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Selects: How Miniature Golf Works · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hey, everyone, I thought it would be nice to ring
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: in the new year with an easy select filled with
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Chuck and Me reminiscing about our childhood memories of Putt
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: Pud and slush puppies. So for this week's Select, I
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: give you our August twenty twenty episode, a miniature golf
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: and want to take a moment to wish my dear wife, Yumy,
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: a happy birthday. So happy birthday, Yummy, And to you
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: dear listeners, Happy New Year.
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, and
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: there's Charles w Chuck Bryan over there, and there's Jerry
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: there figuring out all the new contrivances of modern life.
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean we should tell people what's going on.
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: I think it's interesting, right, No, well, I'm gonna tell him. Fine,
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: So Jerry is figured out now how to operate the
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: studio Macintosh recording system. Sure, and not be in the office.
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: It's pretty great. It's COVID terrific.
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: Actually, And so she was just up on our Skype
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: on video and she's still there. But when she switched
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: it to mute, it went to that distressing picture. Do
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: you see that thing?
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: No, I just see JR. Like the letter J in
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: the letter R.
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: Oh see there she is. She's back.
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: When she turned it off, though, was I get a
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: photograph of Jerry that looks like she's like sick in
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: bed or something. It's weird.
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: This is a well that's just Jerry's look.
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: Maybe so, I don't know.
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: That's a diet of nothing but miso for fifteen twenty
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: years will do for you.
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: The weirdest thing is this is as close as we've
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: come to normal in four months.
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: I know. Not only is it like normal, it's almost
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: like a throwback. Remember when we had the studio where
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: we would look out the window when she was there. Yeah, yeah,
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: that was great. It's kind of like this again. She
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: was a window creeper yeap, professionally and in her personal
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: life too.
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: That's right.
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: So this is stuff you should know everybody. I don't
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: know if I said it. There are probably a few
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: people who are confused and aren't anymore. But we haven't
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: gotten started yet, so prepare to be confused again. When
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: we explained something in particular, Chuck Miniature.
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: Golf, I gotta ask, are you a fan.
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: Uh, this made me want to play again. Like I
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: grew up playing putt putt or and have very fond
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: memories of all the different colored golf balls, you know,
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: like the water trap that was really just a stagnant
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: little puddle of concrete. You know. Put pet was wonderful
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: and great, and there were arcades and birthday parties there
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: that featured heavily with g I. Joe action figures and
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: stuff like that, the good kind of three and three
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: quarter inch ones. M h. And yeah, I am a fan,
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: if not just nostalgically in general.
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: Yes, and which style And as you as a listener
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: will see soon, there are a couple of different things.
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: But did you grow up playing just sort of the
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: bare bones putt putt or the more miniature golf clown's mouth,
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: windmill volcano?
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: Well, chuck. If you ask me if I had a
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: rich childhood, I will always tell you yes, sir, Yes
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: I did. And the reason why is because I grew
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: up having putt putt close by in Toledo, and we
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: played that a lot. And then when my family would
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: vacation in the summers on Catawba Island on Lake Erie,
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: and this is like pre cleaned up Lake Erie. There
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: was a like a run down little like mini golf
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: with like clowns, mouths and windmills and all that stuff
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: right by the place where we used to stay, like
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: walking distance, and so we'd play there a lot too.
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: So I had the best of both worlds, a really great,
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: just top notch childhood.
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: So I grew up playing putt putt at Stone Mountain Park,
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: which we went to a lot because it was near
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: our church and the youth group would go and do
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: putt putt nights and stuff. So that was a lot
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: of fun. And I was sort of partial to those
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: that were like, you know, the real putt putt where
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: it requires a little bit of skill. But I am
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: also a sucker for the beach Town volcano, waterfall, go
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: kart bumper boat arcade scene.
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: Yep, don't forget laser tag.
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: I never really did laser tag. I think that came
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: around a little after I was, you know, in my
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: prime years for this kind of thing.
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: Gotcha, Yeah, it wasn't the same here, but I was
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: looking up. Now they have laser tag at putt putt places.
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: But I still love those go karts. Man, when we
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: go to Isle of palms. Last year, I found a
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: place nearby. I was like, we got to go, and
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: everyone was kind of like, oh, I don't know, and
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: the kids are sort of like, yeah, I guess I'll
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: do it. I was like, guys, we gotta go.
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: Right, Like, what is wrong with all of you? Who
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: are you vacchening with? Chuck?
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: Oh?
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: Man, it was so much a carbon monoxide leak at
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: the house.
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: You wran no those go karts. I could do that
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: all day long.
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure.
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: And of course I got the guy, you know, the teenager,
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: squeaky voice, teenager, and I said, hey, man, which one
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: which was? Which is the fast one? Means like number eight?
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: Really?
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah? And sure enough it was really fast.
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: You just ran circles around everybody.
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: I did such that I even laid off on the
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: gas a little bit just to catch up and let people,
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: you know, act like they outrace What a sportsman?
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: Oh my goodness. Well we'll talk about go karts one
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: day more in depth, but today we're just going to
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: focus on the miniature golf.
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: Okay, Yeah, this is a pretty interesting history, I think.
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I had no idea how far back it went
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: until we started researching this and actually it goes all
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: the way back to the nineteenth century. And this is
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: one of those rare things that's been around a while,
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: but you can actually pinpoint like the first one and
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: the first miniature golf course in the world as far
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: as anybody knows, is that Saint Andrews. It's the Ladies
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: Putting Club of Saint Andrews and it was built in
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: eighteen sixty seven strictly for the women members of the
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: Ladies Putting Club.
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, there's a couple of things that play here. Actually
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: really just one thing, which is not letting women do
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: things because there was a decree basically that women shall
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: not take the club back past their shoulder.
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: Commandment.
