Playing a round on the Isle of Wight’s great adventure golf courses – Isle of Wight County Press

MINDFUL of the governments ventilate diktat, I spent this August outdoors enjoying the Isle of Wights bright and breezy resorts.

To keep things even fresher, a friend and I worked our way around all the adventure golf courses, starting at Peter Pans. Creating our own 'Isle of Wight Ryde-r Cup,' as it were.

More than once during the series we teed off under the cyclopsian gaze of a fibreglass pirate. On several links we putted in a simulated primaeval landscape populated with plastic reptiles.

It made me wonder, is it just an Isle of Wight affectation to incongruously associate dinosaurs with mini-golf? And pirates? What have these renegades of the high seas got in common with this novelty game? Cut-throat competition, a cheeky yell of avast behind, and pieces of eight(teen), perhaps.

We chipped round Easter Island heads at Puckpool, and shined at the futuristic neon Caddyshack golf at Shanklin. Further along the seafront, we snicked our way alongside luminous green primordial soup which flowed at Jurassic Bay Adventure Golf. At the adjacent Pirate Cove we clubbed our balls under a scarlet waterfall, as it cascaded into rivers of blood.

Although the volcano at Sandham Gardens was inactive the day we visited, a competitive old geezer ahead of us vented playful frustration at the trouncing he was getting from his grand-daughter.

I have a photo of myself from 1989, attempting to launch a competent putt at the rocket hole of the vintage course at Rylstone Gardens. More than 30 years later, I still couldnt master it.

Watching my ball skitter wildly on the lunar-like concrete base while sucking on his pipe, the proprietor of Shanklins oldest golf course informed me that these very obstacles were played in the film Thatll Be the Day.

Lets hope its stars, tousled ballardeer David Essex, and Ringo Starr, the man who put the beat into the Beatles, had better luck than me.

My tournament partner and I cracked our balls past dinosaur eggs and bleached bones under the swaying seats of the Alum Bay chair-lift. We clambered over temple ruins at Sandown Piers magnificent multilevel Lost World Adventure Golf, while a synthesised thunderstorm clattered overhead, matching the summer deluge outside.

Our decider was played a fair way from home, in Leicester. Rather creatively, part of the citys regeneration has seen a huge retail unit repurposed into an all-weather adventure golf facility with integrated bar so that the loser can buy a round.

No dinosaurs or pirates in the Midlands; we duelled on the Tropical Trail. I reckon they shouldve called it the urban jungle. For the record, I won that match and therefore the entire contest.

Did I mention who my competitor was? Actor David Bradley, who starred as Billy Casper in the 1970 British film Kes. So I can legitimately say that I beat Billy Casper at golf just not THAT* Billy Casper!

*William Billy Casper is an American professional golfing legend; one of the most prolific tournament winners from the mid-1950s to the mid-1970s.

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Playing a round on the Isle of Wight's great adventure golf courses - Isle of Wight County Press