golf. In total, we documented and/or played quite a few new courses in the last few years.

We now have a permanent hub for Mini Golf in Minnesota at acoupleofputts.com/minnesota. This is a round-up of semi-recent mini golf happenings in the land of 10,000 putts for 2021! We also did a Top 5 Most Unique Courses in Minnesota and our statewide Favorite 10 Traditional Miniature Golf.

The Good 

Several newly opened (or re-opened) courses:

• K & A Mini Golf (Cambridge) – Outdoors / Metro-ish – Opened 2019
• King Park (Lakeville) – Outdoors / Metro – Opened 2020
• Big Bear Mini Putt at Golfzone(Chaska) – Indoors / Metro – Re-opened March 9, 2021

20+ new course reviews on the site (or coming soon). Standouts include:

• Whistling Wolf (Cross Lake) & Dark Moon Mega Golf (Cross Lake, MN)
• Wildwedge Golf & RV Park (Pequot Lakes)
• Kendahl Miniature Golf (Cloquet)
• Pirate’s Cove (Brainerd)
• Riverside Amusement (Lacrosse, WI)
• Summerland Mini Golf (St. Cloud) 
• Walsh Golf Center (Lacrosse, WI) 
• Captain J’s Mini Golf (Superior, WI) 

New competitive miniature golf options:

• The Miniest Mini Golf Open – The annual September tournament we host at Lilli Putt
• Putt Craft – ongoing league with two round events that is a welcomed opportunity for competition

And we’re regularly hearing about new course ideas across the state. If you’re interested in opening a course in Minnesota, we’re available for design, consultation, and even building. Check out our services and portfolio at our Design & Consultation Services page https://acoupleofputts.com/consultation/

Updates

• In the past few years, we’ve seen significant positive improvements to the courses at Veterans Park (MaltTees) and Como Park (currently in progress) that are now operated by the national organization, Wheel Fun Rentals. The Como course remodel is much needed as it was nearly unplayable last we visited in 2020.
• There have been some subtle new additions to Moose Mountain at the Mall of America that didn’t help the play issues but added a little more flair.

The Bad

Since 2018, there have been a number of permanent course closings  Big Thrill Factory (Minnetonka), Glow in One, Grand Rounds, Saints North & Tilt. Not sure about the status of the Oakdale Big Thrill Factory course. It has been closed all of 2021 so far but we’re hopeful a new operator will re-open the course in the fall of 2021. It’s easily one of our faves in the cities and we’d hate to see it go away.

If you have any archival photos, additional information, or stories about any of active or closed courses on our Minnesota Putting Guide, write us at acoupleofputts@gmail.com or leave a comment.