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, like a real golf swing in other words, was
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: I guess improper for a for a lady to do.
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: The Victorian era was just so stupid when it came
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: to social constraints.
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: I'm trying to figure out why does that I don't know, ditriarchy.
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: I would guess, well, I just wonder why a full
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: golf swing would it make their their dress rate rise
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: above the ankle or like, I just wonder why.
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: I think also women were expected to not over exert
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: themselves physically especially in public too, right, it could kind
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: of construe that as over exertion.
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: Well, and then there's this, which is from an eighteen
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: ninety book by Scottish baron Lord Wellwood talking about women
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: and when they should golf, when they shouldn't golf, if
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: they choose. I was going to do a Scottish accent,
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: but I'm just not feeling it. If they choose to play.
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: At times when male golfers are feeding or resting, no
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: one can object, But at other times, must we say it?
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: They are in the way.
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: It was kind of snarky to add even the must
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: we say it? Like, do I even need to write
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: this next sentence? It's so just drippingly obvious.
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: But the upshot of this is that's why they created
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: the Ladies Putting Club is just to sort of get
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: rid of them.
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah, to get them out of the way of the men.
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: But the joke was on the men because this Putting Green,
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: this first miniature golf course in the world, is still
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: around and it's still considered one of the finest. That's
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: actually nicknamed the Himalayas because it has all these kind
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: of mountains and hills and hillocks all built into it,
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: and they really kind of stand out from what I
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: understand against like the Scottish Sea scape, and it's a
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: really revered miniature golf course. But it is exactly what
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: it sounds like. It is a golf course in miniature,
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: Like just like you take a classic golf course of
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: the variety that was born in Scotland and you just
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: kind of hit it with a shrink ray and then
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: you have a genuine, bona fide miniature golf course. And
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: that's how the whole thing started out.
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean that's what we would call like a
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: par three today.
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: Right, kind of it seems like par three courses are
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: a little different, So this is like, yes, I think
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: it does require more than just a putter, right, par
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: three would require more than a putter. But there seems
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: to be a few different other kinds of golf courses
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: aside from the miniature golf course. There's the par three,
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: the pitch and putt and executive courses all kind of
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: qualified technically as miniature golf courses in different ways.
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the executive course they got the name because evidently
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: an executive could go play a quick ground during lunch.
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: A lot of par three's you might have a like
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: one par five and a couple of par fours. Is
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: that right on a par three on an executive course?
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: Oh okay, Yeah, that's what. That's really the only thing
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: from what I can tell, that differentiates it from a
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: par three course.
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's it's it's a golf course is just shorter
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: and therefore doesn't take as long.
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And it's not like the hole is smaller and
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: the ball is smaller and the clubs are smaller, like
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: just get out of your fantasy land there. Instead, it's
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: just the distance from the tee to the hole is shorter.
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: There's fewer bends and stuff like that, so the actual
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: experience takes less time and less energy and you can
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: just kind of fit it in in a shorter amount
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: of time. And I think that's the popularity of those
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: things generally. Although pitch and putt courses I also saw there.
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: They usually consist of a wedge and iron and a
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: putter of what you need to play on those and
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: they're all about the focus on the short game. And
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: as a result, men and women, just average men and
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: women who play golf can kind of compete pretty evenly
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: because it's all about the short game. It's all about
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: finesse rather than you know, just cher power of driving
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: as far as you can on like a traditional golf course.
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I'd love golf. I just don't play anymore.
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: Like I grew up playing golf and was not good,
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: but I wasn't terrible for as much as I played,
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: and I still like it. I just don't, you know,
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: have the time or the inclination anymore. But I like
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: the big boy courses with the big par fives. But
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: I also love a fun little part three, Like Florida
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: has a lot of these beautiful par threes, including some
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: you can play at night that are all lit up,
• 11:06
  Speaker 2: and that's always a lot of fun too.
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I tried to get acquainted with golf as a youngster.
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: My family had, weirdly enough, because this is not like
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: my family at all, had a membership at heather Down's
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: Country Club. Yeah, and I love the pool because they
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: had like, you know, tons of slush puppies and the
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: best like nasty hot dogs you can imagine, and there
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: was a pool and all that. I think I told
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: you the story about Swim League, the swim team where
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: I was the worst swimmer on it.
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: But I also tried to golf for a couple of
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: summers and it just didn't didn't take it up. But
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: I was back in Toledo like a couple of years ago,
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: I think, right before our Cleveland show, and I visited
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: the country club. Well, I just drove by and I looked,
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: and the pool is now just like a green field.
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: It's been filled in, like the little the little snack
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: shop has been torn down. I'm like, something really bad
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: must have happened there for them to do that to
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: the pool.
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: You know. Yeah, there's the And I didn't get to
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: go here much because it was private. But Hidden Hills
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: was a big neighborhood near my house that had a
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: country club that's still around, isn't it. Well, the neighborhood's there,
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: but you know, the neighborhood has seen its better days.
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: And the country club and golf course is completely just
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: shut down and grown over. It's really it looks well,
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: it is an abandoned place.
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: That's so cool.
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: It is kind of cool. And then I had the
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: idea of a movie, like a old school type thing
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: where a bunch of old a bunch of like middle
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: aged men that grew up there go back and raise
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: some money and try and like clean the place up
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: and get it going again. Yeah, to hilarity.
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: There has to be like a greedy developer that they're battling, right.
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, so is that the neighborhood that we got
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: kicked out of when we tried to go shoot like
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: without a license once around that area? Remember the security
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: guard came up. It was like, stop what you're doing?
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: I don't remember that?
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah, up in one day? Was it on the TV
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: show and Gorilla? No, it was like when we were
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: shooting shorts.
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: I think I don't remember that.
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm pretty sure that was the one.
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: Should we take a break already?
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: Sure?
