Miniature Golf's Beginnings

Although the first miniature golf course in the United States was built in 1916 (by James Barber of Pinehurst, North Carolina)  I think most people agree that Garnet Carter was truly the Father of Modern Minigolf.

Garnet Carter was the first person to patent a game of miniature golf.  He patented it under the name “Tom Thumb Golf” in 1927.   And it really was kind of an accident. 

He owned a hotel at Lookout Mountain in Tennessee, and he built a regulation golf course to draw customers to his business.  (HA!!  I originally typed costumers!!  Let’s imagine if he wanted hundreds of costumers playing golf at his course!!   That would be festive!!)

Anyway, near the clubhouse he built a putting green.  You could putt while waiting for your tee time, or to warm up, or whatever.  Carter noticed that people were spending WAY more time than he had anticipated on the putting green before finally teeing off.   He jokingly referred to this little putting green as his “Tom Thumb course”.

It was so popular that he decided to charge a fee for playing the little “Tom Thumb course” and even the fee didn’t keep its popularity from increasing.
Eventually he created a whole 18 hole course in miniature, and got his wife, Frieda Carter, to decorate it with fairies and gnomes (ah - the fabulous garden gnomes!!  What AREN’T they good for?!)

His first course, at Lookout Mountain, and the other Tom Thumb courses that were built subsequently to be like it, were all actually MINIATURE golf courses.  You know, they had miniature dog-legs, and miniature roughs, and miniature sand traps - just like regulation golf. 

Man, I was driving out to DeKalb to visit my dad yesterday.  I was driving on I-88.    And, on the side of the road, there was a line of geese - walking on the shoulder!!  Seriously, there must’ve been 200 of them.  Adults, teenagers - all single-file.  Kind of trudging along.  Some of them were awfully close to getting in the far right lane- I was worried about them.  The cars were whipping by at 85 mph (what can I say - Chicago drivers).  But, what was going on there??  Has anyone ever heard of such a thing??  If they were travelling in a group, why weren’t they flying??  It seemed somehow so sad - I felt as if they ought to be carrying sad little goose luggage to their new homes or something.

I couldn’t stand not knowing, so I just did some on-line research.  This is amazing!!  It turns out, geese can't fly while they’re molting, which usually takes place in mid June to mid July!!  Which is right now!!!   So, the goosey parade was on account of it was molting season!!!  Who knew??

The web-sites I visited said that geese are grazing animals, so they often like to walk in order to graze, but I don’t think that’s what was going on - I don’t think there’s much good grazing on the shoulder of the express-way!!

So, back to the minigolf history.  

So, Garnet Carter THOUGHT he was building a golf course for children, but, to his surprise the course was taken over by adults, who enjoyed the fairy-land setting and enjoyed the challenge and hilarity of putting a ball through the miniaturized fairways.

Carter began manufacturing courses for national distribution under the patented name Tom Thumb Golf.  By 1930 there were over 25,000 miniature golf courses in the U.S.  In 1932, he sold the rights, and used the profits to open Frieda's Rock City Gardens. 

But just think about it:  in 1927 Garnet Carter invented minigolf, and just 3 years later there were 25,000 courses in the U.S.  That’s really amazing.  Especially considering the Stock Market Crash happened in October of 1929.  You know, that means there were on average 25 courses built every day during that three year period!!  Whoa!!!

Coming next:  guest golfing in DOLLYWOOD!!!!!

All illustrations ©2010 Michael James.