Mini Golf Funny Games

The Introduction Of Mini Golf Games

Mini golf games, or miniature golf, often called crazy golf in the United Kingdom, is a miniature version of the sport of golf. While the international sports organization World Mini golf Sport Federation (WMF) prefers to use the name "mini golf", the general public in different countries has also many other names for the game: miniature golf, mini-golf, midget golf, goofy golf, shorties, extreme golf, crazy golf, adventure golf, mini-putt and so on. The name Putt-Putt is the trademark of an American company that builds and franchises miniature golf courses and Family Entertainment Centers. The term "Mini golf" was formerly a registered trademark of a Swedish company that built its own patented type of mini golf courses.

It is a matter of taste which activity one wants to call "minigolf" rather than "golf", but probably the best candidate as the "first minigolf course in the world" is the MENS' Putting Club of St. Andrews in Scotland which was founded in 1867, and still today is operating and open for public. This 18-hole course of putting greens, called "the Himalayas", was founded by some members of the notable Royal & Ancient Golf Club in St. Andrews. Women had become interested in golf game, but the conservative social norms of the era deemed it unacceptable for women to publicly perform such violent movements that a golf swing requires. Therefore an 18-hole course of short putting greens was constructed for women – apparently the first "miniature golf course" in the world.

A few decades later it became customary for many American and British hotels to offer their guests a miniature-sized golf course, using the same designs as actual golf courses, but at one tenth the scale. The game was played with a golf putter and a short driver, and was called "garden golf", "pitch and putt golf", "clock golf" or "par 3 golf".

Geometrically-shaped minigolf courses made of fake materials (carpet) began to emerge during the early 20th century. The earliest documented mention of such a course is in the 8 June 1912 edition of The Illustrated London News, which introduces a minigolf course called Gofstacle.

The first standardized minigolf courses to enter commercial mass-production were the Thistle Dhu ("This'll Do") course 1916 in Pinehurst, North Carolina, and the 1927 Tom Thumb patent of Garnet Carter from Lookout Mountain, Tennessee. Thomas McCulloch Fairbairn, a golf fanatic, revolutionized the game in 1922 with his formulation of a suitable artificial green—a mixture of cottonseed hulls, sand, oil, and dye. With this discovery, miniature golf became accessible everywhere; by the late 1920s there were over 150 rooftop courses in New York City alone, and tens of thousands across the United States. This American minigolf boom of early 20th century came to an end during the economic depression in the late 1930s. Nearly all minigolf courses in the United States were closed and demolished before the end of 1930s. A rare surviving example from this period is the Tall Maples Miniature Golf Course located near Rochester, New York, and listed on the National Register of Historiy Places in 2002.

The first miniature golf course in Canada was at the Maples Inn in Pointe Claire, Quebec. The "Mapes" was constructed as a summer home in the 1890s but was renovated into a club in 1902, opened to the public in 1914, and had a miniature golf course in 1930. The popular nightspot burned in 1985.

One of the first documented minigolf courses in mainland Europe was built in 1926 by Fr. Schröder in Hamburg, Germany. Mr. Schröder had been inspired by his visit to the United States, where he had seen minigolf courses spreading across the country.

In 1930 the gentlemen Edwin O. Norrman and Eskil Norman returned to Sweden from the United States, where they had stayed for several years and witnessed the golden days of the American minigolf boom. In 1931 they founded a company "Norman och Norrmans Miniatyrgolf", and began manufacturing standardized minigolf courses for the Swedish market. During the following years they spread this new leisure activity across Sweden, by installing minigolf ourses in public parks and other suitable locations.

Swedish minigolf courses typically had a rectangular wooden frame surrounding the playing area made of tennis field sand (while the American manufacturers used newly-developed and patented felt as the surface of their minigolf courses). Felt did not become popular as a surface material in Sweden until in the mid-1960s – but since then it has become practically the only surface material used in Scandinavia and Britain, due to its favourable playing qualities in wet weather. (Minigolf courses with a felt surface can be played also in rainy weather, because water is absorbed through the felt into the ground. The other commonly used surface materials, beton and eternite, cannot be used in rainy weather, because the rainwater collects into large pools on them, stopping the ball from rolling.)

The Swedish Minigolf Federation (Svenska Bangolfförbundet) was founded in 1937, being the oldest minigolf sport organization in the world. National Swedish championships in mini golf games have been played yearly since 1939. In other countries mini golf games sport federations were not founded until the late 1950s, due to the post-war economical depression.