![]() ![]() But soon he began charging $250 for plans, blueprints, and permission to use his legally protected trademark. ![]() Flattered, he at first offered his know-how for free, even sending blueprints of his own designs. At the end of two years there were eight Putt-Putt courses in North and South Carolina.Ĭlayton also was besieged by admirers and well-wishers who wanted to establish their own courses. After this second course was completed, he lined up backers to put up money for more. Soon he was working harder than ever, running his insurance business again by day and preparing a new Putt-Putt course at night. It took only 29 nights for Clayton to pay off the construction cost of $5,200. Some 192 people showed up at his course on the first night, 344 on the second night, and 744 on the third. Clayton's no-frills, all-skills version sparked a revival for miniature golf. The game became a craze in 1930, when more than 25,000 courses may have been built, but interest rapidly dwindled. The beginnings of miniature golf are obscure, but the first course is believed to have been laid out in 1916 in Pinehurst, North Carolina. Three weeks later, he was in business, charging 25 cents a round. The next morning Clayton bought some lumber, hired some laborers, and began laying out his first course. "They gave you dirt and goat's hair to putt on and after you hit the ball, you had to pat down the goat's hair with your hands or feet." When he finished the course, Clayton told his brother and putting partner, "I could do better than this." Challenged to do so, he designed 18 different holes that night-without pipes or spokes or windmills or waterfalls to hit through-and took a $100, one-year lease on a vacant lot he had spotted on the way home. "You had to hit the ball through spokes and spikes and over windmills and through waterfalls-it was just junk," he later recalled. He was on the verge of a nervous breakdown from overwork in the spring of 1954, however, when his doctor ordered him to take a month off work.Ī golf enthusiast, Clayton dropped in on a miniature golf course in Fayetteville but was disgusted. Clayton said he spent the next few years as the ward of a brothel, adding "it was the Depression, women did anything for money." After attending the University of North Carolina on a football scholarship, he built a successful insurance business in the years immediately following World War II. The founder of Putt-Putt was Don Clayton, a native of Fayetteville, North Carolina, who said he ran away from home at the age of 11 because his drunken stepfather tried to shoot him. Some of these facilities were Putt-Putt Golf & Games Fun Centers that included video game rooms, bumper boats, batting cages, Go-Kart raceways, and "Putt-Putt TotalPlay." The company also was sponsoring a professional miniature golf circuit. is the franchiser of more than 275 miniature golf locations in 34 states and seven countries outside the United States. ![]()
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