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: Okay, all right, we'll get back and we'll talk about
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: where many golf went from here right after this.
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: Definitely should know lars of each y s k as
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: why why s k? You should know? All right, so
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: we're back. Nothing we've talked about right now constitutes miniature
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: golf in the mind of anybody who here's the words
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: miniature golf, right, Like, what what comes to mind are
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: things like putt putt or goofy golf, or windmills or
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: clowns or happy Gilmour or something like that, right, Yeah,
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: so that all started. Actually that didn't quite start yet.
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: It was really leading up to that. And then I
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: realized we had to keep going with regular miniature golf
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: one more time because it has to spread to America.
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: And it did, and we can actually trace that too,
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: to the house of a guy named James Barber, who
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: is an immigrant from England who was familiar with the
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: course the Ladies Punning Club at Saint Andrews. And he
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: was rich enough that he said, you know, I want
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: a miniature golf course built on my estate at Pinehurst,
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: North Carolina. And he did. He had like an eighteen
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: hole miniature course built right there in his formal gardens
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: and it's just absolutely beautiful.
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: It is nice. And this was the first one in
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: the United States. And as it's called thistle Do Thhi
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: s t l E d Hu and supposedly, as legend goes,
• 14:52
  Speaker 2: he when he first saw it he said, this will do.
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: I guess he was. He was not blown away, maybe
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: I don't know, so dwelling.
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: He wasn't one of those spoiled brat, you know, robber barons,
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: and instead was like, this will do, this will do
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: quite nicely. And they just left off the second part,
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: you know.
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but it's called this will do. And they started
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: hosting competitions a couple of years later, and I think
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: this is the first time miniature golf was ever used,
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: like those words wherever you use to describe the Pinehurst outlook?
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: Was that the newspaper, I.
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: Guess, yeah, it's their one claim to fame. Oh you
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: know it's true though, it's probably true. Yeah, but that
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: they were the one that in an account of the competition,
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: they coined the term miniature golf. Up to that point,
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: a lot of people had called it little Apputian golf, sure,
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: after the the little people in Gulliver Gulliver's Travels, and
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: that actually that name actually stuck for quite a while.
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: So we've got James Barber, who hosted or built the
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: first miniature golf course in America. But still this thing
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: is like directly connected to the Ladies Putting Club of
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: Saint Andrews. It's a golf course in miniature. We still
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: haven't quite reached what we would consider miniature golf. And
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: that wouldn't happen until nineteen twenty six, which turned out
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: to be a really big year for miniature golf in America.
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: It was like there was something in the air and
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: a few different people kind of tapped into it around
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: the same time and it suddenly just took off like
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: a rocket.
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Two of the guys were some entrepreneurs named Drake
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: del Delinois. I guess name John Ledbetter another good name,
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: and it's okay.
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: He sounds like he'll he'll shoot you.
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: He'll led Better.
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I can see that.
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: They did a pretty cool thing, which is they opened
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: up a course on top of a rooftop in the
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: Financial District in New York, and that kicked off a trend.
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: There were I think about one hundred of those on
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: top of roofs. I guess it's before the big rooftop
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: bar hotel scene. They had golf courses up there.
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah, miniature golf courses. But again though those were like
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: miniature golf courses, so that I mean, that was a
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: big deal in New York. Just one hundred rooftop golf
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: miniature golf course alone in the twenties, That's that's a
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: tremendous amount. And I don't think there's a single one left.
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: Actually there should be, there's there's so that kind of
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: makes the whole. You know, there's one on top of
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: Pont City Market where the house Stuff Works office is.
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: Is there golf up there?
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: There's a miniature golf course up there, and it makes
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: a lot more sense now. Yeah, it's kind of like
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: a whole mini Coney Island up there. Yeah.
• 17:42
  Speaker 2: I mean, I think I've only been up there when
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: we had work events, and the only thing I did
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: was the slide.
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: I didn't know there was a slide.
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, there's like a you know, you sit in a
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: potato sack and go down the big slide.
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, yeah, I got it that.
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: That was fun.
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah, there's a there's a miniature golf course up there.
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: We'll have to play sometime when the whole pandemic passes totally.
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: And then later that same year you said it was
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: kind of a boomy or for mini golf. Lookout Mountain,
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: Tennessee and Chattanooga, which is a place where I think
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: everybody should go to see Ruby Falls in Rock City. Oh, yes,
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: it is a tourist trap, but it's actually kind of neat.
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: I mean, the greatest of the great tourist traps and
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: it still holds up too.
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, get a pecan log Oh my god, those are
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: so good.
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: They are so good. That's what. That also supports my
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: theory that candy was perfected in the nineteenth century. I
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: never remember nugat honeycomb. Sure pecan logs.
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: Was that. I didn't know pecan logs were from way
• 18:44
  Speaker 2: back then, but I believe it.
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure, they're definitely old timing.
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: So these people, Garnett and FRIEDA. Carter, they built a
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: resort called Faeryland Club and it was part of that
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: whole sort of interconnected scene there with Rock City and
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: Ruby Falls. And they built a miniature golf course and
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: they said, you know what, if you like golf, maybe
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: you should try mini golf because it doesn't take very long.
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: It'll kind of scratch that itch if you're not able
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: to play a real round. And that's sort of how
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: they marketed it at first. And they they were the
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: first people, I think, to start adding the obstacles, right
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: they did.
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah, And they used as they were building like the
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: inn and the resort complex, they used some of the
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: construction materials like train pipes and you know, barrels and
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: things like that and built them as hazards. And then
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: because they had this whole like fairy tale theme going
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: up there. They also built rock City. They were the
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: ones who built Rock City, and that has like a cool,
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: little weird, weird but also very neat fairy tale theme
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: kind of hidden throughout. They added that to their miniature
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: golf course, so they had these stationary obstacles and hazards
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: that they added, and then they also added this statuary
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: of cute little you know, mother goose type stuff, and
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: they actually called the whole thing Tom Thumb Golf, and
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: Tom Thumb, from what I understand, is the earliest recorded
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: English fairy tale character from back in sixteen twenty one.
