How miniature golf got on the right track

Around 1860 golf was reserved for an elite and male population. Swinging a golf club seemed too unfeminine in the moral thinking of the time. Just like many other sports, by the way. However, some young ladies in St Andrews, Scotland were “not amused”. The women were tired of just playing badminton and cricket. Her pulse for golf.

The then manager of the existing golf club, Old Tom Morris, understood and – protected from prying eyes – built a small 9-hole golf course in a hidden place. Not ideal terrain, because in the middle of this golf course was a path that regularly flooded and that local fishermen used to get to the nearby sea. Still, it was a first step.

Old Tom Morris (1821-1908) was one of the earliest professional golfers in history and a legend in his lifetime. Not only was he unique as a player, but he continued to develop the sport. For example, he designed new golf courses, manufactured golf clubs and balls and ensured that the greens were sanded to make it easier to hit the golf ball. With the support of this respected and admired golfer at their side, the first women’s golf club was founded in 1867 in St Andrews.

But back to the idea of ​​the shortened golf course. She was attractive beyond the confines of St Andrews. Usually 18-hole golf courses are between 50 and 90 hectares, the slightly smaller 9-hole courses can still be around 5 hectares. The space required is one thing, the financial outlay is another. The high maintenance costs were an important factor why the sport was initially reserved for an elite society.

But more and more people, including people with less wealth and a lower social status, wanted to participate in the new sport. And so, in the middle of the 19th century, the first attempts to play golf on a smaller scale were made. This usually happened on meadows and nature reserves, where pits were simply dug with shovels. Talking about golf would probably be a bit of an exaggeration.

But because the space problems in golf couldn’t be solved with a pick in the green, we continued to look for solutions. The Englishman James Wells Barber was the first to design a miniature golf course as we know it today. After emigrating to America, he developed a small golf course on his property in 1916 with a hobby architect and a landscape architect to entertain his guests. With its lush flower borders, walking paths and fountain, the grounds were more reminiscent of a baroque garden than a miniature golf course.

Over the next few decades, numerous factories were built in America and Europe, all differing in shape, terrain, or mixed forms, such as the cobigolfin which golf is combined with cricket, but in a very special way.

That could be better, thought Paul Bongni in the middle of the 20th century. The Geneva-based landscape architect, who lived in Ticino until he was 10, worked with a group of like-minded people to create a standardized, weatherproof facility that was clean for shoes and clothes. In November 1951 he applied for a patent, which was granted to him two years later by the responsible office. And so, on March 19, 1954, the first standardized miniature golf course was opened in Ascona. It consisted of 17 concrete fairways, each 12 meters long and 1.25 meters wide.

Not only did Paul Bongni develop the first standardized miniature golf course, he also protected the term “minigolf”. This was the condition for all factories to be able to apply and build uniform criteria and dimensions. And finally, the standardization and standardization of the railways were responsible for the subsequent success.

By the end of 1954 there were already 18 miniature golf courses in Switzerland and the wave of enthusiasm soon spread across the country’s borders. By the way, the “motherland of miniature golf” won three of the four world championships at the first world championships in 1991 in Norway. Switzerland only had to admit defeat in the “women’s teams” category.