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Three years ago, Kyle Courcy and James Parsons were working together in the Boston Children’s Hospital engineering department when they struck up a conversation about mini golf — and it led to a question:
Would it be possible to play every course in Massachusetts?
“We both had a little bit of a golfing background,” said Parsons, who lives in Brookline. “It was the opening up of COVID … I don’t think our schedules were as packed as they are today.”
One day after work, Courcy and Parsons decided to drive down to Monster Mini Golf in Norwood for a friendly game. It would be the first of 66 mini-golf courses (and counting) in Massachusetts the two reviewed for their website, Mass Mini Golf.
The journey has taken them from Greater Boston to the Berkshires to the Cape. (Their website includes an interactive map of all the courses they’ve reviewed.) They’ve played through disorienting tunnels and in front of live goats. Courcy, who moved from Massachusetts to Maine last year, even became internationally ranked at mini golf during the project.
Now, the project is about 81% complete (i.e., they’ve got 15 courses left). It’s been hard to find time to get to some of the more far-flung courses. And more recently, jobs and life — including Courcy’s trip to Portugal this past spring to compete in the World Adventure Golf Final — has slowed their pace of play. But they’re still committed to “see this through,” Courcy said.
“ I think the last course we’re gonna shoot for is on Martha’s Vineyard, so it feels fitting that we’re gonna have to take a ferry to the last course,” he said.
Here’s a look at some of their favorite mini-golf courses and features (so far):
Their favorite course(s):
Courcy and Parsons keep an updated Top Ten page for the best courses on their website. Though they declined to pick a single favorite (after all, it could still be out there!), there were a couple of courses that each raved about.
The blue water at Lakeview Driving Range in Lunenburg. (Courtesy of Mass Mini Golf)
Courcy said Lakeview Driving Range in Lunenburg may not have “a lot of curb appeal,” but is beautiful and challenging, with its water features and sand traps. “You gotta make precision putts,” he said. “There’s no borders in the water, so if you have a bad putt, you’re going in the water. And the water is just the most majestic blue.”
The waterfall at Max’s Country Golf in Tyngsborough. (Courtesy Mass Mini Golf)
Meanwhile, Parsons loves the sprawling course at Max’s Country Golf in Tyngsborough. It features a manmade waterfall that claims to be the largest in New England, a barn with live goats and the largest mini-golf practice green the duo have come across. “I’m a sucker for the intangibles,” Parsons said.
The best indoor course:
The mini-golf course at Trombetta’s Farm in Marlborough. (Courtesy Mass Mini Golf)
The duo is partial to outdoor courses, but Courcy says that Trombetta’s Farm in Marlborough is the best “outdoor course brought indoors.” (Don’t ask for their opinion about certain “tech-infused” indoor mini-golf chains.) Trombetta’s mini-golf course is also a plant nursery, so you’re surrounded by greenery, even in the winter. “ It adds a lot to the ambiance,” said Parsons. “You got the nice plants. It’s like walking through a garden, hitting some nice putts.”
Hardest course:
The hardest mini-golf course Courcy and Parsons have played was the now-shuttered Kidz Wurld in North Attleborough.
“The owner — it was his passion project during the lockdown,” Parsons said. “He just made this course very complicated. There were some challenging holes … one that had rotating teeth almost. There’s a certain cookie-cutter type of course that, after a while, you pick up on certain similarities with each one. Kidz Wurld was just wildly different. I mentally collapsed a little bit — probably the biggest emotional collapse of my mini-golf life.”
Most affordable:
Most courses they played were in the $10-$15 range per round. But the course at Red Barn Pizza in Eastham was priced at half that. “It was five bucks for a round,” Courcy said. “I feel like that was a pretty good bang for your buck.” While it’s nothing fancy, the pair was delighted by the “zany” animal props along the course.
One of the “zany animals” at Red Barn Pizza’s mini-golf course. (Courtesy Mass Mini Golf)
Parsons also suggested keeping an eye out for courses that offer multiple rounds for a single price. For example, Aloha Mini Glow Golf in Peabody offers three rounds for a single price, plus discounts for groups like teachers, veterans, seniors, and people with special needs.
The best mini golf pencil:
The pencil provided at Bud’s Mini Golf in Harwich Port. (Courtesy Mass Mini Golf)
Parsons and Courcy awarded bonus points to Bud’s Mini Golf in Harwich Port for going above and beyond the usual yellow golf pencil with this friendly crab design. (Bud’s was also among their favorites for its well-maintained course and creative holes.)
P.S. — Mini-golf fanatics might want to take a gander at Parsons and Courcy’s full list of local course superlatives, from “most adorably useless prop” to “most disorienting hole” and “most retro vibes” and more. You can also check out their website and Instagram for the new course reviews as they chip — er, putt — away at their goal.
