How Miniature Golf Works

and read. Even though we haven't physically held in our hands yet, it's like we have Chuck in our dreams so far. I can't wait to actually see and hold this thing and smell it. And so should you, so pre order now. It means a lot to us. The support is a very big deal, So pre order anywhere books are sold. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of our Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, and

welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, and there's Charles w Chuck Bryan over there, and there's Jerry there figuring out all the new contrivances of modern life. Yeah, I mean we should tell people what's going on. I think it's interesting, right, No, well, I'm gonna tell him. So Jerry has figured out now how to operate the studio McIntosh recording system and not be in the office. It's pretty great. It's it's covid riffic actually. And so she was just up on our skype on video and she's

still there. But when she switched it to mute, it went to the distressing picture. Do you see that thing? No, I just see j R. Like the letter J and the letter are. Oh see there she is. She's back. When she turned it off, there was I get a photograph of Jerry that looks like she's like sick in bed or something. It's weird. This is uh, well, it's just Jerry's look maybe. So no, that's that's a diet of nothing but me. So for fifteen twenty years, we'll

do for you. The weirdest thing is this is as close as we've come to normal in the four months. I know. Not only is it like normal, it's almost like a throwback. Remember when we had the studio where we would look out the window and she was there. Yeah, that was great. That's kind of like this again. She was a window creeper. Yep, professionally and in her personal life too. So this is stuff you should know everybody. I don't know if I said it. There are probably

a few people who are confused and aren't anymore. Um, but we haven't gotten started yet, so prepared to be confused again when we explained something in particular, Chuck, miniature golf, I gotta ask, are you a fan? Uh? This made me want to play again? Like I grew up playing putt putt charm and have very fond memories of all the different colored golf balls, you know, all like the water trap that was really just a stagnant little pull

of concrete. You know. Put Pa was wonderful and great, and there were arcades and birthday parties there that featured heavily with g I. Joe action figures and stuff like that, the good kind of three and three quarter inch ones. Um. And yeah, I am a fan, if not just nostalgically, um, in general. Yes, and which style And as you as a listener will see soon, there are a couple of different things. But did you grow up playing just sort of the bare bones putt putt or the more miniature

golf clown's mouth windmill volcano. Well, Chuck. If you ask me if I had a rich childhood, I will always tell you, yes, sir, Yes I did. And the reason why is because I grew up having putt putt close

by and Toledo when we played that a lot. And then when my family would vacation in the summers on Cataba Island on Lake Erie, and this is like pre cleaned up like Gary, there was a like a run down little like mini golf with like clowns, bows and windmills and all that stuff right by the place where we used to stay, like walking distance, and so we'd play there a lot too. So I had the best of both worlds, a really great, just top notch childhood.

So I grew up playing putt putt at Stone Mountain Park, which we went to a lot because it was near our church, and the youth group would go and do put putt nights and stuff. So that was a lot of fun. Uh. And I was sort of partial to those that were like, you know, the real put putt where it requires a little bit of skill. But I am also a sucker for the beach town uh volcano, waterfall, uh go kart bumper boat arcade scene Yep, don't forget a laser tag. I never really did laser tag that.

I think that came around a little after I was, you know, in my prime years for this kind of thing. Yeah, it wasn't the same here, but I was looking up. Now they have laser tag at Putt putt places. But I still love those go carts. Man. When we go to Aisle of Palms last year, I found a place nearby, I was like, we gotta go, and everyone was kind of oh, I don't know, and the kids are sort of like, yeah, I guess I'll do it. And I was like, guys, we gotta go right, Like, what is

wrong with all of you? Who are you vacation? Man? It was so much carbon monoxide bleak at the house. You read no theo's go carts. I could do that all day long, Yeah, for sure. And of course I got the guy, you know, the teenager squeaky boys, teenager, and I said, hey, man, which which one? Which was Which is the fast one? And he was like number eight? Really? Oh yeah? And sure enough it was really fast. He

just rain circles around everybody. I did such that I even laid off on the gas a little bit, just to catch up and let people, you know, act like they outrace What a what a sportsman? Oh my goodness. Well we'll talk about go carts one day more in depth, but today we're just going to focus on the miniature golf Okay. Yeah, this is a pretty interesting history, I think. Yeah, I had no idea how far back it went until we started researching this, and actually it goes all the

way back to the nineteenth century. And this is one of those rare things that's been around a while, but you can actually pinpoint like the first one and the first miniature golf course in the world as far as anybody knows, is that St Andrew's. It's the Ladies Putting Club of St Andrew's Um and it was built in eighteen sixty seven strictly for the women members of the Ladies Putting Club. Yeah, there's a couple of things that

