• Star Valley business builds worldclass miniature golf courses.

Several years ago, Mike Codman was in Pennsylvania doing a repair job on a miniature golf course and was doing a walk-through with the site’s owner. Suddenly the latter pulled aside a young boy about 7 years old and asked him, “Is this your favorite miniature golf course?”

“No,” the boy said. “My favorite is in Ocean City, Maryland. They have aliens all over it.”

Codman smiled. “I was like, ‘I built that course.’ That was neat. That was 500 miles away.”

Such memories are common for the man who owns one of the more unique businesses in Star Valley. Big Sky Miniature Golf Construction on Highway 89 just south of Etna is the originator of perhaps hundreds of miniature golf courses from New York City to Florida to Idaho — and from Norway to Canada to Mexico. Codman has even built miniature courses for the Toronto Blue Jays MLB team, the Buffalo Bills NFL team and even the Rolling Stones.

For Codman, it’s all about family. Miniature golf, said the soft-spoken 57-year-old, is “something the whole family can do together. It’s a great place for birthday parties. Adults can go play and have a good time, or kids on a date can go play. It’s clean fun. You can take the whole family.

“A 4-year-old and an 80-year-old can enjoy miniature golf,” he added.

SVI Media recently met with Codman and his grandson, Joshua Chapman, who works in the family-run business, to discuss their unique company — especially considering Big Sky recently built Star Valley’s first miniature golf course. Located adjacent JACZ restaurant and drive-in, also just south of Etna, the new course is open through the end of September on Fridays and Saturdays, depending on weather. (The JACZ drive-in and restaurant is closed for the season, but the course and Scoopz ice cream truck are temporarily open.)

“The response has been amazing,” said JACZ co-owner Alex Ivie, speaking of the public’s enjoyment of the new miniature course that opened this past May. “Overall, people just loved to play mini golf and enjoy some food at JACZ. All the locals have been pretty excited.”

Having grown up in Cleveland, Ohio, Ivie, who owns the restaurant and drive-in with her husband, Jason and her in-laws, Ed and Donna Ivie, hoped to offer Star Valley folks some of the memories she had as a child. Speaking with SVI Media, Ivie recalled going to restaurants and having a burger, then going behind a business to play miniature golf. “I wanted to replicate that here,” she related. “We had this vacant land, and we thought it would be a fun activity.”

The story of how a miniature golf course came to Etna begins in Massachusetts. Codman, who grew up in little towns from Idaho to Wyoming, married his wife, Colleen, who is from the East Coast. They lived for 20 years at Cape Cod and launched Big Sky Miniature Golf Construction there in 1998. The name? “Big Sky” reminded Codman of summers visiting his grandparents in Montana. “Just something to remind me of home,” he added.

In the first years, the family, which came to include daughters April and Christine, built primarily large concrete courses, which led to traveling over 200 days a year. “We weren’t home a lot,” Codman said. “Wherever the job was, we went there and built it.

“On the east coast, there are lots of miniature golf courses. It’s almost every town has a course. It’s not like out here where there’s a few and far between.”

For the man who says he can’t draw a straight line, building miniature golf courses satisfies his creative side. He uses a spray-paint can to “draw out” courses and has used chain saws or hired chain-saw sculptors to carve high-density foam figures — such as the bear that sits at the entrance to their Etna business. “It’s fun,” Codman said. “I love what I do. I was lucky I got the right job.”

In 2006, the Codman family moved the business west — just to “come home.” After a trade show in Las Vegas, Nevada, they drove through Star Valley and fell in love with the fall foliage. “We bought a piece of property the next day and drove home and put our house for sale.”

For 14 years, the business sat in Alpine until 2020 when they purchased the Etna site. In about 2010, the business shifted to portable miniature courses that could be rented out by businesses or used in such areas as company break rooms. Although Big Sky still builds the large concrete courses for campgrounds and amusement parks, they sell some 60 to 70 portable courses a year.

And as the business has grown, so has the family, which now includes five grandchildren. Twenty-one-year-old Joshua Chapman has worked by his grandfather’s side since he was 3 years old and could hold a trowel. “It’s just something I’ve grown up doing. I always liked it, and [Grandpa] always did it. And I wanted to be like him.”

Codman, too, looks up to a grandfather, Morris Homme, who died in 2019, just short of his 100th birthday. When Codman was a boy, his grandfather nicknamed him “Grasshopper,” because at the time he seemed to jump from one thing to another, working in everything from McDonald’s to being a security guard.

Not since 1998. Now, hoping his grandfather would be proud of him, Codman said, with emotion, “Oh yea. He’s my hero. [I hope he’d say] I did good.”

The new course at JACZ is a permanent concrete site, with each hole sponsored by a different Star Valley business, mitigating the costs for the JACZ owners and keeping costs low for patrons. There will even be a yearly tournament between sponsors with a traveling trophy.

To play at the course in Etna, adults pay $10, children 5 to 12 pay $6. Under 5 is free. Please see JACZ on Facebook and Instagram for updates on schedules and special events. To book a private party, email puttzminigolf@gmail.com.