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12/04/2018 02:30 PMMiniature golf means sun, sandals, and soft-serve ice cream, right? Think again. In Essex, January is the miniature golf season. And where? At the Essex Library, where else! Kidding? Not at all.
The Friends of the Essex Library are staging a mini-golf fundraiser at the library on West Avenue on Friday and Saturday, Jan. 25 and 26. Winding among the shelves, computers, DVDs, and children’s room will be a complete 18-hole mini course, complete with traps, fairways, bunkers, and greens.
On Friday night from 5 to 9 p.m., it will be a game for adults with two drinks and food included in the $35 price of a ticket. Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. will be family day, at a cost of $7 per person or $25 for a foursome. There will be refreshments, but no alcohol will be served. Tickets are already on sale at the Essex Library circulation desk. All the proceeds from the event benefit the Essex Library.
Susan Hosack, co-chair of the event with Suzy Baird, was doing a computer search for ideas for what she calls an “out of the box” fundraiser when she came across a Connecticut company that advertised library mini golf. The company got its start in 2005, but through a typographical error. The Trumbull Library Foundation wanted to host a fundraiser for libraries in Gulf Coast states badly damaged by Hurricane Katrina. It was going to call it a gulf fundraiser. A typographical error, however, turned gulf fundraiser into golf fundraiser. Since it was winter and an outdoor golf was out of the question, library mini golf was born.
The first event was a success and several more followed, including one in 2007 at the Connecticut Library Association annual conference. Still, the idea really took off when Fairfield county resident Rick Bolton heard from a librarian in his hometown of Dartmouth, Massachusetts, that the local library was in financial difficulty. He suggested a library mini golf fundraiser. The event, Bowen said, drew widespread publicity, including a segment on ABC television news. An executive at the American Library Association wrote about mini-golf on the organization’s blog, describing it as an exciting new idea in fundraising. Inquiries started coming in from all over the United States as well as from Canada and even Australia.
Bowen and his brother Russ formed a company in 2009 to market library mini-golf. Now, they do from 40 to 50 events a year for libraries, schools, and all kinds of non-profit organizations.
“We can do them in any kind of a facility; we even did one at a cancer clinic,” Rick Bowen said.
Overall, he estimated the company had created over 400 mini-courses since it began.
Every course is custom-designed for its location.
“We’ve done them in areas of 2,000 square feet and areas of 100,000 square feet. We incorporate the features of the library, stacks, bookcases, into our plan,” Rick Bolton said.
The company maps out the course and provides all the equipment for tees, fairways, and greens. It also provides all the traditional design features, like windmills, bridges, and loop-de-loops, beloved by miniature golf enthusiasts. In addition, the mini-golf entrepreneurs encourage the local companies sponsoring each hole to decorate with materials the reflect their businesses.
Library mini golf provides clubs and scorecards for participants, but Rick Bowen recognized that keeping an accurate count of strokes might not be uppermost in participants minds.
“Technically if a ball goes off the course, you should take a penalty stroke, but I doubt that people, particularly little ones, are doing that,” he said.
Co-chair Suzy Baird, who is president of the Friends of the Essex Library, doesn’t think a low score is the key to enjoying the experience.
“When have you ever been able to wander through the shelves of the library with a golf club?” she asked.
Mini-Golf at the Essex Library
A fundraiser for Friends of the Library
Friday, Jan. 25 from 5 to 9 p.m.; Adults only; tickets $35, include food and wine
Saturday, Jan. 26, Family day from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., refreshments but no alcohol; $7 per person or $25 for a foursome
Tickets are on sale at the Essex Library Circulation Desk.