Smash Putt: A Seattle mini golf course Rube Goldberg would've loved

Before you enter Smash Putt, a temporary mini golf course/art installation on Capitol Hill, you're asked to read a lengthy warning, which includes the following:

"By participating in this event you agree that you are entirely responsible for your safety and will not hold the organizers responsible for injury, property damage or death."

Not your typical putt-putt disclaimer. But this is not your typical putt-putt course.

Assembled inside a dingy 12th Avenue building by Rusty Oliver and a group of industrial artists who call themselves the Hazard Factory, it's 10 holes featuring crazy contraptions involving catapults, air compressors, power tools and 33-1/3 rpm turntables.

At hole No. 2, which is called "Driving Range," you can launch a ball through an air-powered machine gun toward the upturned innards of a piano: "Clang — ng-ng-ng."

At hole No. 5, "Roulette Francaise," a motorized scooter turns a platform that shoots your ball off in one of four directions — one containing a hole. (And feel free to toot the scooter's horn whenever, just for fun.)

At the end of the course, you can stop at the bar for a $4 pint of beer from Georgetown Brewing Company and free peanuts.

Smash Putt (subtitled "Miniature Golf Apocalypse!") opened Friday night, and clearly, there were many glitches still to be worked out. Air compressors were short of power; electrical connections weren't reliable; balls flew in all directions. Maybe only three or four of the 10 holes functioned entirely as planned.

But the small group of beer-drinking putt-putters who showed up for first crack at the course didn't seem to mind. "Clangs" and "toots" and happy shouts of "Aaahh!" when someone just missed a hole rang out through the building.

Smash Putt is open to adults only Friday-Sunday nights through Nov. 29; two family friendly "matinees" are planned for Nov. 21 and 28.

But you might want to consider bringing along safety goggles for the kids.

Lynn Jacobson: ljacobson@seattletimes.com