Another Panhandle Treasure: Panama City Goofy Golf

Near the top of my list of Florida's vintage roadside attractions is Panama City's Goofy Golf, because it is mostly intact in its original 1959 form. As these 1960s pictures from the State Archives show, many of the hole features remain unchanged today, only with new paint colors. Goofy Golf was the brainchild of Lee Kopin, who built courses in Ft. Walton Beach and Pensacola further down the panhandle, as well as in Texas, Nevada and California. There's a Sphinx, a blue Easter Island head, a bizarre tiki, a golden buddha, a rocketship, dinosaurs and much, much more. I could go on and on but words don't do the place justice. You truly have to see it for yourself.

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Panhandle on the brain: Panama City, FL

I just read that the oil spill is just seven miles from the beaches of Florida's panhandle. Another article on the Sentinel website lists lists the top ten beaches in the US and the authority who created the list would not add a beach from the panhandle because of the threat of the oil spill. Past panhandle best beach winners include St. Joseph Peninsula in Port St. Joe in 2002, St. Andrews State Park in Panama City in 1995, and Grayton Beach State Park in Santa Rosa Beach in 1994.

I went into the Visual Ephemera archives and found these images from a late summer trip to the panhandle I took with Mrs. Ephemera in 2006. We stayed in Appalachicola and Panama City and despite it being the hottest time of the year, we had a wonderful time exploring what has now been re-branded as "Florida's Great Northwest." Here are a few memories of that brief excursion.





Much of the beachfront of the "Redneck Riviera" has been lost to giant condo towers, but we found a nice little motel that had been slightly "boutique-ified" located a block off the beach. As we are not sun worshipers, (just yesterday the dermatologist warned me to "stay out of the sun"), we mostly visited the beach in the morning or in the early evening. The beaches of the panhandle are known for their sugar like color and consistency and Panama City's beaches were, at that time, pretty gorgeous.

We explored the great little downtown area and found lots of antique stores and the wonderful Martin Theatre built in 1936 (originally as the Ritz Theatre.)

The strip along the beach has some of my all time favorite kitschy Florida roadside icons, which will be explored further in future posts. My heart is with all the folks in the panhandle whose lively hood depends on those beautiful beaches, the turquoise waters and the critters living beneath the waters. After being battered by hurricanes and the collapse of the real estate market, I'm guessing things are already pretty tough up there. I wish them the strength to endure this next challenge to their local economy.