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: And he was a little tiny guy the size of
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: his father's thumb, which is where he got his name,
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: so it was a pretty appropriate name. They must have
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: really like been pretty pleased with themselves when they decided
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: to call it Tom Thumb Golf, because it really it
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: checked all the boxes.
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and we should mention too, we keep saying Rock City,
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: and if you're not from the southeast, you might think
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: it's just some like redneck area with a bunch of rocks.
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: It's actually a very sweet natural wonder. It's caves that
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: you walk through caves.
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: It's huge boulders being held up by much much smaller boulders. Yea,
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: that's really not that way for probably tens of thousands
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: of years. That you walk under their is like yeah,
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: there's little cave areas that you kind of duck into,
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: and they have little fairy tale scenes with fluorescent day
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: or fluorescent yeah, I guess kind of daglaz.
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: It's like glow in the dark, weird.
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: Like gnomes in fairy tale scenes.
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: Like that's the weird part. It's like if Carlsbad Caverns
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: had you know, some corny fairy theme mm hmm.
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: And then Ruby Falls is really neat too. Yeah, it's
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: a very cool, like natural attraction that they've done a
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: good job of like underground water making it easy to
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: make your way to. But yeah, it's the whole thing
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: is definitely worth going to. And then of course they
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: have this the very famous like Sea Rock City barn
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: sides that everybody's right of and that was that was
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: Garnet Carter who painted one man, or paid one man
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: to go around and offer to give a fresh coat
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: of paint to barns all throughout the Southeast in exchange
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: for letting them paint Sea Rock City on the side.
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's if you've ever driven around the North Carolina
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: South Carolina area and South of the Border, you know,
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: I'm talking about.
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: South of the Mason Dixon line.
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: No, South of the Border is the name of this
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: sort of highway tourist trap.
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: No, I haven't heard of that.
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's it's it's the same deal. I think it's
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: I want to say it's North Carolina. But it's basically
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: like a glorified rest stop with that has a Mexican
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: theme where you can go, like, I don't know, see
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: mariachi band and eat good food and buy cheap Chokski's.
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: The only mariachi band in all of North Carolina.
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: But what made me think about it it might be
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: was that they have the same thing for like hundreds
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: of miles in any direction, for South of the Border
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: and Rock City. They're very famous for these billboards that
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: tell you like, oh, it's coming, You're getting closer, You're
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: getting closer.
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: That's really strange that I've never heard of that. Then, yeah,
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: South of the Border check it's not been paying attention.
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: So so the Carter's built like this Tom Thumb golf course.
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: And again, originally they just did this as kind of
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: an amenity their Fairyland Inn in Fairyland Club. But it
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: was such a smash hit and Garnet Carter was such
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: a born businessman that they were like, I think there
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: might be something to this, and they saw either they
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: saw it out or he sought them. I'm not quite
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: sure how it happened. But there was another guy who
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: really factors bigly into this whole story, but he's very
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: frequently overlooked, and his name is Thomas McCullough Fairburn. McCullough Fairburn. Yeah,
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: and he invented a really cheap and easy technique for
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: creating artificial putting greens that could be used for miniature
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: golf courses.
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah. It was a crush cottonseed holes oil, you would
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: diet green and they would come in these big roles
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: and you just roll it over this foundation of sand
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: and boom. You've got an easy way basically to sort
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: of franchise these things with these prefab kit that they had,
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: and people loved it because it was you know, when
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: it was they called it midget golf for a little while,
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: not a term we would use today, but it's what
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: they called it in the nineteen twenties, right, And this
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: factors into a lot of stuff we've been talking about
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: with the nineteen twenties lately, just these weird fads that
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: would pop up, and tom Thumb golf was one of them.
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: It was. And part of the reason that it got
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: out from Lookout Mountain is because the Carters and Fairburn
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: kind of joined forces and used his technique for making
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: these greens very cheaply and used their kind of like
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: touch of whimsy, packaged it together and started selling it
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: prepackaged sets or prefabricated sets that could be franchised out
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: to anybody who wanted to start their own Tom Thumb
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: golf course. And so they spread really really quickly, and
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: like you were saying, like the twenties, they were just
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: looking for whatever craze could come along. Crossroad puzzles, dance marathon,
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: flag pole sitting. Well, apparently miniature golf was the king
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: of them all as far as the twenties crazes went.
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah, this is a pretty startling statistic. In August of
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: nineteen thirty, the Commerce Department said that there were and
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: apparently this could be low by even as much as
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: half twenty five thousand twenty five thousand mini golf courses
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: in the US, half of which were built in that
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: previous six or eight months of the year.
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a boom right there.
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: Can you imagine like in eight months, like twelve to
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: fifteen thousand many golf courses being built in the US.
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: It's crazy.
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: I can just imagine Garnet and freeda carter just rolling
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: around on a bed of money in their suite at
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: the fairy Land in Yeah.
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: And I mean in a legit like job boosting market.
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah. No, Well that's another thing too, right, I mean,
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: like there was a like flagpole sitting didn't make the
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: transition into the depression, and dance marathons did, but they
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: got kind of grim apparently. Miniature golf and I've seen both,
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: but miniature golf seems to have made the transition from
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: twenties craze to you know, kind of national pastime. That
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: that made sense in the depression because you could take
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: your whole family out to play miniature golf for pretty cheap,
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: so that was a big attraction. And then also if
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: you were like a golf junkie, but all of a
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: sudden you didn't have the money to afford greens fees
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: any longer at the very least you could go play
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: some miniature golf somewhere. So it kind of scratched that
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: itch to a certain a certain degree. So there was
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: like a lot of popularity that even after the craze
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: kind of crested and waned a little bit, it's still
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: carried on pretty pretty thoroughly through the nineteen thirties. And
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: as a matter of fact, Chuck, some people were like
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: that Tom Thumb Golf, the official franchise Tom Thumb Golf,
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: it's a little rich for my blood. What else she
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: got for me?