play here. Actually really just one thing, which is, uh, not letting women do things, because there was a decree basically that women shall not take the club back past their shoulder, um commandment. Yeah, like a real golf swing. In other words, was I guess improper for a for a lady to do. The Victorian era was just so stupid when it came to social constraints. I'm trying to

figure out why does that? I don't know, do trichy, I would guess, well, I just wonder why a full golf swing would it make their their dress rate rise a little above the ankle or like, I just wonder why. I think also, women were expected to not over exert themselves physically, especially in public. Two could kind of construe

that as over exertion. Well, and then there's this, which is from a book by Scottish baron Lord Wellwood talking about women and when they should golf, when they shouldn't golf, if they choose. I was going to do a Scottish accent, but I'm just not feeling it. Uh. If they choose to play at times when male golfers are feeding or resting, no one can object, But at other times, must we say it? They are in the way. It was kind of snarky to add even the must we say it? Like,

do I even need to write this next sentence? It's so just dripping lee obvious. But the long the upshot of this is that's why they created the Ladies Putting Club. Is just sort of get rid of them, Yeah, to get them out of the way of the men. But the joke was on the men, because this putting Green, this first miniature golf course in the world, is still

around and it's still considered one of the finest. That's actually nicknamed the Himalayas because it has all these kind of mountains and hills and hillocks all built into it um and they really kind of stand out from what I understand against like the Scottish Seascape um and it's a really revered miniature golf course. But it is exactly

what it sounds like. It is a golf course in miniature, Like just like you take a classic golf course of the variety that was born in Scotland and you just kind of hit it with a shrink ray and then you have a genuine, bona fide miniature golf course. And that's how the whole thing started out. Yeah, I mean, that's that's what we would call like a par three today, right kind of it seems like par three courses are

um a little different. So this is like, yes, I think it does require more than just a putter, and a part three would require more than a putter, but there seems to be a few different other kinds of golf courses aside from the miniature golf course. There's the part three, the pitch and put, and executive course is all kind of qualified technically as miniature golf courses in different ways. Yeah, the executive course they got the name

because evidently an executive could go player quick ground during lunch. Uh, a lot of part three's, you might have a like one par five and a couple of part four's. Is that right on a part three on an executive course? Okay, Yeah, that's what. That's really the only thing from what I can tell, that differentiates it from a par three course. Yeah, it's it's it's a golf course. It's a shorter and

therefore doesn't take as long. Yeah, And it's not like the hole is smaller and the ball is smaller and the clubs are smaller, like just just start get out of your fantasy land there. Instead, it's just the distance from the tea to the whole is shorter. There's fewer bends and and stuff like that, so the actual experience takes less time and less energy, and you can just kind of fit it in in a shorter amount. Of time, and I think that's the popularity of those things generally.

Although pitch and put courses I also saw there. Um they usually consist of a wedge and iron and a putter of what you need to play on those um, And they're all about the focus on the short game. And as a result, the men and women, just average men and women who play golf can kind of compete pretty evenly because it's all about the short game. It's all about finesse rather than you know, just cheer power of driving as far as you can on like a traditional golf course. Yeah, I mean I'd love golf. I

just don't play anymore. Like I grew up playing golf and it was not good, but I wasn't terrible for as much as I played, and I still like it. I just don't, you know, have the time or the inclination anymore. But I like the big boy courses with the big part fives. But I also love a fun little part three like Florida has a lot of these beautiful part three's, including some you can play at night that are all lit up. Um, And that's always a lot of fun too. Yeah. I tried to get acquainted

with golf as a youngster. Um my family had weirdly enough because this is not like my family at all, had um membership at heather Downs Country Club. Well yeah, and I love the pool because they had like, you know, tons of slush puppies and the best like nasty hot dogs you can imagine. Um, and there was a pool and all that. I think I told you the story about Swim League, the swim team where I was the worst swimmer on it. But I also tried to golf for a couple of summers and it just did didn't

take it up. But I was back in Toledo like a couple of years ago, I think right before Cleveland Show, and I visited the country level. I just drove by and I looked, and the pool is now just like a green field. It's been filled in, like the little the little um snack shop has been torn down. I'm like, something really bad must have happened there for them to do that to the pool. You know. Yeah, there's uh the And I didn't get to go here much because

it was private. But Hidden Hills was a big neighborhood near my house that had a country club that's still around. Isn't it, well, the neighborhoods there, but you know, the neighborhood has seen its better days, and the country club and golf course is completely just shut down and grown over. It's really it looks well, it is an abandoned place.

