The Miniature golf reference article from the English Wikipedia on 24-Apr-2004
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Miniature golf

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Miniature golf, also known as mini-golf or crazy golf, is a game modelled after the sport of golf. As in golf, courses are commonly 9- or 18-holes long and the object is to hit the golfball into the appropriate hole in the fewest number of strokes; however, in the miniature game, the holes are significantly shorter and consist of only a putting surface. The game is made challenging by an arrangement of obstacles, ramps and bunkers. It is a popular pastime in many areas of the world, especially among families.

Mini-golf rose to popularity in the late 1910s and early 1920s as a way for early golf fanatics to replicate major golf courses on a small scale. The game was commonly called "Garden Golf" and was played with a putter on grass. Thomas McCulloch Fairbairn, a golf fanatic, revolutionized the game in 1922 with his formulation of a suitable artificial green -- a mixture of cottonseed hulls, sand, oil and dye. With this discovery, miniature golf became accessible everywhere, and by the late 1920s there were over 150 rooftop courses in New York City alone.

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