The New York Times has an interesting piece on a new miniature golf course at the New York Hall Hall of Science that helps teach kids astrophysics:

At the geosynchronous-orbit hole, where the ball swirls around a large bowl before dropping into an opening, Dr. Shara showed the boys how the ball was following parabolic arcs that kept abruptly changing, or precessing.

“This happens in real space time, too,” Dr. Shara said, explaining how objects would follow similar paths down into a black hole, and how Mercury’s parabolic orbit precesses. “The Sun’s gravity is warping the space around it, so Mercury does the same crazy kind of thing that the golf ball just did.” [Link]

This isn't the first time a science museum has used mini golf to teach science. Ithaca's Sciencenter has a similar astrophysics "course" and The Science Museum of Minnesota has an intriguing "Earthscapes" miniature golf course that "provides a fun - and challenging - way to learn how water moves from mountains to oceans and shapes the landscape along the way. With water hazards like you've never seen before, this 30,000 square-foot course demonstrates that rivers and streams are alive and ever-changing!"