That's so cool. It is kind of cool. And and then I had the idea of a movie, like a old school type thing where a bunch of old a bunch of like middle aged men that grew up there, go back and raise some money and try and like clean the place up and get it going again. Yeah, to hilarity, there has to be like a greedy developer that they're battling, right, So is that the neighborhood that we got kicked out of when we tried to go

shoot like without a license once around that area? Remember the security guard came up was like, stop what you're doing. I don't remember that. Yeah, it happened one day. Was it on the Gorilla? Now? It was like when we were shooting shorts? I think I don't remember that. Yeah, I'm pretty sure that was the one. Should we take a break already? Sure? Okay, all right, we'll get back and we'll talk about where many golf went from here right after this definite sk SK should know alright, so

we're back. Nothing we've talked about right now constitutes miniature golf in the mind of anybody who here's the words miniature golf, right like, what what comes to mind are things like putt putt or goofy golf, or windmills or clowns or happy Gilmore or something like that. Right. So, um, that all started. Actually, that didn't quite start yet. I was really leading up to that, and then I realized we had to keep going with regular miniature golf one

more time because it has to spread to America. And it did, and we can actually trace that too, um to the house of a guy named James Barber who was an immigrant from England who was familiar with the course the Ladies Pudding Club at St. Andrew's UM. And he was rich enough that he said, you know, I want a miniature golf course built on my estate, UM at Pinehurst, North Carolina. And he did. He had like an eighteen whole miniature course built right there in his

his formal gardens. And it's just beautiful. It is nice. And uh, this was the first one in the United States, and as it's called thistle dow u t h I s t l e d h u and supposedly, as legend goes, he when he first saw it, he said, this will do. I guess he was. Uh, he was not blown away maybe, I don't know. It sounds sold under. He wasn't one of those spoiled brand you know, Robert Barons, and instead was like, this will do. This will do quite nicely. And they just left off the second part,

you know. Yeah, but it's called thistle do And uh. They started hosting competitions a couple of years later, and I think this is the first time miniature golf was ever used, like those words wherever he used to describe the Pinehurst outlook. Uh was that the newspaper? I guess, yeah, it's there one claim to fame. Oh you know it's true though it's probably true. Yeah, but they were the one in the in a account of the competition, they

coined the term miniature golf. Up to that point, a lot of people had called the Litliputian golf after the uh, the little people in Goliver Guliver's travels, and that actually that name actually stuck for quite a while. Um, so we've got James Barber, who hosted or built the first miniature golf course in America. But still this thing is like directly connected to the Ladies Putting Club of St. Andrews.

It's a golf course in miniature. We still haven't quite reached what we would consider miniature golf, and that wouldn't happen until n which turned out to be a really big year for miniature golf in America. It was like there was something in the air and a few different people kind of tapped into it around the same time and it suddenly just took off like a rocket. Yeah. Two of the guys were some entrepreneurs named Drake de uh Delinois, I guess named John Ledbetter another good name.

And it's okay. He sounds like he'll he'll shoot you, he'll lead better. Yeah, yeah, I can see that. Uh. They did a pretty cool thing, which is they opened up a course on top of a rooftop in the Financial District in New York and that kicked off a trend. There were I think about a hundred of those on top of roofs. I guess it is before the big

rooftop bar hotel scene. They had golf courses up there. Yeah, miniature golf courses again though those were like miniature golf courses, so that I mean, that was a big deal in New York. Just a hundred rooftop golf miniature golf course loan in the twenties. That's that's a tremendous amount. Um And I don't think there's a single one left actually, um, there should be. There's there's so that kind of makes the whole you know, there's one on on top of

Pont City Market where the house Stuff Works office is. Um, is there golf up there? There's a miniature golf course up there, and it makes a lot more sense now. Yeah, it's kind of like a whole mini Coney Island up there. Yeah. I mean I think I've only been up there when we had at work events and the only thing I did was the slide. I didn't know there was a slide. Yeah, there's like a you know, you sit in a potato sack and go down this big slide. Yeah, yeah, I

did that. That was fun. Yeah, there's a there's a miniature golf course up there. We'll have to play sometime when the whole pandemic passed totally. Uh And then later that same year you said it was kind of a boom yere for mini golf. Lookout Mountain Tennessee in Chattanooga, which is a place where I think everybody should go to see Ruby Falls in Rock City. It is a tourist trap, but it's actually kind of neat. I mean, the greatest of the great tourist traps, and it still

