When someone mentions golf, you probably think about Tiger Woods, or Michael Jordan for example, even Donald Trump. It’s one of the most prestigious sports competitions out there, and it requires a massive course.
On the other hand, when someone mentions mini-golf we typically think of those games that are available at the amusement park. We don’t think of it as something we can use our Quinnbet coupon code 2020, or as a big competition for that matter. But it really seems like that is not the case, because there is a Professional mini-golf competition, and here we will cover everything you need to know about it.
Miniature Golf History
Miniature golf courses started to emerge in the early 20th century, and the earliest course that was documented was opened on the 8th of June in 1912. It was soon afterward standardized in 1916 and mass-produced by the company Thistle Dhu, the name that is read exactly like “This’ll do.”
As you know, the course is made out of artificial materials, as the grass it is played on is actually a carpet. So in the year 1922, Thomas McCullough Fairbairn came up with the new fabric that will be used for designing grass-like carpets.
These elements allowed for the golf courses to become more accessible, and easy to step up. So, it wasn’t too hard to have tens of thousands of them all over the US. Unfortunately, the vast majority of those courses were demolished before the end of the 1930s, because of the big economic depression.
Tournaments
Mini-Golf tournaments are organized all over the world. The World Mini-golf sport Federation is in charge of organizing championships in odd-numbered years, and they organize continental championships in Asia and Europe in even-numbered years. Typically there are 3 age groups, juniors, adults, and seniors, and men and women compete separately unless the team competitions permit otherwise. Unlike in some of the mainstream sports, the skill gap between men and women category is very low, and it’s not uncommon for a woman to be the best international player.
Types of courses
When it comes to course types the World Minigolfsport Federation currently approves of the following: Beton, Eternite, Felt, and Mini-golf Open Standard (MOS). The first three are standardized types of courses whereas the fourth one MOS includes all of the other course types that do not fall into one of the three standardized categories. It is also worth noting, that both the World Championship and European Championship have never been played on MOS courses.
The competition consists of 18 holes and there are multiple record holders for clearing 18 holes in 18 strokes. More than a thousand players actually have this achievement under their belt, on the Eternite course. As far as other courses are concerned the feat is a lot harder to pull off, and as of now, there are no official records of perfect games during national or international tournaments. That being said, there were some unofficial reports of players with perfect scores on Felt and Beton courses in Sweden.
Well, this was a short overview of minigolf history and professional sports competitions. One of the more recently established tournaments is World Crazy Golf Championships, so if you never heard of that one feel free to look into it, it’s really exciting.
