So, the weather finally stopped messing around, right? We got this weird 60-degree break in April, and my kid, bless his heart, starts asking if we can hit the mini golf course. Specifically, the one over at the World Cup Golf Center in Hudson, New Hampshire. Figures. It’s the closest one, and you know how it is this time of year—you can’t trust the posted hours on Google Maps for places like this. They’re either open strictly 9-to-5 on weekends only, or they opened three weeks ago and nobody bothered to update the website. It’s always a gamble.
I started the practice exactly how you shouldn’t: by trusting the internet. I pulled up their official site on my phone. Nothing. It looked like it hadn’t been touched since 2018. It kept talking about “Summer Hours Starting Memorial Day.” Well, Memorial Day is weeks away, so that didn’t help squat.
The Attempt to Call It In
Next up, the phone call. I dialed the number listed. It rang four times, then went straight to a generic voicemail that was full. Straight up full. No message, no “Press 1 for hours.” Just beep-beep-beep, mailbox full. That’s a good sign, right? A thriving business that can’t empty its voicemail box. Awesome.
I hate wasting gas, but I hate disappointing the kid more. My wife was busy setting up some garden beds, so I strapped the little guy into the truck and made the executive decision: we were driving the 20 minutes to Hudson to see with our own eyes. This is the only way to get real data, people. Don’t trust the internet, trust the pavement.
We cruised down Route 3A. The drive was smooth, surprisingly. The sky was that brilliant, deceptive blue that makes you forget it was snowing last week. We pulled into the World Cup parking lot around 2:00 PM.
Here’s what I immediately observed:
- The driving range looked open. Dudes were hitting balls. That’s a good sign.
- The main shack where you pay for range balls and clubs had its lights on.
- The parking lot was maybe half full.
The mini golf is tucked around the side, near the batting cages. We parked the truck and walked straight toward the course. I wanted to see if they had the colored golf balls laid out or if the putters were hanging on the racks.
And here is the definitive answer, after all that effort, all that time wasted on the phone and the gas burned:
The mini golf course was not open.
It was prepped, though. They had taken the covers off the holes, but the little gate blocking the entrance to the course was firmly shut. There wasn’t a soul back there. I walked up to the main counter in the shack and asked the teenager behind the register, a kid who looked like he’d rather be anywhere else.
“Hey, is the mini golf open today?” I asked, trying to sound casual.
“Nah, not yet,” he mumbled, barely looking up from his phone. “Maybe next weekend if it stays warm.”
And that was it. That was the whole practice. Confirmed closed for the day. We got ice cream instead, which, frankly, was maybe better, but it wasn’t the point of the mission.
Why I Even Bothered Driving Out There
You might think, “Dude, why all this effort for a crappy mini golf course that probably opens next week anyway?”
Well, I’ll tell you why. This isn’t just about a round of mini golf. This place, the World Cup Golf Center, specifically the mini golf part, has been a marker for my life for the last few years, and not in a fun way.
See, three years ago, I had a job in IT. Good pay, great benefits, but the hours were absolutely garbage. I was working remotely, but I was “on call” 24/7. Literally. I missed almost every single weekend activity we planned.
One Saturday, my wife planned a trip to this exact mini golf place. We’d promised the kid for weeks. We pulled into the parking lot, and my phone started blowing up. Critical server issue. I had to sit in the truck, right there in the Hudson parking lot, running diagnostics and fixing system failures for three and a half hours. My wife and kid went and played without me. They came back, all sweaty and happy, holding the prize ticket that I was supposed to win for them, and I was still hunched over a laptop, chewing Tums.
That was the breaking point. The moment I realized I was prioritizing a job that saw me as a replaceable resource over actually being a dad. I saw that ticket, and I saw my son’s face, and I knew I had to make a change. I put in my notice two weeks later, without a new job lined up. Everybody thought I was insane.
I spent six weeks scrambling, living off savings, trying to find something that paid decent but had boundaries. I finally landed this gig working for a small local company developing specialized industrial software. Less money, sure, but when I clock out at 5 PM, I am gone. No weekend calls. No emergency server crashes.
So every time my kid asks to go to World Cup mini golf, I treat it like a sacred mission. Because finding out if that place is open isn’t just about putting a little ball in a clown’s mouth. It’s about me showing up, physically, and making sure I don’t miss another day because some server somewhere decided to hiccup.
And today? It was closed. But I was there. I showed up. And when it opens next week, you bet your butt I’ll be back there, putting the ball myself. If you’re planning on going soon, don’t bother driving out there until maybe next Friday. Call first, but be prepared for that voicemail box to be full. Just figures. But if you see me there, say hi. I’ll be the guy in the dad jeans who looks intensely focused on a windmill.