holds up too. Yeah. Get a a pecan log. Oh my god, those are so good. They are so good. There's that's what. That also supports my theory that candy was perfected in the nineteenth century. Never remember honeycom conlogs was that. I didn't know if the con lungs were from way back then, but I believe it. Yeah, for sure,

they're definitely old timing. So these people, uh Garnett and FRIEDA. Carter, they built a resort called fairy Land Club and it was part of that whole sort of interconnected scene there with Rock City and Ruby Falls. And they built a miniature golf course and they said, you know what, Uh, if you like golf, maybe you should try mini golf because it doesn't take very long. It'll kind of scratch that itch if you're not able to play a real round and that's sort of how they marketed it at first.

And they they were the first people, I think, to start adding the obstacles, right they did. Yeah, and um, they used as they were building, like the n and the resort complex. They used some of the construction materials like train pipes and you know, barrels and things like that, and you build them as hazards. And then because they had this whole like fairytale theme going up there, they also built rock City. They were the ones who built Rock City, and that has like a cool, little weird,

weird but also very neat fairytale theme kind of hidden throughout. Um, they they added that to their miniature golf course. So they had these stationary obstacles and hazards that they added, and then they also added the statuary of cute little

you know, mother goose type stuff. And they actually called the whole thing Tom Thumb Golf and Tom Thumb, from what I understand, is the earliest recorded English fairy tale character from back in one and he was a little tiny guy the size of his father's thumb, which is where he got his name. So it was a pretty appropriate name. They must have really like been pretty pleased with themselves when they decided to call it Tom Thumb Golf because it really it checked all the boxes. Yeah,

and we should mention too. We keep saying Rock City, and if you're not from the South East, you might think it's just some like redneck area with a bunch of rocks. It's actually a very sweet natural wonder. It's it's caves that you walk through caves. It's huge boulders being held up by much much smaller boulders. That's really neat way for probably tens of thousands of years that

you walk under. There's like yeah, there there's little cave areas that you kind of duck into and they have little fairy tale scenes with fluorescent day or fluorescent um yeah, I guess kind of day glasses dark weird like gnomes and in fairy tale scenes like that's the weird part. It's like if Carl's Bad Caverns had you know, some corny fairy theme. Mm. And then Ruby Falls is really neat too. Yeah, it's a very cool like natural attraction that they've done a good job of like underground water

making it easy to to make your way to. But yeah, it's it's the whole thing is definitely worth going to. And then of course they have this the very famous like Sea Rock City barn sides that everybody's right of and that was that was Garnet Carter who painted one man, or paid one man to go around and offer to give a fresh coat of paint to barnes all throughout the southeast in exchange for letting them paint Sea Rock

City on the side. Yeah, it's um. If you've ever driven around the North Carolina South Carolina area and south of the border, you know I'm talking about south of the Mason Dixon line. No, south of the border is the name of this, uh sort of highway tourist trap. I haven't heard of that. Yeah, it's it's it's the

same deal. I think it's I want to say it's North Carolina, but it's basically like a glorified rest stop with that has a Mexican theme where you can go, like, I don't know, see mariachi band and eat good food and by cheap. Jot skis the only mariachi band in all of North Carolina. But what made me think about it it might be was that they had the same

thing for like hundreds of miles in any direction. For South of the Border and Rock City, they're very famous for these billboards that tell you like, oh, it's coming, You're getting closer, You're getting closer. That's really strange that I've never heard of that. Then South of the Border checking it's not have been paying attention. So so the Carter's built like this Tom Thumb golf course. And again, originally they just did this as kind of an amenity

at their Fairyland in in Fairyland um club. Uh. But it was such a smash hit and Garnet Carter was such a like born businessman that, um, they were like, I think there might be something to this and they saw either they saw it out or he sought them. I'm not quite sure how it happened. But there was another guy who really factors Bigley into this whole story, but he's very frequently overlooked, and his name is Thomas

McCulloch Fairburn. McCullough Fairburn. Yeah, um, and he invented a really cheap and easy technique for creating art ficial putting greens that could be used for miniature golf courses. Yeah. It was a crushed cotton seed holes oil you would diet green and they would come in these big roles and you just roll it over this foundation of sand

and boom. You've got an easy way basically to sort of franchise these things with these prefab kits that they had, and people loved it UM because it was you know, when it was they called it midget golf for a little while, not a term we would use today, but that's what they called it in the nineteen twenties. And this factors into a lot of stuff we've been talking about the nineteen twenties lately, just these weird fads that would pop up, and Tom Thumb golf was one of them.

