I’m a father of two daughters, and like most fathers I thought that it would be OK if they began dating at age thirty. My practical and wise spouse had a better plan; she bought Putt-Putt miniature golf season passes so when the question, “Well, what do you want to do tonight?” was asked, my daughters had an answer their parents would approve of. Ah yes, kudos to the inventor of miniature golf for providing parents some peace of mind.
Regulation golf was well established in Indianapolis when Charles Mayer & Co, 29 W. Washington St, installed a miniature golf course on the third floor in the spring of 1919 to promote its stock of golf equipment. Advertising “Everything for Golf But the Caddie,” the miniature course was complete with a “Scotch instructor, who knows golf from A to Izzard.” Miniature links that replicated the standard golf course were not limited to indoor venues; one soon could be found laid out on the “wide expanse of lawn” of the J. I. Holcomb estate. A miniature nine-hole, “pitch and putt course,” was also laid out in front of the French Lick Hotel in southern Indiana in 1927. “Concentrated in a little space;” it offered guests a pleasant golfing experience “because there is no expenditure of physical energy on the miniature course.”
The novelty of miniature golf, with “a strong appeal to golfers of both sexes,” made its appearance in the summer of 1928 at Broad Ripple Park when Courtney D. Burton of the Burton Theatrical Booking Office established a course on the Riley-Herschell Field as one of its midway amusements. A year earlier, Garnet Carter patented Tom Thumb Golf, a whimsical “mini-golf course” that he had invented using hollow logs, pieces of tile, and other obstacles including statues from his Fairyland amusement park at Lookout Mountain, Tennessee. Tom Thumb Golf was franchised and became very popular.
Among the early Tom Thumb courses built in Indianapolis was one atop the roof of the Circle Motor Inn, 4 Monument Circle (Test Building). It was advertised as the “Only Tom Thumb Golf Roof Garden Course in the World.” Another early course was built in 1930 at 30th St. and Kessler Blvd., with five other courses quickly following around the city including one in Irvington on the northwest corner of Butler Ave. and East Washington St. In addition to Tom Thumb Golf, more than a dozen other courses were operating throughout the city. Noise from enthusiastic mini-golfers and the late hours of play under brilliant lights were disturbing to the neighbors of the miniature links which prompted the city council to enact an ordinance regulating and licensing this entertainment.
By the summer of 1930 an estimated 25,000 public mini-golf courses had been built across the United States leading humorist Will Rogers to observe, “These miniature golf courses are wonderful exercise. You stand on your feet for hours watching somebody else putt. It’s just the old-fashioned pool hall moved outdoors. But with no chairs around the wall.”
While the surface used on most miniature golf courses was a natural substance like grass or cottonseed hulls dyed green, synthetic products soon began being offered. Rub-Tex Products Co. in Indianapolis developed a sheet of durable green rubber material “made with a roughened upper surface” good for putting and low maintenance. Artificial “turflike” surfaces brought miniature golf indoors, and in the fall of 1930 several venues opened including Meadowbrook Golf, 14 W. Market St., Palm Beach Golf Gardens, 835½ N. Meridian St., Coral Gables Golf Gardens, 34th and Illinois, and Velvet Greens Miniature Golf Course at the northwest corner of 10th and Leland. The mini-golf fad, however, soon putted out; the 25ȼ (2017: $3.75) “greens fee” was too steep for a Great Depression Era amusement.
One of the local surviving miniature links was Rustic Gardens. This unique golf course with “hills and rocks, tunnels and ramps, chutes and ridges” opened on the evening of September 6, 1930 as Rustic-Rock-Garden on the city’s south eastside at 1500 S. Arlington Ave. and advertised its 18-hole, par 72 links as “a standardized golf course miniaturized.” Leonidas D. Gleason developed the site that would eventually include a 9-hole course and a driving range. For over two decades, Rustic Gardens was virtually alone in providing local miniature golf entertainment; and then came “carpet golf” — the Age of Putt-Putt.
In the early ‘50s Don Clayton of Fayetteville, NC developed Putt-Putt Miniature Golf, and it became a craze similar to the Tom Thumb links of the early ‘30s. Courses were laid out across the country, and by 1959 Indianapolis had two Putt-Putt locations — east at 3785 N. Arlington Ave. and west at Eagledale Shopping Center (2802 Lafayette Rd.) and shared the distinction with Houston, Texas as the only American cities having 108 holes of Putt-Putt golf. For 50 cents (2017: $4.27) a player could choose a green, blue, red, or yellow ball, and skillfully putt the ball around an 18-hole course, recording the score with a small orange-colored pencil on a scorecard. With luck, a golfer might make a hole-in-one while a light on the clubhouse corresponding to the color of the ball being played was glowing. Racing to the clubhouse, the player could exchange the magic ball for a coveted orange ball and a free game pass.
Putt-Putt became so popular that by the summer of 1960 the Professional Putters Association (PPA) had been organized, and Putt-Putt pros were “puttering” at the Indianapolis Eagledale links competing in the game’s first national tournament. In 1962 Indianapolis native Paul Garrison won the national champion purse of $2,500 (2017: $20,600), and the following year in Cleveland, Ohio another Indianapolis local, 20-year old John Spotts of Irvington, putted his way to become the 1963 National Putting Champion and received a purse of $10,000 (2017: $81,422).
Whatever form miniature golf takes today, whether it replicates a natural course or is a “carpeted” course, the game continues to be family entertainment — no weekend “golf widows.”
