Golf course architect Ken Moodie, of Creative Golf Design, has put his money where his mouth is and invested in a new Mini Golf Course which he hopes will set a new standard in the putting course market.
Announced by David Mitchell, Chester’s flamboyant town crier, former Tour Player and BBC commentator Ken Brown opened the new GreenDay Mini Golf course in the city’s popular Westminster Park. Brown is a consultant to Creative Golf Design and recently published ‘One Putt – the ultimate guide to perfect putting‘, so he was the natural choice to carry out ribbon-cutting duties.
Although his main business is golf course design, Moodie recently took over the lease for the 9-hole, par-3, Westminster Park Golf Course and renovated the café which sits in the heart of the park, within a mile of the centre of Chester and its famous racecourse. The GreenDay Café now provides a welcoming environment for local residents and other visitors to the park, and the place for golfers to borrow golf equipment and enjoy a drink after their rounds.
The Mini Golf course was built in just eight weeks, from start to finish, and in a challenging period of wet weather. Adi Butt of Lakeland Earthworks did the base shaping, following Ken Moodie’s direction and assistance on the dumper, and Southwest Greens supplied and installed the high-quality synthetic grass.
The choice of putting grass was extremely important to Moodie, who said: “I looked at many alternatives, but most ran too fast to provide a fun and enjoyable experience for a beginner, while offering a realistic practice experience for a regular golfer. I wanted something that would run at between 9-10ft on the stimp meter which Southwest Greens were able to guarantee.”
Moodie was very impressed by the attention to detail provided by the Southwest Greens’ team and they were a critical part of getting the course open so quickly, including helping to install the rock edging that forms the perimeter of many of the planting beds. He hopes it may be the first of many more collaborations.
