From Rock City to Goofy Golf: How putt-putt became a favorite pastime

I wonder how many people across the country have photos of themselves as kids sitting in the hand of a giant monkey in Panama City, Fla.? Playing a round at Goofy Golf was definitely a rite of passage when I was a kid, and I took my daughter in 1996 to recreate a photo of me from 1969. My daughter will probably take her child someday.

Goofy Golf – known for its oversized monkey, dragon, dinosaur, Easter Island head, sphinx and more – opened in 1959, just 10 years before my childhood photo was taken but miniature golf has been around since 1916.

The beginnings of mini golf

Panama City’s Goofy Golf was built on Panama City’s Miracle Strip by Lee Koplin. According to FloridaHistoricGolfTrail.com: “A trained welder, Koplin first began creating surreal objects on miniature golf courses in the late 1940s when he and his brother built Pee Wee Golf in Guerneville, Calif.”

But it was decades earlier, in 1916, when the first mini golf course, called the Thistle Dhu (This’ll Do) was built in Pinehurst, N.C. The game was created as a children’s version of golf and featured obstacles not found on regular courses, such as bridges, alleys and tunnels.

Tennessee, however, can lay claim to being the “birthplace of miniature golf” because one if its residents was the first to patent the game.

Garnet Carter, born in Sweetwater, Tenn., on Feb. 9,1883, patented Tom Thumb Golf in 1927 and built a course atop Lookout Mountain in Chattanooga to draw traffic to a hotel he owned with his wife, Frieda. Frieda designed the obstacles, giving them a fairyland theme.

Garnet, who created the game because of his own love of golf, never expected it to become an adult sensation. He later developed a way to manufacture courses to ship across the country, still featuring elves and gnomes among its obstacles.

READ MORE: Vintage photos show miniature golf courses in Alabama

By 1930, as many as 25,000 miniature golf courses has opened around the country. A 1931 article by Roland Gray in Modern Mechanics and Inventions magazine, said it’s “more than a game – it’s a gigantic new amusement industry which is coining millions of dollars for the men back of it.”

Gray continued in the article: “Who started driving the country goofy over golf? …Who are the men behind this 1930 Gold Rush, that has sent real estate values skyrocketing and banks hiring extra tellers? And just one more question, if you please: Who are the inventors and the engineers responsible for the Department of Commerce’s report the other day that there is exactly $125,000,000 plunged into 50,000 dwarfed golf courses throughout the country, one of the nation’s ranking industries?… And here’s the answer. Down in Chattanooga, Tenn., Garnet Carter, as genial a host as ever epitomized the hospitality of the South, began fancying a system whereby the guests at his Lookout Mountain hotel might get a little compact diversion.”

In 1932, the Garnets made the decision to sell the patent rights to mini golf because they had another endeavor in mind, this time an idea of Frieda’s. They used the proceeds to open an attraction on Lookout Mountain called Rock City Gardens. Garnet is credited with coming up with one of history’s most brilliant marketing schemes to advertise the attraction: painting “See Rock City” of roofs of barns across the South.

Garnet died at his home on Lookout Mountain on July 21, 1954. Rock City and mini golf continue to amuse generations of families.

Goofy Golf today

After some damage caused by Hurricane Ivan in 2004, the property was purchased by The Daily Grind and used as an internet café. It was reopened as a golf course in 2007, according to Pensapedia.com.

Do you recall any of the themed holes on course No. 1, which include Mad Hatter, Pumpkin Head, cemetery, octopus, skeeball, spook house, tiki hut, lost cave, dinosaur king, bear, show, candy lane, gator, dragon, hat and lion’s den?

A few changes have been made to the course since it was reopened. The hole known as the “confusion hole” on course No. 1 is now called the Hollywood hole and has a replica Hollywood sign and the “school-house hole” is now themed as “grandmother’s house.”

Changes to the second 18-hole course include the addition of a Shrek-themed hole, originally the Purple People Eater hole, and the ghost town hole is now “The Knight.”

The oversized figures you remember from childhood – the monkey, sphinx, dragon, T-rex, etc. – remain the same with the exception of fresh paint. You can even buy original 1959 postcards there. Because it has been around for generations, families enjoy recreating photos from childhood with their own children and you can see dozens of examples on social media. Visit Goofy Golf at 12206 Front Beach Road, Panama City.