Miniature Golf Ball Lifts & Custom Ball Returns
- Feb 26, 2024
- 1 min read
Custom Miniature Golf Track Systems
In addition to rolling ball sculptures, I design and build custom miniature golf ball lifts, tracks, ball returns, and other kinetic elements for miniature golf courses. Many of the same skills I use to build rolling ball sculptures—designing reliable ball paths, fabricating track, building motorized lifts, and working with gravity—translate naturally to larger golf-ball installations.
If you're designing or developing a miniature golf course, I can build custom components to make the course more dynamic and interesting. These can include motorized golf-ball lifts of virtually any height, ball returns, track systems, and other mechanisms for moving golf balls where they need to go. A lift can be supplied with the pickup track at the bottom and exit track at the top, ready to mount and operate.
I also build custom tracks to collect golf balls, return them to a starting point, or simply turn the movement of the balls into part of the attraction. I've built wall-mounted golf-ball tracks spanning more than 16 feet wide and 8 feet high, with track switches that divide the balls between different routes before bringing them back together at the collection point.
These installations are essentially functional kinetic systems. Like my rolling ball sculptures, they require careful attention to slope, momentum, transitions and track geometry so the balls travel reliably while still creating something entertaining to watch.
The video below shows one example of a custom golf-ball return and track system I built.