It was UM. And part of the reason that it got out from Lookout Mountain is because the Carters and Um Fairburn kind of joined forces and used his technique for making these greens very cheaply and used their kind of like touch of whimsy, packaged it together and started selling it prepackaged sets or prefabricated sets UM that could be franchised out to anybody who wanted to start their

own Tom Thumb golf course. And so they spread really really quickly, and like you're saying, like the twenties, they were just looking for whatever craze could come along, crossroad puzzles, dance marathons, flagpole sitting. Well, apparently miniature golf was the king of them all as far as the twenties crazes went. Yeah,

this is a pretty startling statistic. Uh. In August of the Commerce Department said that there were and apparently this could be low by even as much as half five thousand, twenty five thousand mini golf courses in the US, half of which were built in that previous six or eight months of the year. Yeah, that's a boom right there. Can you imagine like in eight months, like twelve to fifteen thousand mini golf courses being built in US? M hm,

it's crazy. I can just imagine. Aren't and freed to Carter just rolling around on a bed of money in their suite at the Fairy Landing? Yeah? And I mean in a legit like job boosting market. Yeah. No, Well

that's a that's another thing too, write. I mean like there was um uh, like flagpole sitting didn't make the transition into the depression, and dance marathons did, but they got kind of grim um apparently miniature golf, and I've seen both, but but miniature golf seems to have made the transition from twenties craze too, you know, kind of national pastime that that made sense in the depression because you could take your whole family out to play miniature

golf for pretty cheap um. So that was a big attraction. Um. And then also if you were like a golf junkie, but all of a sudden you didn't have the money to afford greens fees any longer, at the very least, you could go play a miniature golf somewhere. So it kind of scratched that itch to a certain um, a certain degree. So there was like a lot of popularity that even after the craze kind of crested and waned a little bit, um, it's still carried on pretty pretty

thoroughly through the nineteen thirties. And as a matter of fact, Chuck, some some people were like that Tom Thumb Golf, the official franchise Tom Thumb Golf, it's a little rich for my blood. What else you got for me? Well, yeah, exactly. Local entrepreneurs were like, I got exactly the thing, buddy,

you want to play half half priced miniature golf. Come on in, like I've got a bunch of PVC pipe laying around, yeah or yeah, so just basically whatever found objects you could find, you you could you could come across what we're called rinky dink miniature golf courses that were basically knockoff Tom Thumb courses that used whatever found objects the person who built it had lying around. Yeah. New York had about a hundred and fifty of them, Washington d C Had thirty. One of those is still

around the East Potoma Park course. Ye, and uh yeah, the whole family could get involved. And I think one of the the keys then and now too many golf being popular and then putt putt, which will see you here in a minute, is that you don't even have to like golf at all. You can hate golf and still go do putt putt and probably have a good time. Yeah, as long as you do take it too seriously. Don't take it too seriously. Please don't just relax. Don't be

that guy. That's what it's for. Um, you want to take a break and then talk put putt? Yes, okay, let's do that. Everybody shouldn't know if large sks, sks. You should know are we there? Who me? But but I thought you said are you there? I'm like, yeah, I'm here, we are there, chuck, because UM, let me

set the set the table. Here you ready. H America got a little burned out on miniature golf, especially the tom thumb and rinkyding varieties, UM, and so a lot of it died out, but some remained, some hopped along,

some are still around today. Actually, and by the nineteen fifties, UM, there was a guy who was playing at one of these courses in Fayetteville, North Carolina, which remembers the home of miniature golf in the United States North Carolinas, and UM he happened to have just gotten a prescription from his doctor saying, you're about to have a nervous breakdown. I prescribe you a month's rest from work. And this guy, Don Clayton said, can do and he started playing miniature golf,

but he wasn't quite satisfied with it. Yeah. I imagine if you were, UM on the verge of a nervous breakdown, then tom thumb golf is a nice save for that kind of kind of experience. Sure, if if you're charmed by all the whimsical stuff and you don't take it too seriously. Right from what I understand that, Don Clayton was like, this whimsy sucks. We need something better than this,

and I think I'm just the person to build it. Yeah, so he had the idea to to basically make miniature golf, but without all the garbage, um, no clowns, amounts, no windmills, and have a little, like I have, have a little skill involved, Like you can go out there and if you're like a good putter, you can actually compete and have a good time. And it's still for fun, but

