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Minigolf, or miniature golf, is a miniature version of the sport of golf. While the international sports organization World Minigolf Sport Federation (WMF)[1] prefers to use the name "minigolf", the general public in different countries has also many other names for the game: miniature golf, mini-golf, midget golf, goofy golf, shorties, extreme golf, crazy golf, adventure golf, mini-putt and so on. The name Putt-Putt is the trademark of an American company[2] that builds and franchises miniature golf courses and Family Entertainment Centers. The term "Minigolf" was formerly a registered trademark of a Swedish company that built its own patented type of minigolf courses.[3] Origins It is a matter of taste which activity one wants to call "minigolf" rather than "golf", but probably the best candidate as the "first minigolf course in the world" is the MENS' Putting Club[4] of St. Andrews in Scotland, which was founded in 1867, and still today is operating and open for public. This 18-hole course of putting greens, called "the Himalayas", was founded by some members of the notable Royal & Ancient Golf Club in St. Andrews. Women had become interested in golf game, but the conservative social norms of the era deemed it unacceptable for women to publicly perform such violent movements that a golf swing requires.[5] Therefore an 18-hole course of short putting greens was constructed for women – apparently the first "miniature golf course" in the world. A few decades later it became customary for many American and British hotels to offer their guests a miniature-sized golf course, using the same designs as actual golf courses, but at one tenth the scale. The game was played with a golf putter and a short driver, and was called "garden golf", "pitch and putt golf", "clock golf" or "par 3 golf".[5] Geometrically-shaped minigolf courses made of fake materials[clarification needed] began to emerge during the early 20th century. The earliest documented mention of such a course is in the 8 June 1912 edition of The Illustrated London News, which introduces a minigolf course called Gofstacle.[6] The first standardized minigolf courses to enter commercial mass-production were the Thistle Dhu ("This'll Do") course 1916 in Pinehurst, North Carolina, and the 1927 Tom Thumb patent of Garnet Carter from Lookout Mountain, Tennessee. 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; by the late 1920s there were over 150 rooftop courses in New York City alone, and tens of thousands across the United States. This American minigolf boom of early 20th century came to an end during the economic depression in the late 1930s. Nearly all minigolf courses in the United States were closed and demolished before the end of 1930s.[5] A rare surviving example from this period is the Tall Maples Miniature Golf Course located near Rochester, New York, and listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2002.[7] The first miniature golf course in Canada was at the Maples Inn in Pointe Claire, Quebec. The "Mapes" was constructed as a summer home in the 1890s but was renovated into a club in 1902, opened to the public in 1914, and had a miniature golf course in 1930. The popular nightspot burned in 1985. (See: West Island Chronicle, June 29 2008.) Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crazy_golf