The 18th at Fantasia Fairways is a tough finishing hole, especially at night, when fireworks are going off all around you and your playing partners are making fun of your putting grip. But touch is everything on this challenging course located in the shadow of those buildings with the big swan sculptures on top of them. If you don't play the moguls just right off the tee, the ball will wander down the fairway like a drunken sailor. There's sand everywhere and lava deposits from who knows where, and the refreshment stand is out of bounds. The elevated home green reacts to approach shots like a scorned mother-in-law, bopping balls back to the player who hit them as often as it sends them into unpredictable orbits. There's a nightmare par-4 that's listed as a 103-footer, but it plays much longer in the wind. And when music from "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" flies out of a hidden speaker in the middle of your backswing, you're lucky to get home in bogey. I know. By the time I staggered off the course, there wasn't an autograph seeker in sight.

As it turns out, it was the scorecard for this miniature golf course that meant the most to me as I sorted through the various cards my grown son, Alex, and I had filled with numbers great and small over a long weekend at Walt Disney World in Orlando. I noticed that my son had listed me as "Pops" on it--above a long column of numbers that added up to 70. But never mind that my score on that fanciful layout near Epcot was the worst in our foursome. The important thing was that Alex had used his affectionate term for me to record my scores, and not "Dad," the term he had used as a teenager to ask for the keys to my car, or "Czar," the term he had used when the answer was no.

So I considered the weekend getaway a family success. True, I was about 20 years late in fulfilling my promise to take my son to Walt Disney World. Actually, the original Magic Kingdom was Disney's only attraction in Orlando back when Alex was in his Little League baseball phase--prime years, presumably, for giving a kid the theme-park treatment.

Where had all the time gone? Walt Disney World had grown to twice the size of Manhattan, and Alex had turned into a full-blown adult, with a job, car, condo and life of his own. Any new opportunities for father-son bonding surely were behind us. So when I called him at his place in New Jersey to propose the golf trip, I expected Alex to politely blow me off. Instead, he said, "Cool!"

Please keep in mind that phone numbers, addresses, and prices are subject to change. Updated June 2005.