The Golf Tee- The History of Miniature Golf
The History of
Miniature Golf
by Amy Roberts
Everyone knows that Abner Doubleday invented baseball
and Dr. James Naismith came up with basketball,
but how did miniature golf come to pass? As The Golf Tee:
Family Fun-tastic prepared to open its new miniature golf
course in Webster, we looked nearly 100 years back to find
its roots. According to GOLF Magazine's Encyclopedia of Golf,
mini golf dates back to 1916, when James Barber of Pinehurst,
NC built a miniaturized version of a golf course on his estate.
He mimicked the features of a regular golf course with little
sand traps and small pools of water.
On a cotton plantation in Mexico, an Englishman named Thomas Fairbairn
was trying to do the same thing. He couldn't get the right type
of grass to grow for his miniature golf course, and ended up
inventing an artificial putting surface made of cottonseed hulls
and oil. Around the same time, on Lookout Mountain on the border
of Georgia and Tennessee, Garnet Carter built a mini golf course
at his resort hotel and patented it "Tom Thumb Golf." Carter's holes
incorporated a variety of obstacles and hazards made out of tin pipes
and artificial grass. Quickly, the mini golf craze spread throughout
the country.
By the end of the Great Depression, 30,000 miniature golf courses
dotted the countryside. For a dime or so, millions of golfers
navigated through the windmills, teepees and clowns that became
part of the miniature golf experience. Miniature golf survives
and flourishes. On the professional mini golf circuit, thousands
of players around the world participate in weekend tournaments.
But most folks just putt a few on a warm summer night. At the
Golf Tee, 1039 Ridge Road, Webster.
