A Google search for “winter golf” yields evidence that, yes, there are plenty of kooks who pursue the sport long after the greens have turned muddy brown and icy white.
Joe Edwards, ever the contrarian, is expanding this year’s Putt-Putt Pub Crawl, a last-year addition to the annual Loop Ice Carnival (January 16). The mini-golf challenge features a dozen holes scattered throughout the University City shopping district. Some are actually inside restaurants and pubs. Others are outdoors and sport obstacles carved from ice. And some are—well, let’s let Edwards explain.
“The Moonrise Hotel and Eclipse restaurant are collaborating on a hole with a spinning alien head you’re going to have to putt around,” he says. “When the ball goes in the hole, the head will light up.”
It sounds like an antidote for the winter blahs—or perhaps an acid flashback. Either way, kids will have fun battling the elaborate obstacles, and adults will enjoy additional amusements on the chilly Moonrise roof, where a “Cosmonauts on Ice” vodka-cocktail sampling station awaits.
Other Ice Carnival highlights: a s’mores roast, a temporary-tattoo scavenger hunt, chain-saw ice-carving demos, ice slides, the Frozen Buns Run 5K/10K, trapeze performances, and a free raffle comprising 1,000 $1 coins frozen inside ice cubes. “You draw an ice cube and only find out later, when it melts, if you won a dollar,” Edwards explains.
And if you have a question while navigating Delmar Boulevard in the cold? “Just look for people on the street in penguin costumes,” he adds.
He isn’t joking.
