A DAUGHTER'S PROMISE

Woman fulfills vow to dying father to rejuvenate family mini golf course

By Nick Malawskey

PLEASANT GAP — Outside of Pleasant Gap, a promise is being fulfilled in the small, quick greens of a miniature golf course.

CDT/Melissa Doss

Carol Shuey looks out over the Pleasant Gap mini-golf course she and her husband are re-opening next weekend, pictured on Sunday, June 7, 2009. The Shueys have updated the course that was originally built by Carol's father. CDT/Melissa Doss

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Built by a farmer’s vision, a love for the game and the help of family and friends, there is an inherent beauty in the course.

It may not have the perfectly manicured or delightfully silly addendum of other establishments, but care and devotion is evident in the newly laid green carpets and rebuilt tees.

Because at the core of the efforts to reopen Spring Run Mini Golf is not a business plan, a spreadsheet or a profit margin — but a promise made between a father and a daughter.

The course lies at the end of Krout Lane, a road that intersects state Route 144 just past the state Fish and Boat Commission’s facility. The road was named after a local farmer, John Krout, who, along with his family, owned and operated a century-old dairy farm at its terminus.

On a part of the farm’s property near the road, he and his family built a miniature golf course in the late 1980s, which they operated until he died on July 6, 2007, at the age of 87.

“(One of the) last things he said was: ‘What are you going to do with the course?’ ” remembers Carol Shuey, Krout’s daughter, who grew up milking cows at the family’s homestead.

Her response: What do you want me to do?

The answer to her father’s question is evident in the 20 holes that during the past year have undergone extensive renovations. The old carpets have been removed and replaced, a new fence replacing the old.

“It laid idle for awhile while he was sick,” Shuey said. Grass had grown up around the course, the old wood had deteriorated.

On Saturday, she will open the course once again to the public, after nearly a year of renovation and hard work, helped by her husband and friends.

“It’s just been a lot of work,” she said. Shuey knows the course well — she and her husband helped her father plan and build it. When they were on vacations, they carried a camera, taking pictures of other courses to incorporate into the family’s.

Just outside Pleasant Gap, the course sits on a small triangle of land, bracketed on the right by a hillside, on the left by Logan Branch.

The business takes its name from a small spring on the grounds, which bubbles out of a concrete enclosure — once used for chilling the day’s milk — before cutting across the course and joining the stream.

In addition to the reopening, there are plans for a small herd of alpacas across the narrow lane, spectators of sorts for the players Shuey hopes will again grace the farm’s small course.

Shuey said it will be a family run affair, opening around 5 p.m. during weekdays and closing later in the evening — or when the last mini-golfers put up their putters and drive back down Krout Lane, headed home.

Nick Malawskey can be reached at 235-3928.