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As you most likely already know, golf was a sport that was invented centuries ago. Although what you might not know is that mini golf was not far behind the invention of regula golf. Miniature golf as we know it today was first shown in a London newspaper back on June 8th, 1912. It did not take long for this new idea to be incorporated in the United States, where it first came into play in 1916. The golf course that hosted this new miniature course was none other than the famous Pinehurst that nearly everyone knows today! This was difficult to maintain at first, because it was the grass and greens of a normal golf course. It was not until 1922, ten years later, that an artificial green was created. After this huge step in the evolution of mini golf courses, a man named John Garnet Carter really evolved this miniature sport. He patented the game and helped take it around the country in 1927. In the Great Depression, mini golf courses around the nation were put to a halt. It was not until 1954 that mini golf courses took another large leap forward with the foundation of the Putt-Putt corporation. The corporation helped standardize mini golf while still allowing for each course to be unique in its own way. It was also around this time that people began to introduce wacky obstacles onto the course like pipes and windmills. These still make for some of the most fun mini golf courses to play today! A lot has happened since 1954 with one major step coming into play that has made mini golf courses even more popular. Besides them being a popular tourist attraction, one major evolution that has arguably come off the golf courses, is the introduction of miniature golf competitions and tournaments. Mini golf tournaments have been around since 1930, but they are much more common now. They are so popular that there is actually a professional mini golf league within the United States that travels around the country and hosts tournaments. The prizes are so large that you could win over one hundred dollars just by playing mini golf. Just like real golf tournaments they have purses with the money being split amongst the competitors. Not only is there a professional mini golf league in the United States, but there is also a World Minigolf Federation. While these are not necessarily the evolution of the mini golf courses themselves, it does affect the courses in a secondary way. By this we mean that the quality of mini golf courses have increased over time to either host a professional tournament, or simply grab tourists' attention. After reading this article we hope that you have a newfound appreciation for mini golf courses. The history and evolution of these courses start back further than even we had in mind. Again we hope you had as much fun reading this article as we did writing it and stay tuned for more articles like this coming your way soon! ------ This content was created for informational purposes only. The content is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health provider with any questions you may have. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have read on this website.

Whether you know it or not, video games have been around for a long, long time. Video games go back further than you may have imagined with the first video games being invented in the early 1960s. This may blow your mind, but video games have basically existed since computers existed. Now these games were not found in homes, that did not begin until the 1970s. This is when Atari became very popular with games such as Pong and Computer Space. The video game Pong is really what made video games popular in homes, but this was basically the only game that existed at the time. Now video games were not full of a steady increase as there was a large fall off in the industry in 1983. This was caused by a lot of faulty games and video game companies that made for many options, but none of them were very good. Although this is when Nintendo stepped in and took over the American markets which they arguably still have a hold in today. This was in 1985 as well as going into the early 1990s. Not only was Nintendo making video games for home consoles but they also created some of the first handheld consoles with their launch of the Game Boy in the 1990s. At this time Sega also joined the market within the United States and competed with Nintendo in homes across America. Going into the late 1990s and early 2000s this is when the companies we more popularly know today joined the market. It was at this time that PlayStation and Xbox came into the market with their first versions of their now popular home consoles. Starting with the simple PlayStation 1 and Xbox consoles they were large steps in the right direction when it came to video games in the homes of America. Following these booms, Nintendo stepped up their game to create the Wii console which was one of the first ones that relied on motion sensing and getting people more active in their homes. Both PlayStation and Xbox tried to recreate this technology, but it was safe to say that Wii dominated the market in this niche. Now video games have started to move towards cell phones since they can be played anywhere and many games are free to play. You can be anywhere in the world now and play your favorite games! Nintendo has still tried to compete in this spectrum in recent years with the new Nintendo Switch. It does cost players a price but it is very versatile and is a lot of fun to play. Recently both PlayStation and Xbox have come out with brand new versions of their consoles which seem to be the future of video games. These consoles are centered around extra fast loading time and near picture perfect graphics. They have only come out within the past year or so, so the potential is still high with these consoles. We look forward to seeing what the future of gaming holds. To demonstrate the rise of popularity of video games throughout history we have included a data chart below. ------ This content was created for informational purposes only. The content is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health provider with any questions you may have. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have read on this website.