it's just not a silly kids game anymore. Yeah, Like anybody who's been to an actual put put course can tell you that it's I mean, there's a lot of obstacles, and it's interesting and fun and there's some neat stuff, but it does it just does not have all of like the the moving bells and whistles that you're gonna see on like other kinds of miniature golf, like goofy golf, Like the obstacles are usually just like some blocks in

the way and stuff like that. Yeah, you have to head around or bankingated elevated rombusses or things like that, or like a labyrinth, you know, built into it. Um, it's not like a clown's mouth or anything like that, which is kind of like the go to description for

goofy golf, isn't it really? Yeah? And I think like the craziest thing you'll see on a putt putt course is where you those that are like two levels and you can hit it into three different holes at the top and you're like, you kind of take a little bit of a gamble as to where it's going to

come out on the bottom. Uh, It'll either come out close to the hole so you can get that part two and I think they're all part twos on a real put put course, or it'll spit you out way far away, but you still have a chance to hit that long putt for the for the two. Sure, there's always a chance for you a second chance at putt putt goes the motto, so um yeah. But so this was Don Clayton's vision. He was like, I want to make this a little less goofy. I want to make

it a little more interesting and skillful. Yeah yeah, chuck man, he just sat up from his grave going I wish I thought of that, because he did. Yeah, he died in Okay, but he had a good run. I mean, this is nineteen fifty four, when he was a twenty eight year old man that he decided to try this. So, uh, he went to his dad and said, hey, I've got this.

I've got this idea. Rather than basically, as a New York Times obituary put it, um, rather than basically basically making a human sized pinball machine for golf, We're gonna make this a little more interesting. How about we cobble together fifty bucks and we're going to build our own little miniature golf course. And he did, and like a shaded little lot. And with that they opened for business, and within twenty nine days he and his father had

made one percent of their investment back. And Don Clayton said, I think there might be something to this whole thing. Yeah, so he, uh, he was initially gonna call it. He went to the bank to open a business account and he had to fill out the paperwork, and he was going to call it the Shady Veil Golf Course. But as the story goes, he didn't know how to spell veil. I guess if it was v A I L or v A L E. So he just said, uh, putt

putt and wrote down Putt. But it wasn't something he brainstormed. Apparently, it was just sort of on a whim. And it's a name that really really stuck. It's kind of brilliant and its simplicity, I think divine inspiration. It almost feels like, UM did that. It just kind of happened on a whim. That's just absolutely great. But Um, he started to kind of build the whole thing into like this enormous industry pretty quickly because he was right. You know, there's I

did the man. If they made their dollars back in twenty nine days, that means that over that month they had twenty thousand, eight hundred paying customers a game. Yeah, And so when they really got together and started Putt Putt like they he was right. He was onto something and it started to take off pretty quickly. Apparently at its peak, Um, when you and I were going to Putt putt, Uh, they were. They had something like two

hundred and fifty six courses throughout the world. Um, mostly in the US and Canada, but also in Australia and South Africa and New Zealand. Um, and it was. It was definitely a thing. Like you said, all of the holes were part two's right, yeah, And this was just to be clear to fifty six doesn't sound like a lot compared to the fifty thousand that uh they had in the nineteen thirties. But this was his his own

putt putt golfin Games franchise. There was plenty of more putt putt going on in the United States than that, right, right, right, yeah, like knockoff putt putt right yeah, like the one in Stone Mountain Park. Wudn't a put putt golfin Games. It was just putt putt, but it was. It was great. It's called Tap Tap. They also had trail skate across from the putt putt, which was a roller skating trail

through the woods. What Yeah. It was like this two mile paved you know, just basically like a big paved sidewalk through the woods, and they rented roller skates and you would just skate through the woods. It was really cool, man, that's awesome. Country folk just have some of the best ideas for businesses, you know what I mean. I didn't think of us as country folk, but I guess it kind of was roller skating through the woods country. I

guess it is. That's like Dolly Parton level country. So yeah, they're all part two's um and it is. It is tough. It's challenging. Apparently, in the sixty five year history of putt putt, the have only been three perfect games where you walk away with a score of eighteen, which is that's that's really tough to do. I mean, like of the millions and millions of games that of putt putt that people have played, only three people have ever ever gotten a perfect game, which kind of shows you how

like deceptively hard. The putt putt courses, you know, like each one of those each one of those courses made of um. I think they have something like a hundred and eight uh trademarked holes like uh lanes I think is what they're called, and miniature golf um where you can just kind of take them and reconfigure them into different different configurations. But they have a hundred and eight total, and I guess each one of them is very, very difficult.

