During which century were miniature golf courses first designed?

Geometrically-shaped miniature golf courses (also called min-golf and mini golf) made of artificial materials, typically carpet, began to emerge during the 20th century. The earliest documented mention of such courses is in the June 8,1912 edition of 'The Illustrated London News', which introduced a mini golf course called 'Gofstacle'.

The first standardized mini golf course to enter commercial mass-production were the 'Thistle Dhu ('This'll Do') course in 1916 located in Pinehurst, North Carolina and the 1927 'Tom Thumb' patent of Garnet Carter from Lookout Mountain, Tennessee.

In 1922, a golf fanatic named Thomas McCullough Fairbairn, revolutionized the game 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 and by the late 1920s there were over 150 rooftop courses in New York City alone, and tens of thousands across the US.

The first miniature golf course in Canada was at the Maples Inn in Ponte-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. It had a miniature golf course in 1930.