Course of Action

Golf ‘N Stuff, that giant baby-sitter off the Ventura Freeway in Ventura, has been entertaining kids daily since it opened in 1974.

You enter through a giant indoor video arcade. It’s sensory overload, with all sorts of noise coming from all sorts of colorful games, some as innocuous as basketball, others as exciting as road racing and some just gross-out violent.

In the latter, the majority of the male characters are muscle-bound macho killing machines, routinely exploding or slicing and dicing the bad guys in a sea of blood and guts. The arcade also has some of the classic lower-tech oldies, such as Donkey Kong, Centipede and PacMan. In short, here is a mindless but moneymaking teen heaven where a dollar can easily be transformed into four tokens.

The golf course and the nearby freeway are pastoral by comparison. Outside the arcade is a large outdoor dining area available for birthdays, company parties or just to hang out and munch on some of the fast food available at the snack bar.

One popular attraction is the Ram Roos bumper cars--16 in all--where kids can learn to drive like idiots long before they get real driver’s licenses. Drivers must be 52 inches tall to participate.

There’s also an Indy Car track where the cars go much faster and farther, with the following warning plainly visible on the back of each car: “Bumping cars or walls ends your ride.”

Another ride features pontoon boats that scoot across a shallow pool.

But the main thing here, as the name indicates, is miniature golf, and there’s plenty of that. For $6.75, Golf ‘N Stuff offers a choice of two 18-hole courses, complete with windmills, castles and tiered fairways.

Everyone gets a generic putter, a colorful golf ball and a warning: Don’t swing the club above your knee.

As to Mark Twain’s observation that “golf is a good walk ruined,” no one in the miniature golf community listened.

The vast majority of the holes are par 3s, with all sorts of kiddie-themed architecture. There are mine shafts and ghost towns and enough twists and turns for a motocross track, plus waterways flowing all through the course.

Between holes, the area is landscaped with neatly trimmed pines, giant birds of paradise, numerous philodendrons and plenty of palm trees, as well as seasonal color.

Twain aside, walking is good exercise, and here, it isn’t that strenuous. There are lots of stairs but also plenty of strategically placed benches and a kiosk in the middle of the course with shaded seats, all covered by a healthy red bignonia vine.

The place is not very crowded during the week, but oh, those weekends!

“When there’s no school, this place is packed,” manager Dave Blaser said. “There’s no age limit. We get people from 3 to 103.”

DETAILS

Golf ‘N Stuff, 5555 Walker St., Ventura, open daily at 10 a.m.; $6.75 for golf; 644-7132.