The History Behind Crazy Golf

Nearly every single coastal resort in the UK has at least one crazy golf course where a few hours can be spent having fun with the family. Not only do the kids like the challenge of the obstacles they find it more enjoyable watching their mums and dads were attempting to have a go as well. But are you aware of where this sport actually comes from? In this article we take a brief look at the history of crazy golf.

St Andrews in Scotland was the first place where such a course was opened and is meant to be the place where the actual game of golf originated from. In 1867 an 18 hole course made up of short putting greens was opened to allow women if they wished to participate in this sport. At the time it was thought that women should not play this game because of the violence of the movements involved to swing the club.

However it was several more years before the types of crazy golf courses we play on today were to be introduced. In most cases right through until the early 1900’s most courses being built were similar in design to the real ones. The big difference being was that they covered far less space and only a putter is often needed to play them.

However, the real changes during the early part of the 1920’s. This was when a golf fanatic, Thomas McCulloch Fairbairn developed a material in 1922 from which the greens of the courses could be made. He mixed together cottonseed hulls with dye, oil and sand that were used to create cheap easy greens for the courses. So this was no longer a game that the rich could play it was something that everyone could enjoy.

The popularity of this game was so great in the USA in the 1920’s that tens of thousands of courses were constructed. In New York City because space was at a premium a 150 courses were built on the roof tops of some buildings. Then things took a turn for the worse during the economic depression of the 1930’s. As people didn’t have the money to spend on frivolous things so a large number of the courses were either closed down or demolished.

Then we begun to see resurgence when it comes to the history of crazy golf after the 1930’s and the way in which the game was played altered. Joseph and Robert Taylor two brothers from Binghamton, New York begun to build and operate these courses again. However they were designed differently from the types of courses played on previously. No longer were the obstacles you faced simply curves, banks and rolls instead you had more challenging obstacles to pass over and through such as castles, pipes, windmills and wishing wells.