Hunt’s Pier – Skyline Golf — 16 Oz Pint Glass Watch the Tram Car

In the neon-drenched heyday of Wildwood, New Jersey’s boardwalk, few landmarks captured the carefree spirit of mid-century seaside fun quite like Hunt’s Pier Skyline Golf. Perched atop the flat roof of the Ocean Center complex—a squat, block-long retail strip built in 1955 at Poplar Avenue—Skyline Golf opened in 1958 as the rooftop counterpart to the concrete amusement pier that thrust seaward directly across the boards. William Hunt, the visionary who had already lost one pier to fire on Christmas 1943, understood vertical real estate: why waste pier deck on slow-moving mini-golf when you could stack it skyward and free the oceanfront for scream machines?

The course itself was pure 1950s optimism. Real grass carpeted eighteen gently rolling holes, windmills spun lazily, and pastel obstacles—castles, loops, tiny lighthouses—glowed under strings of bare bulbs. From the tee boxes, players enjoyed a 360-degree postcard: to the east, the Atlantic rolled in lazy breakers; to the west, the full riot of Hunt’s Pier unfolded—Flyer coaster trains rattling overhead, Golden Nugget mine cars vanishing into a man-made mountain, pirate ships rocking, and the Skua funhouse belching laughter. Below, the Ocean Theater’s marquee flickered with second-run movies and the buttery perfume of popcorn drifted upward, mingling with salt air and funnel-cake sugar. A single ride up the exterior elevator cost a quarter; once on the roof, a round was fifty cents—pocket change for a panoramic memory.

Skyline Golf was more than a novelty; it was clever urbanism. By lifting the course thirty feet, Hunt doubled his footprint without touching the pier’s precious ride grid. The strategy let him pack the pier with Disneyland-inspired dark rides—Jungleland boats predating Disney’s own, Keystone Kops chasing Model Ts through blackout curtains, Whacky Shack tilting floors—that drew lines clear to the tramcar tracks. Meanwhile, families who preferred quieter competition ascended to the roof, where breezes cooled sunburned shoulders and every putt came with a free soundtrack of coaster screams.

Photographer John Margolies immortalized the scene in 1978: a towering red-and-yellow pylon spelling SKYLINE GOLF in block letters, dwarfing the boardwalk below like a Pop Art lighthouse. Postcards from the era show kids in tube socks leaning over railings, parents shading scorecards with one hand and a Coke in the other. Night transformed the roof into a lantern-lit island; the pier’s midway lights reflected off wet putting surfaces, turning every hole-in-one into a private fireworks show.

The golden age faded with the 1980s. Hunt’s Pier shuttered in 1985, victims of rising insurance and shifting tastes. Skyline Golf lingered a few seasons longer, grass thinning, windmills wobbling, until the rooftop gates locked for good. The Ocean Center became generic arcade space; the elevator was sealed; the pylon vanished. Yet fragments survive: giant block letters from the sign rust in a Cold Spring Village warehouse beside Golden Nugget cars and Flyer trains awaiting restoration.

Today, Morey’s Piers dominate the same stretch, their modern coasters eclipsing the skyline. But on quiet September evenings, when the tramcar slows at Poplar, older visitors still crane their necks toward that empty roof and swear they smell fresh-cut grass and hear the soft clack of a putter against a colored golf ball—proof that some holes-in-one never really leave the scorecard.