FIVE NOT-SO-FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS ABOUT MINIATURE GOLF
Are artistic mini-golf courses a new thing?
No. Our own Walker Art Center has had an artsy mini-golf course the past several years (open 10 a.m.-8 p.m. Wednesdays through Sundays). Going back a lot further, the first U.S. course -- built at Pinehurst, N.C., in 1916 -- was designed after the gardens of the Louvre. Actress Mary Pickford opened a Max Ernst-inspired course, Willshire Links, in Los Angeles.
Was that mini-golf's heyday?
Absolutely. President Herbert Hoover got U.S. Marines to build a course for his son at their Maryland retreat. Fifty million Americans played every year on 50,000-plus courses, including an estimated 150 on New York City rooftops. During the Great Depression, Will Rogers noted that "There's millions got a putter in their hand when they ought to have a shovel."
So miniature golf is on the wane?
In terms of the number of courses, absolutely. Steven Hix, executive director of the Fort Worth-based Miniature Golf Association United States, estimates that there are about 7,500 mini-golf courses in the nation, less than one-sixth of the number 60 years ago.
Locally, too?
Yep. There are only a handful of courses in the metro area, down from 15 in the early 1990s and nearly 100 in 1960. By many accounts, St. Paul's Family Golf Center had perhaps the nation's best array of gargantuan fiberglass livestock and wildlife.
What's the most noteworthy thing to ever happen on a mini-golf course?
Probably Bart Simpson being conceived in a castle. Oh, you mean in the real world? Well, mini-golf "pros" Warren Morris and John Napoli shot perfect 18s during tournament competition. Obviously, they didn't heed the words of "Miniature Golf" author John Margolies, who wrote of the sport: "It's easy to be pretty good. But it is stupid to be very good."
BILL WARD