I don't ever remember getting a perfect game or even imagining that I was going to get a perfect game, you get a two or three holes in one and that's a that's a good day for sure. So eighteen there's actually a short, i think seven and a half minute grant Land documentary on the most recent perfect putt put game by a guy named Rick Baird who had his perfect game in two thousand eleven. They capture it really well in this in this documentary. It's really well done.

They've got like like a cartoon version of him putting, and he's got like cartoons sweat just running down his face. Oh man. Yeah, it was very nervous and he did it. And he's actually a miniature golf pro um in his spare time, which we'll talk about later. But there's so he's from Charlotte, um Don Clayton was from Fayetteville, and

then um Joseph Barber was from Pinehurst. So it seems pretty clear that North Carolina is the ancestral home of miniature golfer at least the spiritual home of miniature golf in the world. Frankly, I'm just gonna say it, in the world. Yeah, And if you're looking for the creators of the kind of mechanized courses, you can go to and Scranton p A with Ralph and al loma Um. Previously this you know, you had the putt putt, which

just had the sort of regular obstacles. You had the tom thumb, which had kind of more outrageous whimsy, but still things weren't moving. And that these are the guys that brought in these rotating windmill blades or ramps that moved back and forth, and they really kind of kicked that to the next level. And uh, they you know, they went into business big time. They started mass producing these things, like the actual components and sold a ton of them all over the world. Yeah, I think like

five thousand courses. Just pretty impressive. They're the ones who came up with what we think of now is like manature golf and goofy golf with the moving stuff, not a fan, the clown mouth, don't forget the clown mouth that opens and closes or yeah, like you said, a windmill um. So it's kind of interesting that Don Clayton brought miniature golf back to its roots of being a lot more like regular golf, and then very shortly after that branched off the Lomas who brought it back to

their that tom thumb roots. So that whole thing, the evolution of miniature golf happened twice in just the same way and that interesting. Yeah, and it also came back full circle in the nineties with a return to the sort of that original miniature golf because real golfers, people like Jack Nicholas started to get involved. Uh. I'm sure there were dollar signs, you know, in his eyes, but he also probably loved it. I don't want to be cynical,

but I'm sure he made some money. But they have competitions, you know, they are actual um prize purses. There is a U S Pro Mini Golf Association. They have their own Little US Open. I don't think they call it the Little US Open. Uh they should, They totally should. There's the World Mini Golf Sports Federation in Germany and they sort of are the body that standardizes the obstacleson stuff like that. On I guess what you can have and what you can't have, yeah, which is kind of

funny when you think about it. It is, but it's a pretty interesting list. You're like, oh, that'd be tough. Oh that's hard. The slope circle with a v obstacle, Yeah, that's just playing difficult. Um, and I think they should call it the teeny weeny US Open. Welcome back to the teeny weenie What's open? I was looking at the UM the uh US Pro Mini Golf Association's website, and um, there was a Tennessee State Open, and man, the picture that they have of that course, it looks serious. Dude.

So like if you if you go to pup putt and you always were like, I love this. This is so challenging. I can score like a sixteen some or I guess not a sixteen. I just don't play the last two holes when I'm on a streak. Um, you know, like a twenty or a twenty two or something like that. You might actually have fun being a miniature golf pro. And there are some serious courses out there for you to play that are a couple of notches above your average put putt course. I'd like to play one of those,

would you? I don't know if I would have fun? Club? Should we talk about some of these famous courses? Yeah? So? Um. From what I can tell, the United States is the home of miniature golf. It's the capitals of miniature golf. I don't believe there's any country. Like I was looking. I was like, maybe Thailand is like even more into it than the United States. I don't think so. I think the United States is the place that has the most miniature golf courses and has probably the most paying

customers for miniature golf courses. I could and I didn't see anything like that. Yeah, I didn't see anything like it. So the United States is the home of miniature golf and the world capital of miniature golf than is Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, which is ironic that it's not North Carolina, but it's not everybody, I'm sorry, Yeah, I mean Myrtle Beach is sort of one of those classic old school beach towns that has all of the go carts and the bumper boats and the mini golf. And they have

one called Molten Mountain. Uh, that's pretty cool. Like you should go check out pictures of some of these places. There are a lot of fun that has a volcano, a working volcano that erupts every half hour, and it's sort of an inside and an out thing, like I think it's both indoors and outdoors, right it is. Yeah, it's a pretty it's a pretty great one. And the whole volcano thing. They're not the only one that's how nuts So Myrtle Beaches, there's another one called Hawaiian Rumble.

