Historic mini golf course in Hamburg: The prototype in the fairytale forest

Sometimes, says minigolf player Jonathan during a tour of the Hamburg Crazy Minigolf facility, visitors come from far away. From Murnau am Staffelsee, for example: This is a place in the foothills of the Alps that is characterized by the fact that the local minigolf course belongs to a minigolf club that plays in the Minigolf Bundesliga South. On the mini golf map, Murnau is a metropolis.

So if someone from the Murnau am Staffelsee mini golf club makes the long journey to Hamburg on the Elbe, then that person will not only visit the Landungsbrücken and the Jungfernstieg. She will take the subway from the city center seven minutes east and get off at Hammer Church.

From there you go through the listed Hammer Park to the Crazy Minigolf mini golf course, which is unique in Germany. The facility has written minigolf history: It was opened in 1959 as a prototype for the Eternit courses that became standard in Germany in the decades that followed.

This means: The obstacles on the tracks such as the volcano, the pipe hill or the salto were tested there. They were thought up by students from what later became the University of Fine Arts on behalf of the Hamburg entrepreneur Albert-Rolf Pless, who from then on sold standardized miniature golf courses.

However, the tracks in Hammer Park are made of concrete, while the tracks later marketed by Pless are made of Eternit. This may sound succinct to mere mortals. For mini golfers, there is a world of difference between concrete and Eternit, because mini golf is a material sport: sporty players use a ball that is specially designed for each hole - sometimes it has to be soft in order to bounce back easily from the boards, sometimes it has to be hard in order to be easily controlled. Eternit tracks generally enable more precise play. You are allowed to use the concrete tracks, but not the Eternit tracks.

According to the German Minigolf Sports Association, there are now around 220 clubs and around 2,000 courses in Germany. Club games and tournaments require facilities that are approved for sports. This means that a calculating game without chance must be possible on these systems. For example, there must be no moving obstacles.

A special feature of Hammer Park is that there is still a track with a seesaw as an obstacle. The task is to play the ball onto the seesaw so that the seesaw tilts and the ball rolls down the other side. When minigolf became a sport, something like this was removed from the obstacle catalog.

The seesaw still exists in Hammer Park. And so much more: The operators Dorota and Patrick Schreck took over the railway in 2018 and hired an artist who sprayed graffiti on the railways. A no-go for club purists, but a club doesn't watch over the track here, which is why the design went further: There are sculptures of animals or people everywhere in the park, like those offered at flea markets and in decoration shops.

The sculptures are painted like the tracks and, like the cat in the space suit, are often of the weirder variety. The sky made of rubber ducks, the colorful deer in the oversized birdcage and the display case with sumo wrestlers are also beautiful. Apart from that, there are plenty of benches to sit on.

Erwin, for example, finds this important. Erwin is over 80 and has been playing mini golf on the course at Hammer Park for over 40 years. He is one of those who regularly meets for serious play on the track - disorganized and yet with a certain commitment. At the beginning of the season, Erwin also helps to repair the damage to the tracks left by the winter. Erwin can do that, he was a painter by profession.

What he has never managed is to complete the 18 holes in 18 strokes. He says 21 was his best result. He doesn't know of anyone who has ever completed the track in 18 strokes: "It already happens on Eternit tracks. But here on concrete there are too many bumps and holes."

The train has character, says Jonathan, who is also one of the regulars. He likes the wild, unconventional thing in Hammer Park. Because the Crazy Minigolf in Hammer Park is also something else: a fairytale forest-like open-air café under tall trees. They are known to help against the heat, which leads to many people meeting on the pitch without actually playing. Various seating options are available. Most of them colorful. Painted over like the railways, which are historical and part of something new.