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Like, why can't we just do this?
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: Well, yeah, exactly. Local entrepreneurs were like, I got exactly
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: the thing, buddy, you want to play half priced miniature golf,
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: come on in.
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: Like I've got a bunch of PVC pipe playing around.
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah or yeah. So just basically whatever found objects you
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: could find, you could you could come across what we're
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: called rinky dink miniature golf courses that were basically knockoff
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: Tom Thumb courses that used whatever found objects the person
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: who built it head lying around.
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, New York had about one hundred and fifty of them. Washington,
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: DC had thirty. One of those is still around the
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: East Potomac Park course. Yeah, and yeah, the whole family
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: could get involved. And I think one of the keys
• 27:45
  Speaker 2: then and now to mini golf being popular and then
• 27:49
  Speaker 2: putt putt, which we'll see here in a minute, is
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: that you don't even have to like golf at all.
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: You can hate golf and still go do putt putt
• 27:59
  Speaker 2: and probably have a good time.
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, as long as you don't take it too seriously.
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: Don't take it too seriously. Please don't just really don't
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: be that guy. That's what it's for. You want to
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: take a break in the talk put putt? Yes, okay,
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: let's do that. Everybody definitely should know.
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: Y s K as what why s K?
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: You should know?
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: Are we there?
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: Who me?
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: Are we there are?
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: But I thought you said are you there? I'm like, yeah,
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: I'm here. We are there, chuck, because let me set
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: the set the table here? Are you ready?
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: Yes, I'm hungry.
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: America got a little burned out on miniature golf, especially
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: the tom thumb and rinkyding varieties, and so a lot
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: of it died out, but some remained, some hopped along,
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: some are still around today actually, and by the nineteen fifties,
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: there was a guy who was playing at one of
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: these courses in Fayetteville, North Carolina, which remember was the
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: home of miniature golf in the United States. North Carolina
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: is and he happened to have just gotten a prescription
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: from his doctor saying, you're about to have a nervous breakdown.
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: I prescribe you a month's rest from work. And this guy,
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: Don Clayton, said, can do and he started playing miniature golf,
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: but he wasn't quite satisfied with it.
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I imagine if you were on the verge of
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: a nervous breakdown, then Tom Thumb golf is a nice
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: salve for that kind of experience.
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: Sure, if you're charmed by all the whimsical stuff.
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: And you don't take it too seriously.
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: Right from what I understand though, Don Clayton was like,
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: this whimsy sucks. We need something better than this, and
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: I think I'm just the person to build it.
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, So he had the idea to to basically make
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: miniature golf but without all the garbage, no clown's mouths,
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: no windmills, and have a little like have a little
• 30:13
  Speaker 2: skill involved, like you can go out there and if
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: you're like a good putter, you can actually compete and
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: have a good time and it's still for fun, but
• 30:22
  Speaker 2: it's just not a silly kids game anymore.
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Like, anybody who's been to an actual putt putt
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: course can tell you that it's I mean, there's a
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: lot of obstacles, and it's interesting and fun and there's
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: some neat stuff, but it does it just does not
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: have all of like the the moving bells and whistles
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: that you're gonna see on like other kinds of miniature golf,
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: like goofy golf.
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: Like the obstacles are usually just like some blocks in
• 30:47
  Speaker 2: the way and stuff like that. Yeah, yeah, like around
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: or bank.
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: Elevated elevated rhombuses or things like that, or like a labyrinth,
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: you know, built into it. It's not like a clown
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: mouth or anything like that, which is kind of like
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: the go to description for goofy golf, isn't it really?
• 31:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And I think like the craziest thing you'll see
• 31:09
  Speaker 2: on a putt putt course is where you those that
• 31:11
  Speaker 2: are like two levels and you can hit it into
• 31:14
  Speaker 2: three different holes at the top and you're like you
• 31:17
  Speaker 2: kind of take a little bit of a gamble as
• 31:19
  Speaker 2: to where it's going to come out on the bottom. Sure,
• 31:21
  Speaker 2: it'll either come out close to the hole, so you
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: can get that part two, and I think they're all
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: part twos on a real putt putt course, right, or
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: it'll spit you out way far away. But you still
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: have a chance to hit that long putt for the two.
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: Sure, there's always a chance for you a second chance
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: at putt putt.
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: I think that was the motto.
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: So yeah, But so this was Don Clayton's vision. He
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: was like, I want to make this a little less goofy.
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: I want to make it a little more interesting and.
• 31:49
  Speaker 2: Skillful, less goofy, more golfy.
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, chuck man, he just sat up from his
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: grave going I wish I'd thought of that as he did. Yeah,
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: he died in nineteen nine, Okay, but he had a
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: good run. I mean, this is nineteen fifty four when
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: he was a twenty eight year old man that he
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: decided to try this. So he went to his dad
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: and said, hey, I've got this. I've got this idea
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: rather than basically, as a New York Times obituary put it,
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: rather than basically making a human sized pinball machine for golf.
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: We're going to make this a little more interesting. How
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: about we cobble together fifty two hundred bucks and we're
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: going to build our own little miniature golf course. And
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: he did, and like a shaded little lot. And with
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: that fifty two hundred dollars, they opened for business and
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: within twenty nine days he and his father had made
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: one hundred percent of their investment back. And Don Clayton said,
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: I think there might be something to this whole thing.
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so he he was initially going to call it.
