I’d driven by the sign a thousand times and always wondered what Putt N Glow was. I pictured all the little hills and faux-greenery of a typical miniature golf course, except inside, under bright florescent lights. But when I finally resolved to go there last week - with my fellow Swoop in tow - what we found was something entirely different.
The “Glow” in the name refers to how things look when lit not by florescent lights, but by blacklight. Entirely lit by blacklight:
The walls of the place are covered with a mesmerizing pastiche of G-rated head-shop style murals. Or, as one visitor was quoted to say (according to the current cache of the official website) “It is like walking through a museum with all the beautiful artwork.” Since it was the late shift on a weeknight, we had the place all to ourselves. We played slowly and a little recklessly and snapped some pictures along the way.
Here’s Andrea standing in front of an underwater scene. The entire opposite wall seems devoted to some kind of aliens-crashing-the-fair tableau, which you really have to see in person to appreciate.
A sign next to a door promised “Interactive Dark Rides” but the only thing nearby was a little group party room, so we surmised that this was just part of the aliens storyline.
As someone who enjoys a challenging round of min-golf, I was disappointed at first by the flatness and repetitiveness of the course. Ann Arbor’s Putt N Glow will never be a stop on the PMGA circuit. This is a place for groups and parties and people so young they can barely manage to hit the ball. But as soon as I stopped hoping for this place to be something it wasn’t, I could start appreciating it for what it was.
To end the night, Andrea got a hole-in-one on the last hole #18 and won us a free pizza. And even better, the attendant, who was kind enough to coach us a little just before, told us that by sinking the hole-in-one, we ended his night on a positive note. Thanks for a good time, Putt N Glow.
8 responses so far ↓
1 Mark // Nov 14, 2007 at 12:25 pm
You’re kidding, right?
2 andrea // Nov 14, 2007 at 3:02 pm
don’t knock it till you try it.
3 timothy // Nov 14, 2007 at 3:36 pm
I know it’s kind of sad, but I’m not kidding. The place is pretty lame, but I had a good time.
4 TeacherPatti // Nov 15, 2007 at 5:41 pm
Bowl and glow is pretty fun, too. Cubs AC does it, and probably so does every other bowling alley around. They even play loud, bad 80s music at Cubs
5 timothy // Nov 15, 2007 at 6:51 pm
In general, the “-N Glow” phenomenon rubs me the wrong way. Take something perfectly fine, like bowling, and ruin it with loud music and ugly, distracting lights. And then they give beautiful old alleys with 70s decor a makeover with stupid computer animations etc. I find it insulting when someone thinks I won’t be able to appreciate something without it being “-N Glowed”. Maybe it’s because we had the place all to ourselves that I was able to overcome all this last week. And the amateurishness of this particular “N-Glow”-ing had a certain charm.
6 Mark // Nov 16, 2007 at 2:03 pm
How you can look me in the eye and tell me that Ann Arbor hasn’t jumped the shark, after seeing this with your own eyes, I will never know.
7 TeacherPatti // Nov 16, 2007 at 7:06 pm
Oh, man! The glow bowl is awesome when you are drunk. I don’t think that Cubs (the place where we glow bowled) though that we couldn’t appreciate it without the ‘n glow (given that 95% of the day is non-glow)…I think they are trying to appeal to aging Gen X’ers like, uh, me!
8 Davy // Nov 20, 2007 at 4:22 am
Elks Lodge N Glow?
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