A SHRINKING SPORT : Miniature Golf Still Finds an Audience, but It’s Becoming a Dinosaur in County

Behind the waterfalls, pagodas, red schoolhouses, windmills and onion-domed mosques, some people claim, lies a skilled and elegantly simple game.

To Don Clayton, the North Carolina man who in 1954 founded Putt-Putt, a purist version of miniature golf, it is an egalitarian game available to “the working mass of humanity,” and a game in which anyone--regardless of age, skill or even intent--is capable of that supreme achievement, a hole in one.

To Ron Frederick, the Los Alamitos man who won a national tournament Monday and has shot as low as a 20 on an 18-hole course, “it’s like billiards on carpet, only with one ball.”

To most others, it is hardly so noble a game. Mostly it serves as entertainment for an afternoon or evening, a decent way to pass a little time.

Lisa Romero, 24, of El Toro, tried to describe the appeal of miniature golf as she waited her turn at Golf N Stuff in Anaheim recently, and ended with a shrug: “Nothing better to do.”

Miniature golf typically thrives in tourist-oriented areas, but Orange County is a marked exception. There are only four miniature golf locations in the county, all built in the 1960s or early ‘70s. Camelot Golfland in Anaheim is the largest, with five courses. The others--Golf N Stuff in Anaheim, Huish Family Fun Center in Fountain Valley and Southern Hills Golfland in Garden Grove--have two courses each.

And although the operators of the four locations all say business is good--even on the upswing--and that they plan to continue operating, no one expects to see another miniature golf course open in the county.

Prohibitive property values will see to that, they say.

“Miniature golf courses are dinosaurs. They’re a thing of the past with property values the way they are,” said Lee Buttle, secretary-treasurer of GNS Development, Inc., the Los Angeles-based company that owns Golf N Stuff. “It’s not the best use of the land anymore. They can be profitable if they’re already in place, but it’s no longer profitable to build them.”

The situation is more an indication of a dwindling bit of Americana than a blow to sport. Miniature golf these days is more closely aligned with pizza and video arcades than with the game it mimics.

Most courses have a studied architecture that requires customers to pass through the video arcade to reach the course, and on some signs, the word pizza as more prominent than the word golf.

Fred Kenney, who operates Camelot Golfland and the Southern Hills Golfland for family-owned Kenney Golf Enterprises, based in Sunnyvale, said arcades and concessions are an essential part of the business.

“You have to have both,” he said. “The video games are really complimentary with the miniature golf, and food too.”

At certain times of the year, Kenney said, income from the large video arcade exceeds that from the miniature golf.

The Fountain Valley course, which is part of the Huish Family Fun Center, takes the multiple-entertainment theory even further. The Huish family business began with miniature golf, but the Fountain Valley location now includes a restaurant, a batting cage, go-carts, bumper boats and a water slide.

“The real key here is not miniature golf, which is what really started it. I think the concept is family fun,” said Court Huish, corporate general manager of San Juan Capistrano-based Huish Family Fun Centers, Inc.

Miniature golf had its origins as a fad in the 1920s, and enjoyed another boom in the ‘50s, about the time that Clayton opened the first Putt-Putt course in Fayetteville, N.C.

Like any game, it has its factions. In this case, it is Putt-Putt against the rest.

Putt-Putt is synonymous with miniature golf in the minds of many, but Clayton and Putt-Putt enthusiasts are emphatic about the differences and consider their game apart from other largely independent courses.

Putt-Putt courses are standardized and rather unadorned, with none of the stereotypical obstacles such as windmills, clowns or trumpeting elephants.

Putt-Putt of America, Inc., which aggressively protects its trademarked name and copyrighted holes, now operates 360 courses in the United States and about 60 abroad.

(Although there were numerous Putt-Putt courses in the Los Angeles area 30 years ago, Clayton said there are none in Southern California now and that he does not pursue the market here because of land values.)

As Clayton explains it, Putt-Putt is a more skilled game.

“Our game is competition plus idle amusement,” Clayton said. “Theirs is strictly what I call a thump course: You place the ball on the tee, thump it with your finger. It goes down the hill, rolls through a pipe into a bowl and into the hole. You can take the same ball, and drop it or throw it and the same thing happens. It has nothing to do with skill. . . . Their game is pure idle amusement.”

The purveyors of idle amusement don’t mind the characterization. For them, the bigger the obstacle, the more loop-de-loops, the wackier the design of the hole, the better.

Evidence of just how unorthodox things get on miniature golf courses can be found in various course rules.

A few examples:

“Walk only on designated sidewalks or walkways--stay out of ponds and planters.”

“Whacking the cement, carpet, or stands with your club isn’t necessary.”

“NO running, jumping or HORSEPLAY.”

Rules or not, miniature golf, as with any game, has its time-honored conventions.

David and Sandra Smith, a Fullerton couple who are moving to Arizona but killed their last day in the area at Golf N Stuff, demonstrated a widely accepted method of keeping score.

“We don’t count the ones that bounce off the thing on the first shot,” said David, 20.

Hardly anyone does.

There is at least one honest soul.

Lafit Nurani, 8, of Edmonton, Canada, completed a hole and turned to dutifully report his score to Al Jiwa, his uncle and his group’s scorekeeper: “I got a 22.”

WHERE TO PLAY CAMELOT GOLFLAND

3200 Carpenter Ave., Anaheim Five courses

Fees: $4.25 adults, $3.50 children Phone: 630-3340

HUISH FAMILY FUN CENTER

405 Freeway at Magnolia, Fountain Valley Two courses

Fees: $4.50, $3 Phone: 842-1111

GOLF N STUFF

1656 S. Harbor Blvd., Anaheim Two courses

Fees: $4.50, $3.50 Phone: 778-4100

SOUTHERN HILLS GOLFLAND

12611 Beach Blvd., Garden Grove Two courses

Fees: $4.25/$3.50 Phone: 895-4550