Cedarland Family Fun Center - haverhill, ma

Sep 23

Written By Kyle C

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Score: 61/100

Would we play this course again? No.

Should you play this course? No.

The Takeaway:

Cedarland Family Fun Center offers two 18-hole courses for an ambitious total of 36-holes of miniature golf. The two courses provide a study in contrast: Not unlike most sibling pairs, one 18-hole course has their life mostly together, while the other looks like they only leave the basement when it’s feeding time or if they are expecting a package from Amazon. There are bright spots on the course, and there is a certain classic, fairy-tale charm to this place with covered bridges and castles. But flaws have a way of eclipsing many of these positives: inevitably the derelict sibling steals the show. After all, it’s hard to celebrate one child’s graduation from high school when you’re driving to the police station to bail out the other child for the second time that week. And so it is that this course doesn’t really warrant a visit when there is more consistent golf to be found 15 minutes away at Jay Gee’s Ice Cream and Fun Center. But if you are addicted to mini golf and set on coming here stick to playing the 18 holes along the road closest to the entrance.

TECHNICAL REVIEW

Cedarland Family Fun Center in Haverhill, MA offers battling cages, ice cream, an arcade, and two 18-hole mini golf courses. At the center stage of this establishment is a large building housing the arcade, ice cream and snack area, and a counter to pay for mini golf. The size of this building gives the impression that this was gathering point with a once robust and bustling past. When we were in there it looked a little barren and oversized with the vibe of your local American Legion (a dusty club with a heyday in the past but what a past it was!).

To the mini golf: One of the two courses sets up against Boston Road, which is the main street to get onto this establishment. We will refer to this course as the “Front 18”. The second course is located near the rear, adjacent to the batting cages and thoroughly out of sight from the road. We will refer to this course, unsurprisingly, as the “Back 18”. The complex itself is sprawling. You will certainly not feel claustrophobic and you’ll have plenty of room to pace around, stretch your legs in comfort, or even pasture a stable of horses for a fortnight or two. It’s likely we haven’t even summarized everything that Cedarland has to offer. There was a pool area near the parking lot which may or may not be related to the complex, and also a sort of ropes/jungle gym course near the Front 18.

Returning to the basement-dwelling sibling analogy above, we decided to start our putting journey by heading downstairs…to the maligned “Back 18” we go!

The BACk 18

Generally speaking, the course design features holes that are 15-25 feet away from the starting mat, with banked turns, hard right angles, and minor dips, undulations, and obstacles on each hole. On many holes, shots are not as straightforward as they initially appears. Getting an accurate read on the green is a challenge and leads to some second guessing as you stand at the starting mat mentally playing out angles and wondering why you didn’t pay more attention in high school geometry, or really any class. Each hole was connected by cement walkways and the hole numbers were carved in the walkway near the tee area on each hole. Despite early favorable impressions here, initial rushes of mini golf joy begin to wear off and certain course conditions become harder to overlook and chalk up as charming.

The quality (and color) of each green appears to change with every hole. The variety of shades of greens this golf course has is actually impressive, owing to its use of multiple types of green surfaces. And there is no direct correlation between the type of green and quality of hole. One turf-type hole would be vibrant green, non-scuffed and smooth. The next turf-type hole looked like it was set up in your neighbor’s backyard 15 years ago and suffered weekly raccoon attacks. Another constant each hole shared was a thick rubber mat to start your first shot. Although this mat was only a minor hindrance, in places it further added to the worn out aesthetic.

The plastic cups were not as seamlessly infused with the holes as in other courses: the lip of the cup would often be elevated over the surrounding green, stopping or misdirecting your putts as they edged closer. The cups themselves were shallow. One one hand this infuses every close-out shot with suspense; on the other hand watching a ball bounce in and then out of the hole is demoralizing to these reviewers who are already ill-adapted enough to the world as it is without introducing the added stress of the universe having granted a boost to our fragile egos only to immediately reverse course and snatch it from us. We know other players at this course must bear this pain. To be clear, if you are wondering, according to generally accepted mini golf rules bounce-outs do not count.

The state of the turf, although distracting, was not enough to hide the surrounding décor. Most noticeably were the water attractions that did not feature any water. According to discussions with staff post-round, there is a significant leak in one of the pipes and it seems the cost of further investigation and repairs outweighs future benefit to this course. As a result, visible concrete where water once flowed is commonplace on the Back 18. On a human level, when the water features aren’t working and the turf shows significant signs of wear and tear, it puts a damper on play for the rest of the round, especially when one of the holes is designed to show off a waterfall beneath a castle (side note, this is the exact same castle, see below video, used at Castle Creek in Salem; there must be a prop factory cranking these out somewhere).

We don’t want to kick a course that’s down too much. Sure, the miniature structures and obstacles in the middle of the holes are a bit past their glory days, some of the structures were in need of a fresh coat of paint, and the lighting posts that dot the course unsurprisingly no longer light up. But there are still pockets of fun on this course.

There is a pleasant 6th hole that is surrounded by tall grass giving off Field of Dreams cornfield vibes. It was not a complex hole, with basically a straight line towards the hole, but this hole doesn’t need to be elaborate to be effective: the grass just looks cool. It is too bad not more holes leaned into the landscaping like this hole. Also, the turf was smooth and there were no debris. There was likely a time when more holes on the Back 18 were groomed this way; clearly the 6th hole shows this place is capable of making nice mini golf holes.

