Miniature Golf Design

From its humble origins of trammeled grass and spare-part hazards to the elaborately terraced and themed constructs of today, miniature golf has survived the successive trends of an industry that demands novelty. The player's role has changed little; the rules are the same, the equipment unchanged, and scores are still recorded with little pencils. But over the last 70 years the courses these games are played on have changed time and again. And while the skills and demands on players have remained constant, even familiar, innovations in materials, theory, and design have kept the courses fresh, and the game as much a tradition as a business.

How a miniature golf course is designed depends largely on what market it is catering to. Course designers balance factors such as theming, challenge (or, conversely, ease of play), throughput, size, degree of upkeep, and cost. While there is no overall best design of a miniature course, there is an ideal course for any given market and operator.

PLAY-A-BILITY:

One of the most basic design considerations involves difficulty of play. And while it will vary from one course to another, and even one hole to another, there are conventions that need to be heeded.

Challenge is the basic premise of the game. A course needs to be sufficiently difficult to keep it interesting. As well, difficulties that can be mastered will keep players coming back to compete not only with their partners, but against themselves. This is the same allure that has kept regulation golf popular for so long.

But challenge needs to be balanced and this is the first pitfall of course design. Each hole should be achievable in something close to par for all the players, and making the course too challenging will frustrate many players. Their friends will tell them to 'just mark down the 10' so they can all move on. Frustrating everyone in the group and dramatically affecting repeat visits.

As well, players who continue to take high strokes before moving on will feel the pressure from the group behind them. This isn't an enjoyable scenario for children; and it can certainly wound the pride of adults who take pride in their golf games. These people will not be coming back to that course, and even if the difficulty isn't so extreme as to frustrate players, the course difficulty is directly proportional to the amount of time it takes players to move through the course. A difficult course will move much slower, reducing throughput and limiting profitability.

There are obvious problems in designing a course that people consider easy, though. Once 'beaten' a course loses its appeal to a player. If getting off the course on or under par is a difficult prospect, players are much more likely to return.

So where is the fine line that divides too difficult from too easy, and how wide is the margin between? Different course designers approach this challenge from different philosophies. The results are very different courses.

Parents playing with their kids is an essential ingredient in the success of a miniature golf course, so for good miniature golf designers, a challenging course involves the entire family in ways that an easy course cannot. When parents are actively competing in a game, children will emulate them. Parents 'reading the green' and planning their approach will often cause older children to watch their parents and try to play the way they do.

Ball hazards, whether to garner attention or through simple bad aim, are not possible on many courses being designed today. Many designers prefers to eliminate such possibilities in favor of making the course more playable for the younger set. Kids don't have that 'touch' (a sense of physics and geometry) that mature players have. If you have, a hole that features a volcano-type hole where they can fail through poor aim, hitting too hard, or hitting too soft, and that failure gets them no closer to the hole, they are going to work on that hole for a long time before getting it or giving up.

When children give up on a hole it is usually characterized by dropping the ball in the drink or simply launching it in the direction of the hole. The end result in either course is parents spend a lot of their time fishing balls out of the water or tromping through the landscaping searching for lost balls.

That kind of play can grind a busy Saturday night at the miniature golf course to a slow crawl.

Different Strokes for Different

Markets Another consideration in course design is how much effort and money to put into theming the environment. Theming a miniature golf course has all tradition, subjectivity, and competitiveness of house decorating for the winter holidays. What one owner thinks fun another will surely dismiss as tacky. In the end, theming comes down to each owner's idea of what will draw customers and what they are willing to spend to achieve it.

Miniature golf has always relied heavily on creating fantasy environments. In hot tourist destinations you can see everything from Bhudda to Paul Bunyon, the menagerie of mentionables stand astride fairways, block logical play, and lend their storylines to a pastime far removed from their cultural origins. They are designed to catch the eye of passing drivers otherwise focused on driving a car at 55 miles per hour and more specifically the eyes of their young passengers who voice their whims with persistence and enthusiasm.

This is what course designers refer to as a tourist market, as distinguished from a neighborhood market. Though a hotly debated point, the consensus amongst designers is that the tourist market needs to use more elaborate theming to be successful.

In an environment such as this, even the most ingeniously designed course will, if under-themed, quickly fail in the shadow of the three-story triceratops down the street. Vacationing families tend to gravitate to the visually exciting courses, and a course that doesn't compete on this level isn't really even playing the game.

Neighborhood markets tend to reward the opposite strategy, with more attention given to play. Rather than attracting large numbers of week-long residents, a neighborhood course thrives on the repeat visitor that comes from the 10-25 mile radius around the facility. Players may come in once or twice to play through a haunted forest or a medieval castle, but they probably won't come a third time if this is all the course offers. Theming is like telling a story, and players grow weary of the same story.

The course designed for the repeat player will offer a play experience that changes with every visit; one that blends skill-building with a little luck in an pleasant environment. The underlying hazard with making a course interesting for players who come back time often time is that you can make it too challenging for first-time players and children in particular.

More neighborhood market courses are now using 'natural' themes with heavy landscaping and water elements that create a garden-style environment. If you look to history - the popularity of creating large gardens made expressly for strolling is the model here. Examples abound in Europe, Asia, and the Americas of private parks created by the wealthy and public parks created by governments that answer this inclination in people around the world.

Natural theming offers the additional advantage of a scaleable investment which allows owners to add more landscaping as profits allow. As well, a well tended natural environment will increase in value and attractiveness with each passing year.

There are a few downsides to natural theming, increased maintenance and vulnerability to vandalism to name a couple, but by and large the trend is to rely more on the style than the industry used to.

Natural theming also appears appeal to a wide demographic range of players without excluding anyone. As the population in many developed countries around the world continues to age, this becomes an increasingly important factor. And miniature golf is in a great position to take advantage of the growing market of grandparents and grandchildren that amusement parks have begun to market to.

The advancing technologies of virtual reality, simulators, and even arcade games can exclude more mature audiences with their unfamiliar tools and fast-paced action. In such environments, guardians generally sit to one side as children or grandchildren enjoy the arcade. Not only is this less enjoyable for the adults, it reduces the amount of money they are spending in a facility and reduces their desire to return.

Miniature golf is about people playing together. Teenagers showing off on dates, grandparents not showing off for grandchildren, and children seeing more talent than luck in their finest shots. Part of the reason many operators get into the business is to enjoy watching the show of families at play.

It is a large stage and that requires careful planning and substantial investment. But, when designed, built, and managed properly, "a miniature golf course should last forever."