TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. — Waterville Valley Resort, tucked entirely inside the White Mountain National Forest area of New Hampshire, and famously known as the birthplace of freestyle skiing, recently added an 18-hole miniature golf course designed and constructed by Adventure Golf and Sports near the site of a new 16,000 square foot Adventure Center building the resort has planned. “We’re shifting focus to make this a competitive and a best-in-class New England resort community, not just a ski resort community,” says Tim Smith, President and General Manager.
To complement the natural beauty of the valley and accommodate the region’s changing seasonal weather, Adventure Golf & Sports built the course using their eco-friendly Modular Advantage Mini Golf system where patented, interlocking, permeable panels and permeable turf are used instead of concrete for construction.
According to Smith, although Waterville Valley Resort already has hiking, biking, a nine-hole regulation golf course, championship tennis courts and pickleball, “ …those activities require so much energy. The parents and everybody, they get tired. What we were lacking was that last ‘thing,’ that memorable moment, that thing the entire family could do together … Miniature golf is one of those activities that will provide memories for our guests and encourage people to come, encourage people to stay, but also make that memorable moment that we’re desiring as hospitality professionals that will stick with them and make them want to come back.
“13 holes are adaptive [ADA compliant] on one side of a creek,” says Smith, “and you cross over a bridge to the remaining five holes on the other side of the creek, and there’s a water fountain on that side and all of this is sloped down so there’s multiple tiers with about 12 feet of grade difference. They’re a little more challenging and a little more gradient between them. There’s a couple little faux bunkers, a couple of little rough grass areas, wood bridge bypasses, a little waterfall and fountain…. With the rock they [AGS] used to border everything, it really mimics the rock that we have. We’re doing a rock wall right next to it that’s all made out of granite that’s locally sourced. We’re really trying to concentrate on making all of these activities fit into our natural surroundings.”
However, the mini golf course “…won’t open officially until June 2027,” says Smith. “Mini golf is up on top of a hill and then we are working down to construct a maze, an aerial course and the [Adventure Center] building. So the first thing we had to build was the miniature golf course. We’re going to have some hospitality days and probably some soft opening announcements but the official opening won’t be until June of next year.
Smith says their owner, Jame Sununu, discovered AGS at the 2025 IAAPA EXPO in Orlando, Florida. “He liked the construction aspects, loves the layouts that they did. He was impressed that it was not concrete. He really wanted to concentrate on the beauty aspect of it, too…We want to keep things real natural.
“That [modular] technology for the way that they [AGS] do the courses and don’t do use concrete was very appealing to us…Water issues for us is a primary concern across our entire valley. Being in the middle of a valley, the water comes off the mountains and just saturates everything. So having something that won’t saturate or collect water is a very large advantage for us.
“The area where this course is, the frost level is probably four to five feet every year and to have a panel and turf surface that will not crack and could be sustainable, we felt this technology was a distinct advantage to us compared to competitors that that would use a different substrate that we felt would be less resilient in our weather.
“It’s New England, we get a lot of rain-snow mixes, we get a lot of freeze-thaws, the temperature changes here, especially on the surface of the ground. It makes it very challenging to have a mini golf course and maintain it. So making it durable, making it permeable so it can go through freeze-thaw cycles, making it sustainable, those were large concerns of ours.
“They [AGS] arrived on site on time, they left on time, we had our hiccups here and there and it was all managed very professionally,” commented Smith. “It was all done on time, on budget and made for a very smooth start to this adventure center construction project.”
For more information about the AGS Modular Advantage Mini Golf system, as well as custom designed miniature golf courses from AGS and pre-made portable systems that can be used in a variety of situations, email info@agsgolfandsports.com, call (231) 922-8166 or visit www.AGSGolfandSports.com.
