Dingers Minigolf Return
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Chris Cote’s Golf Shop
(860) 621-3663
Price: $6 Other
Activities: Driving Range
Par: No par listed
Difficulty: 6
Creativity: 4
Atmosphere: 7
A few years ago this course was redone from the ashes of the Golf Quest course. Much of what was around the course like the bumper boats and water features are now gone but the holes seem to have re-used most of the existing infrastructure and were recarpeted and redesigned with new obstacles. This would have some adverse impacts that we will get to below.
If you played the course early in the redo, there wasn’t a lot to it. It was a generic adventure golf course with just some posts and rocks as obstacles. You would walk over to the golf shop to make your payment and grab your gear. During 2025 they made some significant changes to the course adding woodcut animals throughout and providing a theme to each hole around those animals. It didn’t change much the gameplay as the obstacles were all the same but gave it an atmosphere boost from a visual capacity. In addition, during the summer they added a self-service kiosk by the course for you to pay and get your ball from a vending machine (the clubs were there too though we bring our own). It is an interesting idea except for the fact that each ball comes out in a sleeve that is designed for three balls which seems to be a waste of material where it could just vend individually like we have seen at other courses.
As for gameplay, because it reused the old hole layouts it felt like there were some weird breaks and inconsistent rolls to the putts. Some holes played true while others didn’t seem to do what you expected, especially nearer to the cups, even after a couple of playthroughs. There were also a couple of holes where your ball could easily go out of bounds behind a preferred line or just with an errant role because of some of the breaks in the rocks. There wasn’t a ton of creativity to the hole design, mostly using generic curves and rock placements as the layout. We did bump the creativity up a little from the previous course design because of some of the animal elements and because they did make a few changes versus the even more generic previous version.
Even with some of the flaws this course is still worth playing now and then. The creativity of the animal designs is worth seeing again and while it’s not as good a play as Hidden Valley down the street it wouldn’t make for a bad double-feature with a 10 minute drive. During the off-season they also have been running a cheap play-all-day rate too which is good for those of us who wanted to get in plenty of practice at different types of courses throughout the year.
Reviewed by Pat, Mandy and Putt
Reviewed in 2025
Golf Quest
Mini-Golf: The Castle Course (former minigolf on site)
(860) 621-3663
Price: $6 Other
Activities: Driving Range and Batting Cage
Par: No par listed
2001 Ratings 2009
Ratings
Difficulty: 5 Difficulty: 4
Creativity: 2 Creativity: 2
Atmosphere: 4 Atmosphere: 4
2001 Review
Sadly, we find ourselves again at a course that isn’t too good and not all that fun to play. Although its ratings show that it is better than some of the courses we’ve played, its proximity to another great course makes playing here less than appealing. Unfortunately, this course is visible from I-84, which probably means that it does more business than it really should.
Let’s start with the atmosphere, the only ratings section in which this course seems to try to put some effort into. It all begins with the staff at the ball and club booth. Although the guy was nice enough, he came across as indifferent and you could tell this was nothing more than an after-school job for him. This is better than some courses we’ve been at, but one really does like to see people who enjoy their job and the game of mini-golf working the counter. From there the atmosphere tries to pick up with a decent landscaping around the course. This course isn’t the eyesore that some we’ve played are. However, even this takes a dip as you move around the course and find a few thorn bushes thrown in and a couple of places where the vegetation is slowly taking over the hole. More negative points on the atmosphere scale arise with the occurrence of those dreaded holes in the carpet for drainage. As we’ve seen in other lower-end courses, this seems to be the only solution to keeping water off the carpets, whereas better courses have found alternate ways to solve drainage problems. Going along with the water theme, the waterfall works but the little rivers that run through the course do not. The main problem here seems to be that the lake under the waterfall doesn’t have enough water in it to flow over it’s edge, causing the movement of the rivers. In another attempt to add some good to this course, there is a miniature version of Castle Krieg that sits upon a hill in Southington/Meriden. Even though it is not used as an obstacle this dash of local color adds points. There are two more small points that take away from the course atmosphere. First, there are flags in every hole. Now, while that may seem like a nifty idea, it’s a bit annoying when you have to keep pulling the pin. Second, some of the few obstacles and sand traps that exist are in disarray. They were in dire need of some paint and a little maintenance. Additionally, you can tell that the course has tried to move the cup placement from time to time because you can easily spot where the old cup was. You can even pick up the section of carpet where the cup used to be. (Good courses cover old cups with obstacles or find a way to make it near seemless). This makes for some nice ridges and strange putting if your ball happens to travel over the old cup. As one final note on atmosphere, this course had no pars on the holes.
