Donut Hole in One

Plenty of studio honchos play golf, but for this filmmaker, miniature golf is indie turf. Scott King, whose plucky King Pictures has hatched such quirky projects as the 1996 documentary “Shotgun Freeway: Drives Thru Lost L.A.,” spent three months and about $20,000 creating a nine-hole miniature golf course at his home near Silver Lake.

Miniature golf courses have a theme, and King’s is L.A. landmarks past and present. The holes on the front- and-backyard course at his half-acre property represent Angeleno monuments such as the Brown Derby, Angels Flight, the Donut Hole drive-through in La Puente, and Hoover Dam. (“It wouldn’t exist without L.A.,” King explains.) “We mostly picked the least obvious choices,” he says. “We could have done Phillipe’s or other classical landmarks, but we wanted things that were less recognized.”

A team led by a landscape-designer friend engineered each hole and built all the mini-landmarks by hand. “You can’t really find those in Dumpsters,” King notes. Hole #6, a rendition of the long-gone Dog Cafe that once graced Culver City, is a formidable wire-mesh-and-concrete canine weighing more than 300 pounds. The miniature Brown Derby is made of fiberglass, and Hoover Dam doubles as a retaining wall for King’s swimming pool. King, 36, throws occasional golf parties and a yearly tournament for friends and associates, with each winner’s name emblazoned on a trophy titled “King Pictures Annual Mini-Golf Invitational Thingie.” The lowest score so far is a 34. (King’s personal best is 35).

Two or three times a day, inquisitive neighbors peer into the yard to check out the course. King understands their curiosity. “It’s kind of bizarre to peek into the fence and see a statue of a doughnut,” he says. Prying eyes notwithstanding, King claims his course has one big advantage over traditional gardens. “It’s low maintenance,” he points out. “AstroTurf saves you time.”