April 11, 2017
By Joseline Cano
Dominican students flooded through Rebecca Crown Library’s doors for the first ever Puttin’ Around Crown mini-golf event on Friday, March 31. Upon entering the full first floor of the library, books lined the floor in curved lines and complicated architectural structures to create man-made golf courses. The air smelled like sugar from the cotton candy machine mixed with the faint sounds of the popping kernels and Lady Gaga’s “Paparazzi.”
Student’s moved in groups of 4-6 throughout the first two floors of Crown laughing in between shots and in full concentration while taking them. Senior Legion Ivory, junior Jill Barth, and freshmen Madison Rychtanek, Emily Klotz, and Kevin Worytko could be heard making jokes out of each other’s bad aim but also throwing words of encouragement when someone’s turn was next.
The group moved through all nine holes in order. Each hole with a different theme to it. Hole one took a blast from the past by showing pictures of Dominican in the earlier days. Hole 2 was a regular golf theme while hole three was themed Legion Superhero. Ivory joked, “This one is about me!” Hole 4 is baseball themed with Cubs players’ cutouts and hole 5 was a line of old records leading up to two guitars for a rock n’ roll theme. Hole 6, a personal favorite, held a Quidditch cup, hole 7 was a castle, hole 8 was Hollywood themed, and hole 9 was a UFO with a tube coming from the second floor to the first.
Jessica Barth, Media Center Coordinator at Rebecca Crown Library, said: “We started planning this in early February. We kind of thought, based off of other golf courses, we thought we could do different themes.” The records we used for the fifth hole are actually from the media center. We have a large vinyl collection down there that we are in the process of getting rid of. I thought we could recycle stuff. Most of our stuff is recycled. We tried our best to recycle and repurpose things.”
Each hole was made out of recycled books, vinyls, cardboards, VHS tapes, personal items (like the castle), donations, and objects created through Dominican’s 3D printer.
“We started setting up around 2:30 p.m., we probably ended around at least 5:00,” Barth said. Around 10 – 15 people helped out. A lot of the people here are student workers so they were on shift. We just kind of pulled them out of their shifts and made them help us…we’re trying to make the library a more central part of the university since it’s where students congregate to work.”
Student Emily Klotz, who was crowned winner of mini golf in her team shared her thoughts on the event. “It’s something nice,” Klotz said. “It’s something different…playing mini gold here is kind of cool. The themes are relevant and some of the courses were challenging. I think Dominican should do it again. I had a lot of fun!”
canojose@my.dom.edu