Latest / Stuff You Should Know / How Miniature Golf Works

Transcript

How Miniature Golf Works · Stuff You Should Know

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