• 32:50
  Speaker 2: He went to the bank to open a business account
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: and he had to fill out the paperwork and he
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: was going to call it the Shady Veil Golf Course.
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: But yeah, this is hilarious.
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: As the story goes, he didn't know how to spell vail.
• 33:00
  Speaker 2: I guess if it was va il or va l e.
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: So he just said, uh, putt putt and wrote down putt.
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: But it wasn't something he brainstormed. Apparently, it was just
• 33:14
  Speaker 2: sort of on a whim. Yeah, and it's a name
• 33:17
  Speaker 2: that really really stuck. It's kind of brilliant and it's simplicity,
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: I think divine inspiration.
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: It almost feels like did that. It just kind of
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: happened on a whim. That's just absolutely great. But he
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: started to kind of build the whole thing into like
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: this enormous industry pretty quickly because he was right. You know,
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: there's I did the math. If they made their fifty
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: two hundred dollars back in twenty nine days, that means
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: that over that month they had twenty thousand, eight hundred
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: paying customers. It was a quarter game, twenty five cents
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: a game. Yeah, that's a lot of And so when
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: they really got together and started putt putt like they
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: he was right. He was onto something and it started
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: to take off pretty quickly. Apparently had its peak when
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: you and I were going to putt putt. They were
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: they had something like two hundred and fifty six courses
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: throughout the world, mostly in the US and Canada, but
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: also in Australia and South Africa and New Zealand, and
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: it was it was definitely a thing. Like you said,
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: all of the holes were part twos, right.
• 34:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And this was just to be clear, two fifty
• 34:27
  Speaker 2: six didn't sound like a lot compared to the fifty
• 34:29
  Speaker 2: thousand that they had in the nineteen thirties. But this
• 34:33
  Speaker 2: was his his own putt putt golfing games franchise. There
• 34:38
  Speaker 2: was plenty of more putt putt going on in the
• 34:40
  Speaker 2: United States than that.
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: Right, right, right, yeah, like knockoff putt putt right.
• 34:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Like the one in Stowe Mountain Park wasn't a
• 34:47
  Speaker 2: putt putt golfing games. It was just putt putt, but
• 34:50
  Speaker 2: it was it was great.
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: It's called Tap Tap.
• 34:55
  Speaker 2: They also had trail skate across from the Putt Putt
• 34:58
  Speaker 2: which was a roller skating trail through the woods. What. Yeah,
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: it was like this two mile paved you know, just
• 35:08
  Speaker 2: basically like a big paved sidewalk through the woods, and
• 35:10
  Speaker 2: they rented roller skates and you just skate through the woods.
• 35:13
  Speaker 2: It was really cool, man, that's awesome.
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: Country folk just have some of the best ideas for businesses,
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: you know what I mean.
• 35:19
  Speaker 2: I didn't think of it as country folk, but I
• 35:21
  Speaker 2: guess it kind.
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: Of wash roller skating through the woods this country, I
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: guess it is. That's like Dolly Parton level country.
• 35:30
  Speaker 2: So yeah, they're all part twos and it is. It
• 35:33
  Speaker 2: is tough. It's challenging. Apparently, in the sixty five year
• 35:37
  Speaker 2: history of putt putt. There have only been three perfect
• 35:40
  Speaker 2: games where you walk away with a score of eighteen,
• 35:43
  Speaker 2: which is that's really tough to do.
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: I mean, like of the millions and millions of games
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: of putt putt that people have played, only three people
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: have ever ever gotten a perfect game, which kind of
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: shows you how like deceptively hard card a putt putt courses,
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: you know, like each one of those, each one of
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: those courses made of I think they have something like
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: one hundred and eight trademarked holes or like lanes I
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: think is what they're called a miniature golf to where
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: you can just kind of take them and reconfigure them
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: into different different configurations. But they have one hundred and
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: eight total, and I guess each one of them is very,
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: very difficult. I don't ever remember getting a perfect game,
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: or even imagining that I was going to get a
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: perfect game.
• 36:31
  Speaker 2: Now, im you get two or three holes in one
• 36:34
  Speaker 2: and that's a good day for sure.
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: So eighteen. There's actually a short I think seven and
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: a half minute grant Land documentary on the most recent
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: perfect put putt game by a guy named Rick Baird,
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: who had his perfect game in twenty eleven.
• 36:50
  Speaker 2: Can you imagine the tension on Hoole eighteen.
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: They capture it really well in this in this documentary.
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: It's really well done. They've got like a cartoon version
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: of him putting, and he's got like cartoon sweat just
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: running down his faith. Oh man, really great. So nervous. Yeah,
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: it was very nervous, and he did it. And he's
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: actually a miniature golf pro in his spare time, which
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: we'll talk about later. But there's So he's from Charlotte,
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: Don Clayton was from Fayetteville, and then Joseph Barber was
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: from Pinehurst. So it seems pretty clear that North Carolina
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: is the ancestral home of miniature golfer at least the
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: spiritual home of miniature golf in the world. Frankly, I'm
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: just going to say it, in the world.
• 37:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And if you're looking for the creators of the
• 37:40
  Speaker 2: kind of mechanized courses, you can go to nineteen fifty
• 37:44
  Speaker 2: five and Scranton, PA with Ralph and al Loma. Previous
• 37:48
  Speaker 2: to this, you know, you had the Putt Putt, which
• 37:51
  Speaker 2: just had the sort of regular obstacles. You had the
• 37:53
  Speaker 2: tom Thumb, which had kind of more outrageous whimsy, but
• 37:58
  Speaker 2: still things weren't moving, and these are the guys that
• 38:00
  Speaker 2: brought in these rotating windmill blades or ramps that moved
• 38:04
  Speaker 2: back and forth, and they really kind of kicked that
• 38:07
  Speaker 2: to the next level. And they, you know, they went
• 38:11
  Speaker 2: into business big time. They started mass producing these things,
• 38:14
  Speaker 2: like the actual components, and sold a ton of them
• 38:17
  Speaker 2: all over the world.
