Part 17 of our comprehensive review of every mini-golf place within an hour's driving distance of…read morethe Capital Region quadrangle moves us to the bucolic setting of the Schoharie Valley, where we tried Gobbler's Knob. The complex includes bungee jumping and a simple but nice driving range, plus what looks like a very nice Par-3 golf course. You can rent golf clubs for the Par 3, and for both the mini-golf and par 3, you pay once and can play all day. There's a basic snack bar with sketcy-looking hot dogs and ice cream, three sad arcade games, and one actual-working pinball machine in the snack shack. There is also a picnic pavilion, although this seems to be rental only. This review, as ever, is only for the mini-golf portion.
I note there's a go-kart place on the same drive, but it's run as a completely separate business with different hours. If you want to combine activities, as we did, it's tricky because the go-kart place is run as a side business and the hours are a bit erratic.
Pricing is simple: $6 for 5 years old and up, free for 4 and under, one price lets you play all day. Bring the scorecard back to the clubhouse to get a fresh ball and scorecard after hitting the ball into the outhouse on Hole 18.
This is a mostly putt-only course, with a few hazard holes that have a little bit of a theme to them. Obstacles are mostly rocks and hills/dips; a few former sand traps have been replaced with painted astroturf, which looks really tacky. It shows the signs of some originality but at least some of the holes are cookie cutter. The holes are on a paved concrete path, surrounded by nice flowers, but make sure you turn left to start out - the holes aren't marked well, with no flags and only an embossed number in the concrete for each hole to tell you where you are.
The setting, as noted, is absolutely lovely: there's a farm silo nearby, mountain views in all directions, and a nice lake. There's a creek running into the lake but there was no water running into it. Very disappointingly, there was what looks like a watercourse in part of the course, at least a fountain-mountain, that was dry, and even if there was water running they didn't incorporate water into any of the holes. A mini-golf course with no water hazards is a real waste, IMHO, and given there's natural water here, this is especially sad.
The holes weren't terribly challenging, and a number of them had problems with wear on the astroturf surface, including a few with very annoying seams that actually went through the hole (see picture) that made them difficult plays. That said, the course was swept and blown of debris, and the staff were very nice and accommodating. Best holes are #9 (a covered bridge you can walk under), #11 (a deceptive three-tiered hole that had us wondering where our balls had gone), and #15, a walk-through fibreglass "cave" sponsored by nearby Howe's caverns. There's ads/sponsorship for some of the holes, but only the Howe's cavern hole is related to a theme at all; a pity, since the Schoharie Valley offers history from the French and Indian War to Hurricane Irene that easily lends itself to mini-golf themes. #18 Is an "outhouse" where you subtract strokes from your score for hitting it into a skee-ball like target, with the ball disappearing; no free-game-for-hole-in-one, but since it's play-all-day it doesn't matter that much here. There are three two-tiered holes, which is fun, but on none of the holes where there's a "trick shot" are you rewarded with a hole in one.
I'm quite torn about the rating here, because the course itself as a course is only a very average three, and wiithout the water features it's a bit plain. The maintenance is also only average, the nice daily maintenance countered by worn turf and bad seams. But it's a very nice outdoors setting, off the road, and at $6 for play all day it's a pretty decent price if you play twice. But still, you will get bored about halfway through the second round. We're on the fence between three and four stars, so will give it a nudge to four based on kind staff, with the understanding it's a middle of the road mini-golf course among the region's offerings if judged on pure playing.
