Schooner Miniature
Golf Return
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54 Ocean Park Rd
Saco, ME 04072
(207) 284-6174
Price: $8 (replay $4.50) Other Activities: Batting Cages
Par: 40
2002 Review 2012
Review
Difficulty: 5 Difficulty:
5
Creativity: 9 Creativity: 8
Atmosphere: 9 Atmosphere: 7
We were absolutely amazed with this course, beginning when we first pulled into the parking lot and realized that they did have a real schooner in a little pond, which also included a very large lighthouse on a rock cliff and a pier complete with boating shacks (which cleverly cover all the pumping machinery for the pond). You felt like you were about to step foot on a marina straight out of the movie Jaws.
The course doesn’t start right there though. It slowly winds its way towards the little pond, with holes that incorporate the nautical theme very nicely. Even the benches have marine scenes carved into the backs. The course uses a variety of different holes, including some designs we haven’t seen before. Being a Maine course, it lived up to our expectation of having at least one hole with a lobstah trap on it. It also had a hole that went straight out into the little pond where the schooner sits, reminiscent of something akin to the 17th hole at the Sawgrass TPC. The schooner also had a zig-zag hole on it, which allowed you to choose from one of two starting points. The fun part about that hole is that two people can go at once at try to knock each other away as the paths cross one another (think of those old Matchbox speedways where you sent the cars racing around and you could crash them as they switched lanes). The holes themselves weren’t too difficult (we were quite close to par) but they weren’t a cake-walk either. The entire course was clean and well-kept, with the carpets being in good condition and the landscaping looking well maintained. The only negative thing we saw on the course was that they used the metal cups in the holes which have a terrible tendency to not allow your ball in the hole because of the weird lip they have on them.
In short, this course epitomizes what a coastal Maine miniature golf course should look like if it chooses to use a nautical theme. When you combine the cost with the quality of the course, you arrive at something that’s definitely worth taking a trip to play (it’s just a few minutes off I-95). It’s also one of the few courses we’ve played that has an excellent mini-golf course while also having other attractions (batting cages). As a final added bonus, their ice cream shop serves sundaes in miniature baseball helmets (and no, they just don’t use Red Sox ones, although they should).
2012 Update
The overall feel of this course hasn’t changed much in the past ten years (including a change in ownership). The overall atmosphere of being on the Maine coast is still clearly prevalent and the creativity and difficulty of the holes has remained fairly consistent. The course has replaced the metal cups with plastic ones which are quite deep and minimize the chance of the ball slipping by or rimming out. One of the points we didn’t mention above is that the course makes good use of their hole flags. Unlike other courses which have them in the cups, these flags sit outside of the hole. That way they look nice as labels for the holes but don’t get in the way of putting (and having to remove them and put them back for each hole).
The one negative point that we saw was that some of the carpets were starting to fall into rough (no pun intended) condition. There were a few holes (especially in the back nine) with some worn carpets and some large seams showing. Hole 13 actually had some very patchy carpeting done with different styles and didn’t make the hole look that appealing. The bricks surrounding each hole seemed to be in good condition though. Generally our slip in the atmosphere score was related to the work needed on some of the holes. However, we would still highly recommend playing the course as the theming and layout are great for a miniature golf course.
Reviewed by Pat, Mandy, Liz, Mini Putt and Putt
Reviewed in 2002 & 2012
Course Pictures (click to enlarge)
2012 Pictures
Map