This shift in architecture can be traced Jungle Golf of Myrtle Beach. There, for the first time, the roadside was dug up to create a manmade pond. The exhumed dirt was then sculpted into a mountain through which waterfalls and rivers flowed. The playing greens became little more than a series of bumps, curves, hills and tunnels around the protruding landscape. Jungle Golf was soon the blueprint of countless courses across the country.

Back on Tack had all but given up on modern miniature golf, gravitating toward what little was left of the classics. Then in the spring of 2003, we took a swing at the newly built Ripley's Davy Crocket Mini Golf in Gatlinburg, Tennessee. It quickly became apparent that all other courses should be green with envy.

There are still many establishments in the Gatlinburg area that have not fallen into the sand trap of severing obstacles for turf design. In fact, some of the better traditional courses still line the 441 Parkway through this tack-infested valley of the Smokey Mountains. Even with the death of places like Bunny Golf and Dino Golf, the town still swings with a vengeance through venues like Treasure Quest and Hillbilly Golf, which deemed itself the world's most unusual miniature golf course.

While Davy Crockett is the rookie on the scene, it has managed to encapsulate everything that made traditional courses great and then some. Two 18-hole courses go beyond the stagnate shoot through obstacles and crudely animated contraptions to create what may be the first interactive golfing experience.

A direct shot at one hole causes cannons on a wilderness fortress to blast at the passing traffic. A well placed shot on another sends an otter springing on its diving board as if trying to jump into a nearby creek. A hit placed through an outhouse causes an eruption of flushing sounds. In between, visitors will tee off through frog butts, past bears reeling in fish, around mice begging for cheese and under a pair of crows that criticize every player's putt.

The key to the design is in sensors placed along the rails. Depending on the course of action your ball takes once hit, determines the reaction of neighboring obstacles and animated fiberglass critters.

One of the more amusing holes, and there are several along the fairway, is at the edge of course two. As your ball descends a hill bouncing off protruding gopher holes, the rodents jump up and down out of their openings singing in chorus to a randomly selected song. We were treated to a chipmunk-sounding rendition of "John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt."

Ripley's has certainly seemed to discover the missing links with Davy Crocket Mini Golf. They have created two courses that are as fun to look at on the surface as they are to skillfully play. By borrowing on elements that have scored well with past generations and updating them with the technology of this decade, they have scored a major hole in one.

Ripley's Davy Crockett Mini Golf
US 441 Parkway, Traffic Light #1
Gatlinburg, TN
In the neighborhood - The Space Needle