Difficulty on this course is about average. There’s some hard holes and some easy holes, but nothing that really pushes the scale in one direction. However, we again found ourselves having problems rating the difficulty because of such design flaws as the drainage holes which adds to the misery of some holes. Another point that wasn’t mention above is that every hole slopes 3”down in the back where the sidewalk to the next hole begins. Thus, if you over shoot the hole and get within about 6” of the back wall, rest assured you’ll be back against the concrete. There is no saving yourself from the Golf Quest dip.
Then there’s creativity. Not much to say about that on this course because there is very little. There is one neat obstacle that almost guarantees a hole in one (except for myself of course) and nifty use of a water hazard. Other than those two standouts, one mostly finds lots of holes that are green and have a few bumps. This course also overuses the two-cups-for-one-hole concept. It’s fine to have something like that once and a while, especially if there is a penalty associated with one cup, but to do it 3-4 times on a course is ridiculous. What makes it even more confusing is that only one cup has a flag in it. Does this mean we are supposed to shoot at that cup? If so, then what the heck is the other cup there for? Again, we always look for the good in the bad and yes, this course did have a phallic hole. Chalk yet another one up for Mr. Freud.
As a last note to this review, it is only too fitting that Mandy nailed the free game hole on the final hole (she always gets them). Thus, we have a pass to a mini-golf course that we may never want to play again. Such is our luck.
Reviewed by Pat, Mandy and Putt
Reviewed in 2001
2009 Review
After 8 years, a couple of us stopped back at this course to give it a new review since the sign touted “new minigolf carpets.” First, we wanted to address a couple of points from the previous review. The course did remove the flags from the holes, but the multi-cup holes are still around. We played this course on July 4th and none of the water was working (waterfall included). We were also the only people on the course, which may say something for the condition the course is in. The slope of the holes also wasn’t as evident as before, which is a good thing, however there was still some overgrowth on some of the holes, which made putting interesting.
The first new item we’d like to talk about is the new carpets. While they were in pretty good condition, they were some of the strangest minigolf carpets we’ve ever played on in terms of texture. They felt almost like a cheap carpet you might through in a rec room in your house. Some of the different colors were interesting, but there were holes that had some combination of colors at the front of the hole. We thought it might indicate a tee area, but it wasn’t consistent throughout the course so it just looked as if they needed a place to stick some extra carpeting. The holes themselves haven’t gotten any more creative. There’s no real features and the only hole that seemed to have one (Hole 15) we couldn’t figure out how to possibly hit the ball into the obstacle. The one good thing we can say about the course is that the price is still a pretty reasonable $6 for a round.
Given the overall difficulty and creativity of the holes, coupled with the overall boring atmosphere and unexciting course conditions, we would recommend playing on of the other miniature golf courses in the area over this one.
Reviewed by Pat, Liz and Putt
Reviewed in 2009
Visitor Review #1 (Golf Quest)
Visitor Review #2 (Golf Quest)
Golf Quest 2009 Course Pictures (click to enlarge)
Dingers 2025
For more pictures
see our Flickr album.
Map
Price:
$4
Par:
No par listed
Difficulty: 1
Creativity: 1
Atmosphere: 1
I am usually generous with my rating scores but this course was in absolutely deplorable condition. Golf Quest franchises do not seem to be interested in maintaining their mini-golf facilities.
Reviewed by: Glenda R.
Reviewed in 2017
Price: $6
Par:
No par listed
Difficulty: 1
Creativity:
1
Atmosphere: 1
I went this morning with my husband and 10yr daughter. It was my daughters first time playing. Unfortunately we found the course dirty and run down. It was evident that it had not been taken care of in a long time. The carpets were filthy and moldy. The water was black and not filtered. I asked the attendant about why the course was so filthy, and was greeted with a shrugging of the shoulders. Needless to say, we will not be returning.
Reviewed by Tara
Reviewed in 2011