They also has a functioning volcano too, And in fact, on Highway seventeen there's a thirty mile stretch of it that goes through Myrtle Beach where there's fifty more than fifty miniature golf courses in a thirty mile stretch and I'm sure a lot of opinions on which ones are good, and yep, um, there's one I want to go to in Palatine, Illinois. I think I said a couple of these from Travel and Leisure maybe. Um. This one's called al Graham Acres a L. G. H R I m Acres.

It's in Palatine, Illinois, Illinois, and it's a funeral home like for real in real life. Yeah, like you know, uh, they they take care of dead bodies and you can also play nine holes on their death themed course in the basement in the basement. First of all, the basement of a funeral home is just creepy on its own, but a death themed miniature golf course in a funeral

home that actually functions, that's that's just done right. Interesting. Yeah, there's this one in Las Vegas to the Kiss themed win, which I checked out on YouTube. I would I would play this, even though it goes against two things for me, which is not into indoor miniature golf. I really would like to be outside. Uh, and I think Kiss sucks. What I thought you were a Kiss fan? Oh man, I thought you were a Kiss fan. No, not a Kiss fan never. I mean, you know, I get it,

and I think it's kind of fun and funny. But I never thought Kiss was like played good rock and roll songs. Really, that's very surprising. I know Kiss fans are gonna be so mad at me for saying their music is not good, but I mean there's a reason they dressed up in spit, blood and stuff, so there's a but it's still it would be worth playing. I agree it looks fun. The one that I would actually

travel to go play um is called Parking. It's in Lincolnshire, Illinois, so I'd probably go there and then I dip down or dip up. I'm not sure it's a palatine to play Alga Makers, but Parking is like exactly what it is. It's the pinnacle of a miniature golf course. If you ask me, it's got it all. It's difficult, and it has all the amazing obstacles and weird traps in um functioning problems. To figure out that that a miniature golf

course should have, it looked pretty cool. I mean, I'm a putt putt guy, but I was checking out pictures and stuff. I would I would go. I would go to parking with you for sure. Okay, we'll go. It's gonna be a summer trip in two thousand and twenty two or three. Fantastic um. And then if you want to play, so I think, chuck, this one would be up your alley. It's called Golf Gardens and on Catalina Island in SoCal Alley. This one is like considered the

hardest miniature golf course in the United States. Um, not just because uh, it's difficultly laid out, but also because it's been played so much that's got all sorts of weird notches and stuff that's not supposed to be there in the playing surface. So that makes it all the more difficult, which is kind of neat. And then if you want to go retro, I think that one's been

around a while. Um, you can go down to Florida and they have a historic mini golf trail that takes you from miniature golf course and miniature golf course, all of which have been around for at least fifty years. Amazing. Uh. And if you like weird old stuff that's not in use anymore, look up abandoned miniature golf courses. That's a fun thing to do. And since I said it's a fun thing to do, everybody, that means it's time for a listener mail. All right, I'm gonna call this dad.

Male I got this very sweet email. I love it when the families listening, you know, sure, especially when they're not. I mean, I like families with young kids that listen, but I also like it when the it's adults and then older parents that are listening. Right. Hey, guys, hope

you're hanging in there. These are such tricky times. I know you're I'm not the only listener that turns to your show for a distraction or a soundtrack to washing dishes, or background noise while trying to run, or just something that feels normal during these abnormal times. A couple of years ago, my now husband and I took a road trip with my parents to stay with my now in laws. As we pulled out of the driveway, we put on Stuff you Should Know and spent the entire journey sharing

your catalog with them, and they were immediately hooked. My parents continue to love your podcast, but every time my dad refers to it, he mixes up the name I love this stuff. So far, he's called you guys, you should know, Sure, stuff you ought to know? Yeah, things you need to know, and stuff guys. Stuff guys is that's a good nickname. Lately he's just been referring to you as the guys podcast, which is close enough for me. Eventually,

we're just going to get to the Yeah. Thanks for all the amazing work and the thoughtful approach you have to podcasting. So grateful to have multiple episodes to listen to every week. That is from Merabeth, and she says p s. I should add that the episode on fractals is now infamously nap inducing in my family, but I blame the long stretch of highway on that. Thank you. That was very kind of you really pulled it out

at the end there. Um, who's that, Marabeth? Well, if you want to be like Marabeth and get in touch with us. UM we would appreciate that. Right now, you can send it to us via email. It's the best way to reach us at Stuff podcast at iHeart radio dot com. Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeart Radio's How Stuff Works. For more podcasts for my heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. H