Wee Golf

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There are 60 courses in England; 200 more planned. Recently one was opened in London's famed Kit-Cat Restaurant. When the Prince of Wales went to visit Queen Elisabeth of the Belgians at Brussels he spent most of his time on the Queen's course. At home, he announced he would set up a course in the courtyard of St. James's Palace. In the U. S. famed private courses are those of Drygoods Tycoon Percy Straus at Port Chester, N. Y. and Mrs. Graham Fair Vanderbilt at Manhasset, L. I. On busy days over 2,800 people putt around the two elaborate courses behind the Roxy Theatre, Manhattan. In Hollywood, Mary Pickford has the most expensive one in the world. Nobody knows how much it cost. Last week bandits plundered $75 from Miss Pickford's greens fee booth. Richard Barthelmess and Jackie Coogan have their own. Guy Lombardo, jazzbo, has a course on which every hole is made up of discarded musical instruments.

As midget golf has grown, hazards have become wilder. At the third green of the Los Angeles Miniature Golf Course a bear is chained between white pillars in front of a replica of the White House. He is trained to try to catch the ball as it rolls past. Miniature Golf Courses of America, Inc. have made replicas of Yellowstone Park, Puget Sound, Horseshoe Curve, the Grand Canyon and put up signs saying: "See the U. S. with a putter." Next plan of the manufacturers is to sell the idea of seeing the world with a putter, and reproducing things like the Eiffel Tower, Wall of China, Taj Mahal. Carnie Gouldie Manufacturing Co. puts out a 4-ft. lighthouse. If the ball goes through the lighthouse the light flickers.

Miniature Golf has its own magazine—Miniature Golf Course News, 50¢ the copy. The editors say that $125,000 will be spent in the next year on new courses. Municipal and State governments are working on ways to tax course operators. In Manhattan statutes have been proposed whereby no course in a backyard may be opened to the public, none are allowed in residential districts, hours for play are limited from 8 a. m. to midnight, no course can be built too close to a school for fear of distracting children from their lessons, all courses must buy a license for $50.

*This week in Chicago will be played a national open miniature golf championship with $10,000 in prizes

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