Volume 2, No. 16. August 23, 2002
New Arrivals
It’s
a mini-golf course!
Chula Vista Resort in the Wisconsin Dells, Wisconsin, announces the arrival
of Superstition Springs Mini-Golf, August 1, 2002. Measurements: 18 holes, 700
yards of concrete, 20,000 gallons of water. Delivered by Jeff Dillon Consulting.
Chula
Vista opened its new miniature golf course to its guests around dinner time
on July 19. That Friday evening the course’s theme could best be described
as “unfinished.” Lacking was the landscape, the water, the facades
on the many Texan-Mexican structures and the animation incorporated into those
structures. Lacking, too, were a few holes.
“It
won’t be finished,” resort president and course builder Mike Kaminski
said that morning even as workers were still laying the carpets. “But it
will open tonight. Guests are demanding it.”
Chula Vista is the rare resort, even in the amusement-rich market of the Dells, that has its own miniature golf course. The original dated back to the 1950s, and Kaminski was caught between a rock and a hard place—literally, you could say in this case—in replacing it. “Lots of people played that old broken down miniature golf course,” he said. “We wanted to give them something of more value.”
To do so, though, he had no golf to offer while constructing the new, fully themed course. "Once you have (a miniature golf course), you cannot get rid of it," said Patti Fichter, the resort's director of marketing and guest services. "We took out the tennis court and didn't get boo about it. The minute we took away mini golf, they demanded we put it back in." Thus, once the playing surfaces were ready, the course opened, and the frills were finished in the meantime. Most of the theming was completed within a week, and by the end of the month all 18 holes were in play.
Playing the course is an additional charge, even for resort guests. That extra charge, however, is not an issue for guests who want their mini golf. Fichter said the course's most popular use is in the early evenings after dinner. Kaminski further supplemented the course’s themed attributes with glow-in-the-dark golfing every night from 9:30 p.m. to midnight (21,30 to 24,00). With the course dimly lit in low voltage lighting, players use clear balls containing miniature glow sticks that they can then keep as souvenirs.
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