Remember Dan Caprera, who spent his summer on an epic quest playing every state’s most popular and/or highest-rated mini-golf course? Well, he’s back. And he’s got his winner.
“I am pleased to say that after 78 days of hard travel, 20,681 miles driven in my car, and 42,508 words written for my guide,” he tells us, “I can now definitively say that I have found the best mini golf course in America.”
Are you holding your breath like we are? The course that rated the highest overall in his opinion, after putting his way through fifty-one of the most popular mini-golf courses in America (yes, he even went to Hawaii, Alaska, and Washington, D.C. on his quest) was Myrtle Beach, South Carolina’s Mount Atlanticus.
When Caprera first golfed Mount Atlanticus’ Minotaur golf, he described it as an “unholy hybrid of Atlantis, Hawaii, Ancient Greece, the Incan Empire, and (for good measure) the album covers from every hair metal band from the 1980s,” writing, “If you’re looking for any sense of logic or order at Mt. Atlanticus, you’d have a better chance trying to decipher the mistranslated rantings of H.P. Lovecraft after drinking a bottle of DayQuil.”
And yet, it stuck with him.
“Sure, it wasn’t the most beautiful course I visited on this trip,” Caprera writes. “And it wasn’t the most jaw-dropping one either. It wasn’t the most professional or the most exclusive venue in the nation. Nor was it the most exuberant, the most innovative, the most extreme, authentic, inaccessible, unexpected, or all-around fun mini golf course either. Hell, it wasn’t even my personal favorite.”
But somehow it won out over every other course for Caprera. The reason: even though it may not have been the top selection in any of those categories, it was close to the top in all of them. And that’s what really made the difference. The holes, he explains, were clever and expansive. The view of Myrtle Beach was unbeatable. And above all, in spite of its crazy decor (which included a painting of a sunglasses-wearing Jesus), Mount Atlanticus was what Caprera called a “true” mini-golf course, and not just a showcase for an art exhibit.
Now that his massive tour of the U.S. is behind him, Caprera’s ready to lay off the mini-golf for a bit. As he wrote on Imgur, “All those mini windmills are starting to haunt my dreams. Also, I’m pretty much broke.”
Check out some of the highlights of Caprera’s summer, below.
