Shady Pines? Whispering Acres?

Today Sam and Josh and I went to the Whispering Pines mini golf course up by Lake Ontario. (Susan thinks it sounds more like a retirement home than a mini-golf course.) Sam had never gone there, and was, as expected, in heaven. It has the distinction of being listed on the National Historic Site Registry as the first mini golf course in the U.S., dating back to 1930. Its web site points out that it was "built from cobblestone taken from the historic Erie Canal while the canal system was being built". (We are assuming they didn't just steal the stones from the construction site.)

It wasn't the best course we've been to, but it had its charms. It definitely had a different feel from modern courses. Rather than lots of fountains and mechanical obstructions it had a wealth of tunnels. It even had one completely unique hole in which the tee-off green is 30' away from the putting green, separated by nothing more than grass!

Josh, spectating in front of the windmill

If you get a hole in one on the 18th green you get a free game. Our second time around the attendant--busy doing his AP economics homework--let Sam do the last hole as many times as he wanted, since no one else was there. Amazingly, Sam got two holes in one! Given his unconventional putting style, this was no mean feat.

And Josh, in the baby bjorn the first time around and in my arms the second was a good sport about the whole thing. It was a good distraction from his head cold.


The day was rounded out by a our first trip to a Gelato place on the Erie canal in Fairport. Susan and Sam went, and were nice enough to bring me back some amaretto gelato. Delicious! One of the benefits, I suppose, of living in such an Italian city.

The distance shot

The gelato place on the canal