Libraries are not just about accessing books, DVDs, and magazines. They are spaces where positive interactions between children, their family/friends, and library staff take place and memories can be created. They are also places where ideas are presented. Kids can come, interact with those ideas, and then take those ideas home with them to be further read about, experimented with, and used in their play.  For that reason, I totally felt that setting up a mini golf course in the library was something we needed to do this summer! It was very inexpensive and completely fun!

I also feel that one of our missions as librarians serving youth is to demonstrate for kids and parents how to play using simple materials that they already have. That way, the families can use our ideas to re-create similar experiences and keep the learning going once they get home. This really hit home for me when three parents came up to me while their children were playing mini golf and told me that this is something they would be doing again at home. Yeah!

And, I also feel that the library’s mission is to connect our community to resources that they may otherwise not be able to participate in. For us, the closest option to go to a mini-golf course would be to travel about an hour away, and I wanted to bring this experience to families in our community who otherwise are not able to drive that distance.  It was a total hit!

Here is a video of me walking through our course:

Inspiration: The Sault Ste. Marie Public Library and Maura in the Library were both very helpful in sharing photos of the Mini Golf courses that their library planned. Check them out!

Cost: About $20 to purchase the mini golf clubs that the Dollar Tree was selling this summer and 9 green plastic cups that we used for the “holes”.

Set-up: Our golf course had 9 holes, and each hole was themed using odds and ends from our craft and programming rooms. Kids started playing each hole by placing their golf ball on the green dot labeled “Start Here” and working their way around obstacles to get their ball into the green cup.

9 Hole Mini Golf:
Hole #1: Dr. Seuss
Hole #2: Dinosaurs
Hole #3: Clifford the Big Red Dog
Hole #4: Legos
Hole #5: Chefs/cooking
Hole #6: Star Wars
Hole #7: Travel to all 50 States
Hole #8: Alphabet
Hole #9: Laura Ingalls Wilder/Frontier.

I started off by marking the boundaries of each hole with masking tape, but I soon realized that with kids, their balls would often roll outside of the tape, and we would have golf balls all over the place. So, I found books that matched the theme for each hole and set the books up around the perimeter to form a kind of barrier. It worked great, we just had to re-shelve all the books once the program was done. And, this was a great way to “display” lots of our books!

Another idea to establish a perimeter around your holes is to tape pool noodles down to the floor.

I also had my go-to upbeat song, Shake Your Body Down by Laurie Berkner playing on repeat while the program was running.

Staff: You could probably get away with only one volunteer/staff member being the groundskeeper at this kind of event, but I had several teen volunteers. So, one volunteer took care of the welcome table, where kids came to get their golf club, golf ball, and a scorecard if they wanted one. We found par for the scorecard by just taking my score, but you could also have several volunteers play the course and average their scores for each hole. Here is a Word document download link for the Mini Golf Scorecard and Clubhouse Rules that we had displayed at our welcome table: Mini Golf Scorecard. A second volunteer was in the programming room, and they simply walked around and fixed books or props if they were knocked down by golf balls or golf clubs that got a little too wild.

And there you have it! Mini Golf in the library!