Top 9 Mini Golf Courses in the Smokies

Hillbilly Golf has been a Gatlinburg fixture for more than 50 years, and the round starts with an incline railway that carries you about 300 feet up the mountainside. Two 18-hole courses are built into the hill with mountaineer-themed hazards and real elevation changes, so it feels more like a small adventure than a putting green.

Sky Pirates has 36 holes on two themed courses: an outdoor rooftop course among flying pirate ships and treasure, and an indoor underwater course called Mermaid Bay. Mermaid and sky pirate characters roam the courses, photo stops are everywhere, and an arcade, candy shop and pizza counter on site make it an easy evening for the whole group.

Crave turns mini golf into a candy fantasy with two 19-hole courses: an indoor course through cocoa cliffs and ice cream canyons, and a two-tiered rooftop course with Rock Candy Mountain, Bubblegum Garden and Jellybean Jungle. Mini bowling, two 30-minute escape rooms and a candy and soft-serve shop fill out the evening for a big group.

Professor Hacker's builds its two 18-hole courses around a 1920s treasure expedition, and a mining train carries players up the mountain to start. Holes wind past caves, waterfalls, a pirate ship, an ancient temple and a volcano, which keeps younger kids moving happily from one scene to the next while the adults argue about the scorecard.

Jurassic Tymes lays 36 holes through a dinosaur landscape where most of the figures move and make noise, right next to the live goats on the roof at Goats on the Roof. Pair a round with the Goat Coaster, a little gem mining and some fudge or ice cream, and it becomes a half-day outing that suits every age.

Old MacDonald's gives you three 18-hole courses, 54 holes in all, dressed with animated barnyard characters and water features. With three layouts, a group of twenty can spread out instead of stacking up behind one slow foursome, and the farm theme is gentle enough for the youngest players in the family.

Davy Crockett Mini-Golf brings a frontier theme to the Gatlinburg Parkway with two separate courses, and neither one is punishing, which makes it a relaxed pick when grandparents and little ones share a foursome. It is part of the Ripley's lineup in town, so it can ride along on a combo ticket with a museum or coaster stop.

Gatlin's spreads 45 holes over three courses on a shaded hillside behind Reagan Terrace Mall. The two outdoor courses, Old Mountain Trail and Old Town Square, sit under oaks more than a century old, with plaques at each hole on Cherokee and Gatlinburg history, and a third glow-in-the-dark course is indoors.

LazerPort's 18-hole blacklight course is indoors and glowing, which makes it the rain-day and late-night pick on this list. When the round is done, the same building has two laser tag arenas and a 10,000-square-foot prize arcade, with a roller-coaster-style go-kart track outside, so nobody has to get back in the car.