Play Mini Golf online

Each hole starts with the ball on the tee and the flag in view. Press on the ball, pull back, and let go: the ball rolls the opposite way from your pull, and the further you pull, the harder you hit it, up to full power. A faint ring round the resting ball shows where a press starts a shot, and the aim guide shows the direction and power while you pull.

The Power reading above the course tells you how hard the next shot is. A pull that is too short does nothing, and Escape drops a pull you have changed your mind about. Wait for the ball to stop before the next stroke.

The hole is over when the ball drops into the cup. A ball that is still rolling fast can run straight over the cup, so the last putt should arrive gently. After each hole, Next hole takes you on through the course's nine holes.

The camera looks at the cup from behind the ball, and after every shot it turns to face the cup again from where the ball came to rest.

Drag anywhere away from the ball to turn the view round it, and drag up or down to move between a low, golfer's-eye view and a view from above. Scroll or pinch to zoom. On a computer, click the course first; until then a scroll over it moves the page as usual.

• Top and Low jump straight to the view from above and the low view behind the ball.
• Overview shows the whole hole. Press it again, or press the course, to go back to the ball.
• When a rail or a block hides the ball, its outline shows through so you never lose it.

Tab to the course to play with the keyboard: an arrow then shows the aim, and every shot can be played without a mouse.

• Left and right arrows aim; hold Shift for fine steps.
• Up and down arrows set the power in 5% steps.
• Space or Enter shoots, and Escape cancels a pull.
• Q and E turn the view; plus and minus zoom in and out.
• V shows the whole hole, and C switches between the top and low views.

Every hole has a par: the number of strokes it should take. Your score on a hole is the strokes you took, and your round is the total against the par of the holes you have played. The Total beside the hole number shows it as you go, such as E for even par, +2, or −1.

Each hole ends after par plus three strokes. If that stroke does not drop, the ball is picked up, the hole counts par + 3, and it reads Max strokes.

A ball that goes into the water costs one penalty stroke on top of the shot, the usual mini golf rule, and the penalty counts toward the par + 3 limit like any stroke.

• Hole in one: the ball drops on your first stroke, whatever the par.
• Albatross: three under par. Eagle: two under par. Birdie: one under par.
• Par: the strokes the hole is meant to take.
• Bogey: one over par. Double bogey: two over. Triple bogey: three over.
• The Scorecard button lists every hole with its par, your strokes, and the course par.
• Your best score on each course is kept in this browser. Only a complete round counts: started on hole 1, every hole played in order, and no hole restarted.

Choose a course with the Course switch in the game's top bar; on a phone it is in the game menu (☰). The courses run from easy to hard in the order below, and Next course at the end of a round takes you on to the next one. Each course keeps its own round in progress, so you can switch and come back to the hole you left.

