During this year I am designing and building an indoor minigolf course to an amusement park. We are talking about a MOS course, naturally, as this is the only playing system that is actually “designed” by the builder. The other playing systems follow the standard designs of WMF rulebook.
Many minigolf courses in tourist resorts look very beautiful and entertaining, with fantasy obstacles, dinosaur bones, or whatever. But when a competition player visits the minigolf course, he may be bored to death by the funny pipes and obstacles throwing the ball here and there, without any control of the player.
In competition minigolf, the player should have total control of the game. Good shots should give good scores, and bad shots should give bad scores. But to be honest, official competition courses often have some lanes where the player has little control of what happens on the green: beton lanes 3 and 4, some high felt lanes like gentleman with green, etc.
When we design a minigolf course, we must decide what skills we want to require from the players. The most common options are:
- precise direction ONLY (shoot-in, the last lane of beton and felt courses)
- precise force ONLY (plateau on eternite, big drop on felt)
- precise direction AND force (felt “coin slot” = örkelljunga)
- break control = linear symbiosis of direction and force (sloping gate on felt, S-velodrome on beton, small waves on eternite)
We can design minigolf lanes that require a precise direction, precise force, both of them together, or a linear symbiosis between direction and force, “break control”. Maybe I should explain what I mean with this last concept. If the minigolf lane slopes to the left, you can aim 5 cm right of the hole and play quite hard, or then aim 10 cm right and play a bit slower, or then aim 20 cm right and play very slow. If you make a mistake in the direction of shot, the ball can still go to the hole, if you make a suitable mistake also in force. In this sense, break control includes a luck factor: making a mistake both in force and direction can give a better result than making a mistake only in force or direction.
Sometimes you miss the target to the right, but you are not really sure if you made a mistake in force or in direction. Then you try to change the force, and miss again. Then you try to change the direction, and miss again. Break control can be one of the most annoying and humbling, but also most exciting and adventurous, parts of golf and minigolf.
These basic putting skills, force, direction, and break control, are everything what you need in golf putting. (Except the ability to visually read the slopes of the green.) In minigolf competitions we often need many other skills too, which are not necessary in golf. Here are some of the most common examples:
- special ball manipulation ONLY (lane 3 on beton)
- special ball manipulation AND precise force or direction (most lanes on beton and eternite)
- special ball manipulation AND left or right spin (salto wheel on eternite, felt lanes with the hole 10 cm off the center of green)
In golf putting you don’t need any spin shots, special ball selection or ball manipulation. The putting speed of golf balls actually varies a bit, maybe 5% or so, but it makes no difference when the ball is rolling on the green, without hitting any walls. It is the presence of straight walls or pipes etc. which opens the door to strategic use of thousands of special minigolf balls.
Imagine trying to play beton or eternite minigolf with one ball only. A golf ball. This doesn’t sound very exciting, because beton and eternite lanes are not designed for a golf ball. To have reasonable chances for a hole-in-one on beton or eternite, you need ten or twenty carefully chosen special balls. Without the special balls you would simply get 2 points on most of the lanes, no matter how hard you try.
If we build a minigolf course with a soft felt carpet and irregular walls (round natural stones, etc.), the game will be based on the basic putting skills only: force, direction, and break control. But if the surface is hard beton (instead of soft felt carpet), it already opens up some possibilities for carefully chosen special balls, even if the lane does not have any walls. The presence of straight walls of high quality is the big revolutionary element, which changes the nature of the game from simple putting to complex manipulation of special balls (and often the walls too). Traditional felt courses have wooden walls of less than perfect quality, which limits the advantages of wall shots and special balls. Also the soft felt carpet, which is much slower than hard beton or eternite, limits the advantages of fast special balls. Felt minigolf is usually played with a small selection of the most common basic balls.
So, when we design a MOS minigolf course, we must ask ourselves, which skills we want to require from the players. The most boring, but unfortunately most common, option is to make a MOS course of 18 funny looking lanes, with wide passages and a difficult or irregular route to the hole. Just hit the ball to the green, and then go to putt for your 2 points. MOS minigolf has a boring PR image among competition players. Many players think that MOS minigolf is boring, because it is often the truth. But if this is the situation, it is the fault of the boring MOS course designers, not the fault of MOS minigolf itself.
As I am designing a MOS course for an amusement park, I will use unplayable wall materials, probably natural stones or round wood poles. Special balls will not have any significant role in the game. The playing lines will be tested and optimized for a golf ball. The obstacles and playing lines will be optimized for competition players of highest skill level, with so narrow passages that no more than 70% of anyone’s shots are expected to go through the obstacles to the green. (But we will not forget to arrange easy and entertaining alternative routes for beginners.)
The ultimate element of minigolf course design is, after all, the level of difficulty. (No matter what the skills are that you require from the players — force, direction, break control, spin, ball manipulation.) If people get 2 points all the time (or 1 point all the time, or 7 points all the time), they will get bored quite soon.
A minigolf lane can be designed to have a high risk of 7 points, without any easy routes to the green. (Fishbone on felt, window on eternite, etc.) Or then we can design a high-risk route to the hole, also offering a safe route to play for two points. (Flash on eternite, German slide on felt.) Or then we can design a difficult route to the green, yet without a risk for more than 3 points. (Gate or corner on felt, with narrow obstacles.) Or we can design an easy route to the green, without much risk for more than 2 points. (Most lane types on beton and eternite.) Or then we can design an easy route to the hole, without much risk for more than 1 point. (Volcano or net on eternite, wall on beton.)
The distribution of risk can be designed to be symmetric or non-symmetric: we can punish too hard and too slow shots equally with 3 points (or more). Or then we can punish hard shots with more than 2 points, but give 2 points for too slow shots. Or vice versa, and with any skill element that we are requiring from the player. We can annoy the player with a non-symmetric risk in direction of the shot: punishing a miss to the right with more than 2 points, but treating more softly a miss to the left, with 2 points. Non-symmetric risks will drive the player either to madness or to a strategic consultation with the coaches: should we attack straight to the hole, or aim just a bit on the safe side, or then forget all hopes of a hole-in-one and aim very clearly on the safe side?
So we have many questions to ask, as we design a minigolf course: What level of difficulty, and what type of difficulty, would be the best option? For the players, and for a potential audience? My answer is that a typical competition player should get 25% hole-in-ones, 50% two points, and 25% more than two points. Or with a more risky attacking strategy, the player might get 33% hole-in-ones, 33% two points, and 33% more than two points. Too much is too much, both in good and in evil.