Time for a little review, last night I had the pleasure of being invited to play a game of mini golf at Roxy Ballroom on Boar Lane, Leeds. Of course, this was just a short walk from my office in town so I thought why not. It’s not like I was putting myself out there too much!
Shit puns over, on to the review! I was invited by the Pink Gorilla Promotions team in Leeds to come and have a swing (sorry) at the new indoor mini-golf course. Naturally, I said yes, I mean, why not… It’s been a while since I played and I thought it could be a good laugh after work. We headed inside, collected our drinks tokens and wandered upstairs to begin our golfing adventure. Faye from work and I grabbed our clubs and we began.
Now, I have to commend the team at Roxy Ballroom, they managed to fit 9 holes into quite a small space to work with. There was no wasted space in the zone they had to work with. And that was quite good because it made the room look busy as you could pretty much see people playing on each hole as you went round.
As you would hope for, some of the holes were more difficult than others but they were pretty all relatively varied courses which were nice. However, with the room being so dark, it was actually quite hard to try to see where the ball (and the hole) was at some points. A bonus because I actually looked like a foot that day, a challenge as I couldn’t take many photos of the actual mini golf.
Faye and I were quite lucky because we got there as the event was starting straight from work which means we got to get straight to the golfing without having to queue. I think we got to the 3rd hole before others started playing. But I have to admit, as soon as others joined the whole room started to feel pretty damn crowded and that was a stress. It wouldn’t have been, I do believe in waiting and luckily the team behind us were never stepping on our toes. However, we did feel like we needed to ‘speed up’ in order of not creating a queue and that did take a bit of the fun away. This was only a major issue because the room was small and you could see each hole from wherever you were in the room.
Maybe it was because of this or maybe it’s because we were born pros, but Faye and I finished our 9 holes relatively quickly. I don’t know how long it actually was but it felt like it was half an hour maximum (maybe it was more than that). Once we’d finished playing the game, we headed back downstairs to use our other drinks token and I noticed this board by the bar:
Now, I understand that Roxy Ballroom wants to make a strong profit but I don’t think I’d pay £6 for the mini golf. It wasn’t that it was bad necessarily, just it wasn’t £6’s worth of fun and because of this, I don’t think they’d get repeat custom for that activity. The room wasn’t the most exciting visually but the course itself was pretty good considering the space you had to play in. Each hole was different with loop de loops, ramps and tight corners to manoeuvre around. It just didn’t feel as visually fulfilling as other mini golf courses I’ve played at before.
But it wasn’t all doom and gloom, in fact, it wasn’t doom at all really, it was just a bit… meh. We still had fun and we played a couple of games of pool afterwards which was nice. If you’re looking for a place to mini golf, Roxy Ballroom has a nice indoor place to play if you’re not looking for a long session.
