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Tee-Time Miniature Golf Return to Connecticut page

423 Rubber Ave

Naugatuck, CT 06770

(203) 723-6688

Price: $5 during Moonlight Golf- play as much as you want for 2 hours

Par: 48

Moonlight Golf

Difficulty: 6

Creativity: 7

Atmosphere: 9

Golf during the day

Difficulty: ?

Creativity: ?

Atmosphere: ?

2001 Review

Tee-Time is the course that most of us doing the ratings would call our home course. What’s interesting is that it is one of the later courses we’ve played during the first summer of doing these ratings. This particular review will have two sections because Tee-Time does a different sort of miniature golf on Friday nights during the summer. Thus this course has two different set of ratings depending on whether you play it the traditional way or the special way.

Before diving into the ratings, we need to explain what exactly this special sort of mini-golf is. Between 10 pm and midnight on Friday nights, Tee-Time runs what they call “Moonlight Golf.” What they do is turn of the lights of the course, place glow-in-the-dark markers in the cups and give players glow-in-the-dark balls. Then they turn you loose for as much mini-golf as you can fit into two hours. It makes for a very different game and one that is most enjoyable. Now that you know exactly what this first rating will be about we can continue. A second rating will be posted once we replay the course during the day.

The easiest thing to rate about this course is the atmosphere. From the very start you feel right at home in this family run business. Usually, we have nothing good to say about things in Naugatuck, but this business is definitely one of the brighter spots. The people who own/run this course are very friendly. After our first round of golf during the evening, we stopped to talk with them and they seemed very interesting in our little tour and what we had to say about other courses. They too play many of the other courses in the area and it was thanks to this conversation that we learned about how they change the course a little bit from year to year to add variety. This allows them to keep the course relatively fresh from year to year and sets them apart from most other courses that remain static or show signs of aging. The only large deficiency in the atmosphere that we noted was out of the hands of the owner completely. Unfortunately for them, across the street there is a very powerful streetlight that ruins a bit of the “moonlight” atmosphere that the course is trying to obtain. We also noticed that in a couple of areas the mats didn’t quite mesh to each other, causing there to be a small, yet usually unobtrusive ridge.

Then there is the difficulty of the course. This was a very hard score to give because of the way a couple of us played that evening. On the one hand there are some difficult holes on this course, such as the windmill one and one that required some well placed banking. In addition, in the dark one can’t see many of the bumps and ridges that fill many of the holes. On the other hand, two of us both shot at or under par the two times we made it around during the night. What it really comes down to is that the pars for some holes are set a bit two high and there is a decent balance of hard and easy holes on the course. I’d say playing at night probably adds 3-5 strokes to the score you’d normally get during the day. One last note is that there are some sections where the wall is a bit low, making it very easy to putt the ball out, but thankfully these are kept to a minimum.

Finally, we move onto the creativity of the course. As far as the holes go, there are a couple of different holes, such as putting through a boat, but for the most part the holes are standard fare. The course does get a couple of bonus points though for the “Moonlight Golf” idea, which I have never heard of before and turned out to be very fun. All in all, “Moonlight Golf” is definitely worth play at least once if not many times during the summer. It’s fun, cheap and you can kill a couple of hours doing it. Don’t forget to check back here for a review of the course during the day. Until then I would still suggest you play it no matter what time it is because the foundation of this course is solid fun.

2002 Update

This summer we played “Moonlight” Golf again, and we have nothing but good things to say about the course. This year, they changed the course a bit, adding a jump over a fountain of water, which is kind of hard because the bubbling water is right in your line of sight of the hole. A few holes were moved around and obstacles were placed in different areas, giving it the fresh look we talked about in our first review. We also failed to mention in our first review is that there is a hole which had a motorboat as its central feature. You putt into it as the first part of the hole and the ball goes through one of three tubes on the side of the boat to a landing below where the actual hole resides. It is by far one of the most creative holes we’ve seen at a course. Again, we also had a very pleasant chat with the owner and his love of mini-golf really shows in the effort he puts into making the course fun and entertaining. As of yet, we still don’t have a day-time review of the course, but hope to by the end of the summer. After playing this course again, we still fully endorse our rating and suggest that you get out and play it. If you can only get to it once, though, I would definitely suggest the “Moonlight” Golf because it’s definitely a fun couple of hours. (As an end note, the “Moonlight” Golf is currently only being done on the last weekend of the month for the summer.)

Reviewed in 2001 & 2002

Reviewed by Pat, Mandy and Putt 

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Course Pictures (click to enlarge)

Putt likes the old school obstacles The boat was real and was a very cool homemade obstable

Putt’s getting in on the moonlight action

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