"Mini-golf may be the closest most of us get to really understanding Sisyphus."

Michael Tortorello files a New York Times Home and Garden section story on Bruce Stillman's 13-hole Big Stone Mini Golf Course and sculpture garden in Minnetrista, Minnesota.

The second hole, a stiff par 3, breaks a wobbly six feet from left to right. Mr. Stillman calls it “Banking on Mound.” If there’s any place in America left to pun, it’s a mini-golf course: Mound is the name of the nearby lakeside suburb, on the western edge of the Minneapolis metro, where Mr. Stillman banked his fate.

It’s a landscape of country clubs, hobby farms and marinas, with “some of the most expensive real estate in Minnesota,” said Heidi Hoy, a sculptor who has lived intermittently at Big Stone as Mr. Stillman’s companion.

When he first bought an old dairy farm here in 1991, he wanted to try his hand at landscape and environmental art: something in the spirit of the British site-sculptor Andy Goldsworthy. Another influence was a piece of popular American cinema called “Overboard,” in which reluctant lovers played by Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell create a Putt-Putt Seven Wonders of the World.

There is also a 25-image gallery accompanying the story online.

Comments

[Jim Beckner]

I think I liked the goat best.

jb

[mrobert]

I've played it. It's a beast.

Hopefully they don't bring in Rees Jones for a redesign and hang up "Dogs Playing Poker"

[StephenP]

Now this is inspired American folk art/sculpture. Forget the mini golf which almost seems secondary. Almost too much to take in on each hole.

Appreciate the truly weird as stuff this unique cannot be replicated.

I recently saw some great outdoor pieces in the land of famous outdoor sculpture in Ridgefield, CT. Some of the works are on the front lawns of different estates in addition to a great museum This is so much more fun....