On the ski-ball style bonus 18th hole (at some point in the past) you’d hit your ball up a ramp and if you got your ball in the center hole the buzzer and lights attached to the building would flash, and the staff in the central building would be notified and you’d win a prize (presumably a free round or ice cream). At present the cage before the ramp is rusted and warped so that unless you hit your ball in just the right spot you won’t even get to the ramp and will bounce back. We were advised by a staff member who happened to be walking by to whack our ball towards the right side, so our ball would at least make it up the ramp, though this is far away from the middle bonus target. And thus concluded the Back 18.

What is frustrating about playing the Back 18 is that there is a good course in here somewhere. Despite the weathered props, empty waterways (insert Colorado River joke here) and rough greens, we can see there was a time when this course was a pleasure to play. But with even seemingly low-hanging fruit problems like the 18th hole bonus buzzer unresolved it doesn’t look promising that this course will soon return to those glory days.

Technical Review - The Front 18

The Front 18 that Cedarland Family Fun Center offers is the Seinfeld-bizarro version of the Back 18. The hole designs were in places nearly identical to the Back 18 course but conditions could not have been more different. The water features were alive and flowing (with blue dye included) providing a welcoming ambiance while you work your way around the various well-crafted mini structures and obstacles. The decorations look like they’ve been maintained and even the greens are mostly the same type and color. There was some noticeable debris and wear on the course, but overall it seems staff are focusing their upkeep efforts on the Front 18.

The hole designs here do resemble its sibling Back 18 course. These holes are not particularly wide, with a number of holes tending towards straightaways with an 8 to 10-foot diameter circular green at the end. One thing that this course does well are nice borders. Each hole has a well-constructed perimeter providing consistent (and high-energy) bounces. The turf neatly terminates at the border edges in a professional manner with no noticeable gaps or flaps. The turf itself looked a little weathered on some holes but relative to the Back 18 it was in good shape. There are still the same lingering minor nit-picky issues here such as the starting mats, the lack of a proper 18th hole, and occasionally absurdly shallow holes that your ball can bounce out of like a flopping fish making a daring escape from the deck of a boat.

A common motif at Cedarland is white rectangular obstructions (which seem to be concrete blocks wrapped in metal flashing). Sometimes they are triangle shaped and must be bounced off to play the hole. Some holes go the natural route and feature real rock obstructions. Others make use of small bumps, dips, and undulations to throw off your putting. And at least one hole features a multi-tiered pipe-delivery style hole (as shown above with the Front 18 lighthouse hole that is the mirror opposite to the Back 18 castle hole).

Terrific Sawmill Building

Nice Covered Bridge

The course, despite being better than the Back 18, is still not a creatively enthralling course. Relatively few holes provide the kind of delights that have you briskly walking to analyze shots and pore over greens like a toddler crawling on the carpet. This is a course on which to methodically work through putts while gazing longingly at the outstanding sawmill building or covered bridge. If you come armed with decent putting skills, expect to turn in a low score here because few holes provide a substantial challenge capable of tanking your performance with say a 5 or 6-putt.

The takeaway from time spent at Cedarland family Fun is to only play the Front 18, and even then don’t go overly out of your way to play it. The attractions and decorations do look really nice, and there are some moderately fun shots like hitting your ball up to the lighthouse (we only wish the outstanding covered bridge on the Front 18 factored into the hole design instead of just being a decoration and only slightly factoring into the 18th), but it’s just not that great here. If you do desire to play the Back 18, it’s because you must really enjoy putting. And, if that truly is the case, you are one of us and we wish you well. See you out there!

APPENDIX

You’ve got to be a pretty fierce gunslinger to pack a pistol on both hips. When a fella strolls into a new town packing heat on one hip it hardly warrants a turn of the head…but a gun on both hips? This gets folks to come out of saloons onto Main Street to see who just rode into town with hooves poundin’ and dust a stirrin’.

Most mini golf courses are cowboys with only one gun on their hip. One gun is enough after all to fight off a saloon ruffian, or cattle rustler, or to a win a duel with a rival. Unless you’re expecting one hell of a fight, there’s really no need for two guns. Yeah two looks cool, but surely the aim of one gun must suffer while you’re trying to fire the other one? Not to mention increased maintenance costs.

To be clear, each gun in this harebrained cowboy-western metaphor is 18-holes of mini golf.

And so it is that Cedarland Family Fun Center has decided to strap up with two guns. The only problem is that one gun is rusty as hell and barely works, and the other works most of the time but still needs a little love. It seems to us this cowboy ought to entirely ditch one gun, and focus efforts on cleaning and polishing up the other gun. Maybe take it to the range and do some target practice for a few weekends.

Departing from this cowboy metaphor, we wonder what the story is with this place and why it is that they decided to build two 18-hole miniature golf courses, instead of sticking with just one. Perhaps Haverhill sees heavy mini golf traffic during summer weekends and they needed to accommodate the traffic. We’ll admit that we don’t know everything (or anything depending on your point of view). But it seems that they’ve gone with quantity over quality here. With batting cages, an arcade, some sort of rope-type course, ice cream, and dual mini golf courses it is safe to say that at least to appearances this place is armed to the teeth with a fun-providing arsenal.

Kyle C