Romps Water Port, Ohio Marina, has installed a new 18-hole prefabricated, modular Anywhere Links, Jr. mini-golf course from Adventure Golf & Sports (AGS).
The new course uses a patented interlocking panel system and replaces a 36-hole concrete-built course that started out as a franchised course in the mid-1960s.
“We were very excited that it was easy to install,” said John Gabriel, co-owner of Romps Water Port. “It was something we could install. That way, we could place the course as we saw fit. And then, if you want… you can even move it around a little bit, change it up a little.”
Romps Water Port is a 17-acre facility with a 250-dock marina that includes the mini-golf course attraction (Romps Putter Port), a heated swimming pool, an ice cream stand (the Dairy Dock), fuel and a full-service department to work on boats. It is a family-friendly marina that started in 1957 in Vermillion, Ohio and is in its third and fourth generations of family ownership.
This past winter, the Innes and Gabriel families (co-owners of Romps Water Port) began their quest to replace the concrete-built 36-hole course. “We wanted to meet local codes and create more accessibility for people with mobility issues,” says Gabriel. “And spacing-wise, the new course is just a better flow of traffic. The other course was pretty crowded and didn’t allow for a lot of maneuvering between the holes. These holes are now longer; they take up the space. Where the old course was par 2s, this is more par 3s.
“It rained this morning and they’re playing out there now. The panels drain right through… The pad drains off nicely. It’s pitched ever so slightly so the whole place dries out quickly… The carpet on the old course held on to moisture. You’d go to play after a heavy rain and the ball would spin water and it’d be slow, and it wasn’t nearly as nice. It was old technology. All the holes were framed with wood, and you had to sand and repaint that and freshen it up very year, and it was just a lot of maintenance.
“We saved the best of the old course. The water tower remains, and the blue bridge is there, and there are two nautical buoys and a sign that points to Key West and various locations like that with the distance in miles. So those things are scattered throughout the course. We were able to incorporate the old and the new, so it didn’t lose its Vermillion flavour.”