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think like five thousand courses, Yeah, which is
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: pretty impressive. They're the ones who came up with what
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: we think of now as like miniature golf and goofy
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: golf with the moving stuff, not a fan, the clown mouth,
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: don't forget the clown mouth that opens and closes or yeah,
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: like you say, a windmill. So it's kind of interesting
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: that Don Clayton brought miniature golf back to its roots
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: of being a lot more like regular golf, and then
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: very shortly after that branched off the Lomas who brought
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: it back to that Tom thumb roots. So that whole thing,
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: the evolution of miniature golf happened twice in just the
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: same way.
• 39:00
  Speaker 2: That interesting, Yeah, and it also came back full circle
• 39:03
  Speaker 2: in the nineties with a return to the sort of
• 39:06
  Speaker 2: that original miniature golf because real golfers, people like Jack
• 39:10
  Speaker 2: Nicholas started to get involved. I'm sure there were dollar signs,
• 39:15
  Speaker 2: you know, in his eyes. Sure, but he also probably
• 39:18
  Speaker 2: loved it. I don't want to be cynical, but I'm
• 39:20
  Speaker 2: sure he made some money. But they have competitions, you know,
• 39:25
  Speaker 2: there are actual prize purses. There is a US Pro
• 39:29
  Speaker 2: Mini Golf Association. They have their own Little US Open.
• 39:32
  Speaker 2: I don't think they call it the Little US Open.
• 39:36
  Speaker 2: They should, They totally should. There's the World Mini Golf
• 39:39
  Speaker 2: Sports Federation in Germany and they sort of are the
• 39:44
  Speaker 2: body that standardizes the obstacles and stuff like that. I
• 39:49
  Speaker 2: guess what you can have and what you can't have, yeah,
• 39:51
  Speaker 2: which is kind of funny when you think about it.
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: It is, but it's a pretty interesting list. You're like, oh,
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: that'd be tough. Oh that's hard, the slope circle with
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: a v obstac Yeah, it's just plain difficult. And I
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: think they should call it the teeny Weenie US Open.
• 40:08
  Speaker 2: Welcome back to the teeny Weenie That's open.
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: I was looking at the US Pro Mini Golf Association's
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: website and there was a Tennessee State Open, and man,
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: the picture that they have of that course. It looks serious, dude.
• 40:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: So like if you go to put putt and you
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: always were like, I love this. This is so challenging.
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: I can score like a sixteen or I guess not
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: a sixteen. I just don't play the last two holes
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: when I'm on a streak, you know, like a twenty
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: or a twenty two or something like that. You might
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: actually have fun being a miniature golf pro. And there
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: are some serious courses out there for you to play
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: that are a couple of notches above your average putt
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: putt course.
• 40:54
  Speaker 2: I'd like to play one of those, would you.
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: I don't know, if I would have fun, I'd make
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: a run club.
• 41:00
  Speaker 2: Should we talk about some of these famous courses?
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah? So, from what I can tell, the United States
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: is the home of miniature golf. It's the capital of
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: the miniature golf. I don't believe there's any country like
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: I was looking at I was like, maybe Thailand is
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: like even more into it than the United States. I
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: don't think so. I think the United States is the
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: place that has the most miniature golf courses and has
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: probably the most paying customers for miniature golf courses.
• 41:28
  Speaker 2: I could see Japan.
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: I could too, and I don't see anything like that. Yeah,
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: I didn't see anything like it. So the United States
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: is the home of miniature golf and the world capital
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: of miniature golf. Then is Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, which
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: is ironic that it's not North Carolina, but it's not everybody, I'm.
• 41:45
  Speaker 2: Sorry, Yeah, I mean Myrtle Beach is sort of one
• 41:48
  Speaker 2: of those classic old school beach towns that has all
• 41:51
  Speaker 2: of the go karts and the bumper boats and the
• 41:53
  Speaker 2: mini golf. And they have one called Molten Mountain that's
• 41:58
  Speaker 2: pretty cool. Like you should go check out pictures to
• 42:00
  Speaker 2: some of these places. There are a lot of fun
• 42:02
  Speaker 2: that has a volcano, a working volcano that erupts every
• 42:06
  Speaker 2: half hour, and it's sort of an inside and an
• 42:09
  Speaker 2: out thing, like I think it's both indoors and outdoors,
• 42:12
  Speaker 2: right it is.
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a pretty it's a pretty great one. And
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: the whole volcano thing, they're not the only one that's
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: how nutso Myrtle Beaches, there's another one called Hawaiian Rumble
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: that also has a functioning volcano. Two And in fact,
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: on Highway seventeen there's a thirty mile stretch of it
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: that goes through Myrtle Beach, where there's fifty more than
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: fifty miniature golf courses in a thirty mile stretch.
• 42:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah, through and I'm sure a lot of opinions on
• 42:39
  Speaker 2: which ones are good and which one stink.
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: Yep, there's one I want to go to in Palatine, Illinois.
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: I think it's a couple of these from Travel and Leisure.
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: Maybe this one's called algrim Acres alghri i m Acres.
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: It's in Palatine, Illinois, Illinois, and it's a funeral home,
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: like for real in real life.
• 43:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, like you know, they take care of dead bodies
• 43:05
  Speaker 2: and you can also play nine holes on their death
• 43:08
  Speaker 2: themed course in the basement.
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: In the basement. First of all, the basement of a
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: funeral home is just creepy on its own. Yeah, But
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: a death themed miniature golf course in a funeral home
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: that actually functions, that's just downright interesting.
