My Son and I Barely Survived a Glow-in-the-Dark Miniature Golf Course

It taught me something about my son’s sensory system

My son in front of wall mural at Putting Edge (author photo).

Putting Edge isn’t the kind of miniature golf course I grew up playing, complete with windmills and other obstacles sending your ball spinning back to the putting green. It feels more like Las Vegas crashed into Alice in Wonderland. Black lights illuminate murals of blood-soaked lizards, fire-breathing dragons, and smiling psychedelic mushrooms on the walls.

I didn’t consider how the visual stimulation might affect my son’s senses, but I probably should’ve before planning the trip. I invited my friend Richard, a teacher at my school, and his son, Zeppelin, to join us.

My wife, Lisa, complimented me for setting up the outing, but she also calls it a “stupid” idea. I think what she meant is that Dominic might struggle waiting to hit his ball. I didn’t tell her it was a glow-in-the-dark course or eight miles outside her five-mile boundary for our outings.

That would’ve squashed the trip.

The moment we step through the door, I realize we’re in over our heads. The place has a Medieval-times-meets-outer-space theme, with a sprinkle of wilderness and undersea motifs. A glowing world of fluorescent greens, blues, and purples pops off the walls. The 18-hole course feels like part carnival funhouse, part science-fiction movie, with glowing sea creatures and obstacles radiating throughout the room beneath ultraviolet lights.

The carpet is all black. The room is dark. The only light emanates from the murals, pulsing off the walls. I look at Dominic. The white part of his eyes is glowing, and I know that expecting him to try to hold it together for 18 holes would be like asking a paper boat to survive a raging storm at sea.

Fortunately, he just needs to pee.

But when we return to the first hole, he can hardly stand still as we begin playing. His body jerks to the beat of his sensory body. I consider myself a sensory-sensitive dad, and I’m aware of how my son’s body responds to highly-stimulating environments; nevertheless, I ignore the warning signs his body is sending off as I get ready to hit my glowing ball on the first hole.

I pull my club back a few inches, and out of the periphery of my left eye, I see Dominic go streaking across the course. I go to find him, and he is crouched behind a giant frog rising from the floor, his shoulders hunched and his fingers kneading his golf ball like a stress toy.

I have a new agenda for the day: hit my ball and move on. I don’t care about trying to make par on each hole as I normally would. I suggest to Richard that we don’t keep score after it’s clear that Dominic is a flight risk, and by the third hole, I can tell his senses have maxed out.

He looks like he’s about to bolt off any second.

Still, I don’t give his body a break, and by the next hole, he has reached his limit. His legs, arms, and shoulders are shaking like he’s in a prison electric chair, and a sensory-sensitive dad would realize his body needs a time-out.

But I just want to keep the game moving, so we can look like a typical father-son duo, and I don’t give his body the break it clearly needs.

That’s how sensitive I am to my son’s needs, and you know what they say about history … it is doomed to repeat itself unless we learn from our mistakes — and since I don’t — Dominic darts across the room like a loose coil sprung from an office chair.

Then, on the fourth hole, he climbs on top of a treasure chest and leaps off, landing with a thud that settles something in his body. It’s as if the proprioceptive input from the force of the landing steadies his body, making him go from being floppy like the Scarecrow in The Wizard of Oz to a typical kid playing miniature golf.

The proprioceptive system is one of the three main parts of our sensory system, along with the equally less-known vestibular and tactile systems. The proprioceptive system craves push-or-pull activities to provide the sensory input his body requires to stay regulated, and I’m still learning the functions of the other systems.

Unlike most people, who can keep their bodies regulated with little thought, Dominic’s proprioceptive system needs a steady diet of push-pull activities, like carrying groceries or swinging from the monkey bars, to remain grounded, according to his occupational therapist.

After leaping off the treasure chest, Dominic and Zeppelin tug on a sword coming out of the ground on the next hole, stabilizing his body even more. Could it be he is using physical objects on the course to get the sensory input that his body needs just to stay regulated?

Then, he scales up the side of an eight-foot tower, gripping the ledges, pulling himself up, and leaping off like a superhero. The landing stabilizes his body more, and I am no longer concerned that Dominic will go AWOL.

“We’ve found the next Spider-Man,” Richard remarks. “Did a radioactive spider bite him?”

”No,” I say, “but he ate an M & M under the sofa yesterday. This could be a side effect.”

With his body under control, we settle into a nice rhythm. Dominic can stand still without shaking like a leaf on a windy day, and his newfound coordination lets him focus on hitting his ball. His putting stroke looks like he’s trying to swat a spider, but I leave it alone.

The goal is to finish the course. Teaching him a proper grip on a golf club or putting mechanics to keep his ball from rocketing past the hole is secondary to just finishing the course.

On three Specialty holes, he gently kicks his ball with his foot on the World Cup hole, uses the handle of the putter to hit his ball on the Topsy Turvy hole, and snags his highest score — an eight — on the Bowl the Hole.

Toward the end of the course, Dominic leaps across a row of pink boulders, his feet barely touching down. Zeppelin follows after him as hip-hop music blasts from speakers, making a conversation almost impossible to sustain. But I remember one difficult-to-forget exchange:

“That lizard on the wall looks like it’s eating jellybeans,” Zeppelin commented to Dominic.

“No, he’s vomiting planets,” Dominic replied.

Then he added, “That’s Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune.”

“Is that a sea monster’s tail?” Richard asked me, pointing at a mural on the fourteenth hole. “Or is it a penis coming out of an ocean wave?”

“Um … it does look more like a penis.”

It was the fastest round of miniature golf I’ve ever played. There was no lining up putts, like we were competing at The Masters for the PGA Championship. There was no idle chit-chat between Richard and me. It was just whack-whack-whack-and--in-the-hole for a score in the high teens.

And it was beautiful.

I wondered how Dominic and Zeppelin would get along since they’re the same age, and my favorite part of the day was listening to their nonsensical chatter in the car, mostly coming from Dominic, on the drive to the golf course.

I owe Richard a huge thank you for helping to keep an extra eye on Dominic while it was my turn. He deserves an Academy or a Golden Globe Award for Most Understanding Friend. Without his extra help, Dominic would have darted off more than twice. No explanation was needed, and Richard and Zeppelin both adjusted to our fast tempo without complaint.

After the final hole, we hung out in the arcade. Dominic and I floated down raging rapids in an inflatable raft, whacking orange and blue frogs with paddles by smashing buttons as we screamed from the on-screen action.

No quarters were necessary.

We used our imaginations.