• Starter Course, par 21, from easy to medium: Straight Start, a straight putt past a block; Up and Over, a ramp up to the cup's plateau; The Dogleg, round a corner and down a step to the cup; Bank Shot, off a side rail round a wall of blocks; The Gate, through a one-cell gap in a wall of blocks; Funnel, where rails close in on the cup; S-Bend, two bends the opposite way; Step Down, off a ledge to a cup guarded by a block; and Up the Corner, round a corner and up a ramp to the cup.
• Lakeside, par 25, medium, built round ponds and bunkers: Lily Pond, round a pond that sits on the straight line to the cup; Bunker Guard, a deep bunker in front of the cup that only a near full-power shot rolls through; Pond Bank, a cup behind a pond, reached up the open lane or with a bank; Lakeshore Bend, a dogleg with the lake filling the inside of the bend; The Carry, off a raised tee box and over a water channel, with a block in front of the cup and a bunker at the back; Causeway, a narrow strip between two lakes with a sand bar across it; Shoreline, a fairway along a lake with a sandy beach between them; Upper Lake, up a ramp to a plateau whose far edge drops into a lake; and Island Green, a cup on an island at the end of a bridge one cell wide, with a small bunker at the back.
• Windmill Park, par 27, medium to hard, where the obstacles move and timing counts: Old Mill, a windmill across the lane whose tunnel is the only way through, with the cup off to one side beyond it; Sliding Door, a block sliding across the lane in front of a wall with one opening; Two Step, two sliding blocks half a cycle apart, so when one is out of the way the other is in it; Hilltop Mill, up a ramp to a plateau where a windmill stands between you and the cup; Drawbridge, a bridge over the water with a block sliding across it, always covering the middle, so you slip past on whichever side it leaves open, right beside the water; Mill Pond, through a windmill on the shore and along a causeway to an island green; Pocket Guard, a cup in a pocket off the lane with a block sliding up and down across its mouth; Twin Mills, two windmills turning out of step on a dogleg; and Grand Mill, through a windmill on the high ground, off the ledge, and past a long sliding block in front of the cup.
• High Country, par 30, from medium to hard: Over the Hump, up two ramp cells and down two more; Side Hill, a putt from the high side of a side slope; Cascade, down three ledges to the cup; Block Maze, corridors of blocks; Summit, a cup on a raised plateau with drops past it; Cross Slope, a cup on the high side of a side slope; Switchback, up three lanes, each higher than the last; Shelf Drop, off the side of a high shelf onto the lane below; and Ridge Line, a narrow ridge with a single block on it, where a ball that falls off climbs back from the start.

Lakeside adds two hazards. Sand is pale and grainy and drags the ball about five times as hard as the green, so a putt that would roll five cells on the green stops after one in the sand. You play out of it like anywhere else, with a firmer stroke.

Water is blue and sits a little below the green, with no rail between them. As soon as the middle of the ball rolls or lands in it, the shot ends with a splash: the ball comes back to where that shot was played from, and the hole costs one penalty stroke on top of the shot. A note over the course says so: In the water · +1 stroke.

• A ball rolling off a ledge flies a short way before it lands, so a firm shot can carry a narrow channel at the foot of a ledge, as on The Carry. A soft one drops in.
• A bunker in front of the cup slows a ball that is coming in too fast, and one behind the cup catches a ball that runs on.
• Penalty strokes count on the scorecard and toward your best, like any other stroke.

Windmill Park adds obstacles that move on their own. A windmill stands over a tunnel through a wall of blocks, and its four sails turn in front of the tunnel's mouth. When a sail is down across the mouth, the ball bounces back off it; when the ball arrives between two sails, it rolls on through the tunnel.

A sliding block runs back and forth along a straight track, slowing as it turns round at each end. The ball bounces off it, and a block that runs into the ball pushes it along the track ahead of it. Every windmill and block keeps a steady rhythm of its own, three to five seconds a turn or a trip, so the same timing works every time round.

• Watch an obstacle go round once before you shoot, then let go when the ball will reach it at the right moment. You can wait as long as you like.
• The ball takes time to roll there: a firmer shot arrives sooner, a softer one later.
• The aim guide shows your direction and power only; it does not allow for the obstacles.
• A ball never stops where an obstacle passes. If it slows to a stop there, it waits until the obstacle nudges it on, and then you play from where it rests.
• The obstacles keep moving even when your device is set to reduce motion, because their timing is part of the game.

Most holes reward a plan more than power. Look at the whole hole first, then pick the shot that leaves the easiest next putt.

• Banks: a rail keeps the ball's speed along it and sends it off at a slightly flatter angle than it came in, so aim at the spot on the rail that turns the ball toward the cup.
• Ramps: a ramp gets lighter toward its top, its mowing stripes run up the slope, and the rails beside it rise with it. Going up needs more power, and a ball that runs out of speed on a ramp rolls back down it.
• Ledges: a ball that rolls off a ledge drops to the level below, so play toward a ledge with the speed you want on the lower level.
• Side slopes: the ball curves downhill as it rolls, so aim above the cup and let the slope bring it in.
• The low view shows slopes, steps, and ramps most clearly; the top view is best for lining up banks.