• 43:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah. There's this one in Las Vegas too, the kiss
• 43:26
  Speaker 2: themed one which I checked out on YouTube. I would
• 43:30
  Speaker 2: I would play this, even though it goes against two
• 43:32
  Speaker 2: things for me, which is not into indoor miniature golf.
• 43:36
  Speaker 2: I really would like to be outside and I think
• 43:39
  Speaker 2: Kiss sucks.
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: What I thought you were a Kiss fan. No, oh, man,
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: I thought you were a Kiss fan.
• 43:46
  Speaker 2: No, not a Kiss fan never. I mean, you know,
• 43:48
  Speaker 2: I get it, and I think it's kind of fun
• 43:51
  Speaker 2: and funny. Sure, but I never thought Kiss was like
• 43:53
  Speaker 2: played good rock and roll songs.
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: Really, that's very surprising.
• 43:57
  Speaker 2: I know Kiss fans are going to be so mad
• 43:58
  Speaker 2: at me for saying their music is not good. But
• 44:01
  Speaker 2: I mean there's a reason they dressed up and spit blood.
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: And stuff, so there's a But it's still it'd be
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: worth playing. I agree, No, it looked fun. The one
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: that I would actually travel to go play is called Parking.
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: It's in Lincolnshire, Illinois, so I probably go there and
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: then i'd dip down or dip up. I'm not sure
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: to Palatine to play at algam Akers. Okay, but Parking
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: is like exactly what it is. It's the pinnacle of
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: a miniature golf course. If you ask me, it's got
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: it all. It's difficult, and it has all of the
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: amazing obstacles and weird traps and functioning problems to figure
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: out that a miniature golf course should have.
• 44:43
  Speaker 2: It looked pretty cool. I mean, I'm a putt putt guy,
• 44:45
  Speaker 2: but I was checking out pictures and stuff. I would go.
• 44:48
  Speaker 2: I would go to parking with you, for sure.
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: Okay, we'll go. It's going to be a summer trip
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: in twenty twenty two or three.
• 44:55
  Speaker 2: Fantastic.
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: And then if you want to play, so I think, chuck,
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: this one would be up your alley. It's called Golf
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: Gardens and on Catalina Island in.
• 45:04
  Speaker 2: SoCal Yeah, right up my alley.
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: This one is like considered the hardest miniature golf course
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: in the United States, not just because it's difficultly laid out,
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: but also because it's been played so much that's got
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: all sorts of weird notches and stuff that's not supposed
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: to be there in the playing surface, so that makes
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: it all the more difficult, which is kind of neat.
• 45:25
  Speaker 2: I love that.
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: And then if you want to go retro, I think
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: that one's been around a while, you can go down
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: to Florida and they have a historic mini golf trail
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: that takes you from a miniature golf course, a miniature
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: golf course, all of which have been around for at
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: least fifty years. Amazing, And if you like weird old
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: stuff that's not in use anymore. Look up abandoned miniature
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: golf courses. That's a fun thing to do. And since
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: I said it's a fun thing to do, everybody, that
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: means it's time for listener mail.
• 45:55
  Speaker 2: All right, I'm gonna call this dad mail. Got this
• 45:58
  Speaker 2: very sweet email. I love. But when the famili's listen,
• 46:00
  Speaker 2: you know, M sure, especially when they're not. I mean,
• 46:04
  Speaker 2: I like families with young kids that listen, but I
• 46:06
  Speaker 2: also like it when the it's adults and then older
• 46:08
  Speaker 2: parents that are listening.
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 46:11
  Speaker 2: Hey, guys, hope you're hanging in there. These are such
• 46:13
  Speaker 2: tricky times. I know you're I'm not the only listener
• 46:15
  Speaker 2: that turns to your show for a distraction, or a
• 46:17
  Speaker 2: soundtrack to washing dishes, or background noise while trying to run,
• 46:21
  Speaker 2: or just something that feels normal during these abnormal times.
• 46:24
  Speaker 2: A couple of years ago, my now husband and I
• 46:25
  Speaker 2: took a road trip with my parents to stay with
• 46:28
  Speaker 2: my now in laws. As we pulled out of the driveway,
• 46:30
  Speaker 2: we put on stuff you Should Know and spent the
• 46:32
  Speaker 2: entire journey sharing your catalog with them, and they were
• 46:35
  Speaker 2: immediately hooked. My parents continue to love your podcast, but
• 46:39
  Speaker 2: every time my dad refers to it, he mixes up
• 46:41
  Speaker 2: the name. I love this stuff. So far, he's called
• 46:45
  Speaker 2: to you guys you should know. Sure, stuff you ought
• 46:49
  Speaker 2: to know, Yeah, things you need to know and stuff guys.
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: Stuff guys is that's a good nickname.
• 46:58
  Speaker 2: Lately he's just been referring to you as the guys podcast,
• 47:01
  Speaker 2: which is close enough for me.
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: Eventually, we're just gonna get to the Yeah.
• 47:07
  Speaker 2: Thanks for all the amazing work and the thoughtful approach
• 47:09
  Speaker 2: you have to podcasting. So grateful to have multiple episodes
• 47:12
  Speaker 2: to listen to every week. That is from Marabeth, and
• 47:15
  Speaker 2: she says, ps, I should add that the episode on
• 47:18
  Speaker 2: fractals is now infamously nap inducing in my family, but
• 47:23
  Speaker 2: I blame the long stretch of highway on that.
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: Thank you. That was very kind of you, nice say,
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: really pulled it out at the end there. Who is
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: that Marabeth?
• 47:33
  Speaker 2: Yep.
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: Well, if you want to be like Marabeth and get
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: in touch with us, we would appreciate that. Right now.
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: You can send it to us via email. It's the
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: best way to reach us at Stuff Podcast at iHeartRadio
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: dot com.
• 47:48
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• 47:51
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• 47:55
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