Traverse City, Michigan—Adventure Golf & Sports (AGS, formerly Adventure Golf Services) recently announced plans to install a miniature golf course in an upcoming Great Wolf Lodge. Last fall, AGS installed a “Howl in One” mini-golf course in the Great Wolf Lodge that opened in Scottsdale, Arizona. AGS courses have been an added retail attraction to the company’s signature indoor water parks for the last several years.
“[Mini golf] is popular with guests, and we foresee using it going forward,” explained Torri Peterman, corporate director, construction procurement and supply chain for Great Wolf Resorts. Peterman said that many of the mini-golf courses are positioned underneath a ropes course to maximize space. The nine-hole courses installed for Great Wolf Resorts are ADA compliant, and the topography can vary up to 12 inches depending on the overall size, training from 1,200 to 2,500 square feet. Courses are assembled using an AGS modular system with patented panels to allow flexibility to adjust to specific space requirements.
“We’ve used a lot of the same north woods themed animals on the courses, so you see a squirrel, you see bears, you see chipmunks; however the layout of the holes might be slightly different just depending on what we need to work around in the particular area that’s been assigned to be the mini-golf course location,” explained Peterman. “As much as possible, we’d like to copy and paste over things that are working well, but we do need to keep in mind there might be 10-20 percent redesign work that’s required to fit a location.”
Peterman added that Great Wolf Resorts has worked with Adventure Golf in “turning around revisions to those courses and being able to modify them.”
The most recent Great Wolf Lodges to open—in Gurnee, Illinois; LaGrange, Georgia; Bloomington, Minnesota; and Scottsdale, Arizona—all include a miniature golf course.
Great Wolf Resorts is North America’s largest family of indoor water park resorts, and through its subsidiaries and affiliates, owns and operates family resorts under the Great Wolf Lodge brand. The brand will have 18 locations across North America this year with plans for more. Perryville, Maryland, is among its future domestic sites; the water park resort is slated to open in 2022. Internationally, the company is considering a proposed location in Bicester, UK.
“Great Wolf Resorts has done a tremendous job creating an all-in-one family vacation place with dining, shopping, and multiple attractions,” said Scott Lundmark, president of Adventure Golf & Sports. “Miniature golf is a family-friendly activity appealing to all ages, so it’s been a good fit with their mission ‘to bring joy to families.’”
