Frisco – In a run of mill shopping center on the far south side of Frisco, you’ll find Monster Mini Golf. Judging the exterior of this entertainment center, it doesn’t look spectacular on the outside. But the inside is incredibly spooktacular. Creepy cats, skeletons swinging on chains, and howling wolfmen aren’t the typical type of decoration you’d expect to find at an indoor putting course, but at Monster Mini Golf, Halloween happens to be everyday. “This is our theme year-round,” said Holly Hernandez.
Holly and her husband Brian thought they might be digging their own grave when they opened Monster Mini Golf in the middle of pandemic, but they’re now on the other side of the pandemic with something that they can enjoy with their whole family. “I traveled too much for work and my husband was a stay-at-Home Dad for 15 years, and we wanted something we could do together as a family,” said Holly.
Holly and her family are fittingly enough, huge KISS fans, and opening this mini golf made for monster maniacs was what she needed after a quarter century in the courtroom. “In my prior life, no one wanted to see me walk in the door and now it’s all better,” said Holly. “I did patent litigation for 25 years.” Does Holly miss it? “Absolutely not,” she declared.
Brain’s big love for big screen bad guys put the couple on course to open Monster Mini Golf. “He’s a huge monster fan,” said Holly. “Monster movies, monster music. Anything monster related. This was his idea, And he has all the monster toys that come along with it.”
Brian wanted something to show off the monsters that he grew up loving and fears the younger generation may not be exposed to classics nearly enough. “We wanted to be old school monsters,” said Brian. “Frankenstein, Dracula, werewolf, Wolfman. Because a lot of kids don’t even know those monsters. They’re a little bit more of the Harry Potter era, which is fine.”
Hufflepuff ain’t happening here. Instead, it’s good ol’ ghouls that can get a rise out of any scaredy cat, sometimes more so than intended for the little ones. “That’s something we didn’t expect in the beginning, so we had to come up with something on the fly,” said Holly. “We came up with a little toy that they carry with them, and it makes them invisible to all the monsters so they can complete their golf game and the parents can have fun.”
One of the main scares on the course is a 6’4” animated Frankenstein that periodically rises off his table and comes to life with a roar, and Brian totally isn’t amused by the reactions he causes. “Some kids come by that you think, ‘Oh, they’ll totally handle it,’” said Brian. “They get off the course literally in tears and we don’t get a kick out of it. Well, sometimes we do.”
Once you get past Frank, skirt by the ominous organist, and putt your way around the eternal flame, you still have to deal with the clown on 18. “You’d be surprised how many people come in and they’ll play 17 holes, but they won’t play the 18th hole,” said Holly. “They hand us the ball and the club back and they don’t even want to look at the clown.”
The clown in question is a massive makeup-caked head with orange hair and haunting eyes, who’s tongue is stretched out for players to try to put into for a hole-in-one. “Some kids are scared of the clowns, so we will cover the clown’s eyes to make him more appealing to some kids,” said Holly. “Or should I say some kids, some grownups are scared of the clown.”
While my swing is stiff, at least I got to have the last laugh with a hole in one and I wasn’t scared stiff, making Monster Mini Golf a happy haunted stop on The Texas Bucket List.