Google is taking a Home-branded putt-putt course on a US tour

NelsonG · June 1, 2018

If you’re in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles or Atlanta, you’ll soon be able to play mini golf (or putt-putt, as some people apparently like to call it) and learn about the Google Home product range in the meantime. Sounds like a corporation’s idea of a good time.

“We wanted people across the country to feel the magic of what Google Home can do in an environment that’s slightly more exciting than your typical living room,” a Googler connected with this project says in the announcement video. “Everything you can do here, you can do at home,” another Googler says. “We just took your home, and put it into a mini-golf course.”

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Unsurprisingly, part of the gimmick here is that you have to talk to the Google Homes spread across the course to navigate the obstacles. You can also “win stuff,” which seems to involve lots of Google-branded socks and Home Minis. And it’s all family-friendly, of course.

The New York course is now open for business, with the other cities following in short order. You can reserve your tee time here.

All joking aside, Google is clearly riding the positive news around Home right now, which includes the fact that Google Homes are now outselling Amazon’s Echo devices. It still doesn’t want to talk about its creepy Duplex Google Assistant demo at I/O earlier this year, but feel free to ask the Google Home devices at the Google Home Mini Golf course about that.

Bonus: If you live in Portland, just come to Twin Pines Country Club and play some putt-putt without all the corporate branding, because that place is about as Portland as it gets — and it’s free, too.