Midget golf has reduced golf's perspective to half an acre, and what was lately a social privilege turns out to be a Rube Goldberg whimsy.

"Midget" golf, a national passion 25 years ago, has been making an unspectacular but steady comeback.

I was a fad that year — the way midget golf was once a fad, or flagpole sitting.

This garden-turned-golf-course, named Thistle Dhu, was not only the first midget golf course to contain all the pleasurable elements of the real game, but may have also been the reason early miniature golf was referred to as garden golf.

The first miniature golf course was laid out on the summit of Lookout Mountain. It was an 18-hole course complete with doglegs, sand traps and water hazards and was the brainchild of hotelier John Garnet Carter, who patented the name Tom Thumb, the name of a midget golf system.

Midget golf

Meaning

Noun