Frankie’s Fun Park Return
to South Carolina
page
45 Park Woodruff Dr
Greenville, SC
29607
(864) 627-9888
Price: $9
Par: 36
Difficulty: 7
Creativity: 5
Atmosphere: 9
I am willing to also bet that this place is typically crowded with children and families, but I visited the Frankie's on a Thursday afternoon, so the establishment was quite empty. We only had time to play one course (Course #1), but the Frankie's also sported two other courses. The quality of the balls and putters were substantial, with no real sign of excessive use. There was no practice green present, so consequently, I unfortunately did not get acclimated to the speeds of the greens until the third hole or so. But by far, my biggest compliment of their courses was their immaculate quality of the greens and landscaping and the uniformity associated with the sizes and depths of the cups of the holes. There really was not a discernible theme to their courses, but they were all accompanied by some incredibly landscaped bushes and shrubbery, and some artfully placed rivers and fountains through the course. The only aspect of the course that barely contributed to the theming was some miniature buildings that would represent a "downtown" area of a rather small town by some of the holes, but that was really the only scenery that was present.
The greens were all very well kept and seemed very new (I do not really know how long the Frankie's have been in business for, or how long their miniature golf course has been operational), as well as the cups of the holes. Every single hole at the course was a metal cup that had substantial depth, that seemed regulation golf sized cups. The Frankie's course had little to no "bells and whistles", but was still relatively challenging that kept us all very interested in the game. The course mostly considered of relatively difficult hole placements, with some pretty tricky angles, changing elevation in the greens, and some dynamic breaks in the green. A majority of the holes were placed at a considerable angle (some of the holes were only accessible from one side), which again made the course pretty challenging. I did sincerely appreciate that the best skilled miniature golfer succeeded at this course, as none of the holes were based on randomness and luck (as other miniature golf establishments have holes on crazy contraptions that are dependent on how lucky of a bounce one would get when your ball rolls out), but pure skill.
The only minor critiques of the Frankie's is that the holes towards the end of the round got somewhat repetitive, that relied on the same features of difficulty: the angled hole placements. Another small critique is that all of the holes' (for all the courses) par was two (in my opinion, it was pretty low for a couple of holes), but it seems like not that much time and effort was allocated to properly determine the par for every hole. So overall, I highly recommend any avid miniature golf enthusiast to frequent the Frankie's Fun Park miniature golf courses, as it really did capture the original roots of miniature golf in a very competitive way, without the gimmicks and the "bells and whistles". No doubt about it, these courses were the best maintained outdoor miniature golf course that I've visited, and again would highly recommend visiting.
Reviewed by Andrew Rifkin
Reviewed in 2019
Map