Miniature Golf finds New Ways to Draw Families
ERIC DURR; The Business Review
(originally published May 7, 2004)

PMGA comments on the business of miniature golf.

Tom Paone grew up playing miniature golf. In fact, his parents spent the night before he was born playing a round.

So when Paone went looking for a business to supplement his salary as an Albany schoolteacher, opening his own miniature golf course was the natural thing to do.

Today, Paone is the owner of Oasis Family Fun Park in North Greenbush and is expanding the business by adding a clubhouse and bumper-boat pool with a waterfall.

It's a big deal for us, Paone said. It's like Six Flags adding a major ride.

While the image of miniature golf often is windmill obstacles at slightly seedy seaside resorts, it's a popular 21st century pastime, said Shane Jacobs, spokesman for the Appleton, Wis.-based Professional Miniature Golf Association.

In 2003, Americans played 502.4 million rounds of miniature golf. At an average cost of $5 per game, that's a lot of money, Jacobs said.

Bob Detwiler, president of the U.S. ProMinigolf Association, headquartered in Myrtle Beach, S.C., said that half of all Americans play miniature golf at least once a year. There are between 10,000 and 15,000 mini golf courses in the United States.

Detwiler's group represents about 50 courses. The Professional Miniature Golf Association represents another 400 miniature golf operators.

Miniature golf started in the early 1900s as Garden Golf, a scaled-down version of golf played on a lawn, according to the U.S. ProMiniGolf Association Web site. In the 1920s and '30s, rails or bumpers appeared on courses to make putting easier.

Miniature golf took its modern form in 1926, when an entrepreneur named Garnet Carter opened a course at the Fairyland Club, his tourist attraction on Lookout Mountain in Chattanooga, Tenn. He had aimed the course at kids, but found that the adults were having fun, too.

He produced course kits under the patent name of Tom Thumb Golf and began selling them around the country. During the Depression, a game of miniature golf was cheap fun.

The next big step in miniature golf was the creation and franchising of Putt-Putt by former insurance salesman Don Clayton. Clayton was tired of the decorative obstacles and developed and franchised 108 course designs that tested straight putting ability. Putt-Putt became one of the first franchised roadside businesses.

In 1955, Ralph and Al Lomma hooked up motors to gears and belts and came up with moving obstacles that challenged the mini-golfer to make a putt while avoiding the windmill blade. The Lommas sold more than 5,000 course sets and are still in business today in Scranton, Pa.

Since then, the business of miniature golf has morphed into family entertainment centers.

Scott Commander, the owner of Funplex Fun Park, located near the intersection of Routes 4 and 20 in East Greenbush, steadily has been adding to his operation since he bought it four years ago.

"When we first purchased it, it was miniature golf, the batting cages, the bumper boats and the go-carts," said Commander, who got his introduction to the business world running a go-cart track at the family-owned Lebanon Valley Speedway in Columbia County. "Since then, I have added the rock-climbing wall, the mini go-carts for smaller children, the bungee trampoline and an inflatable bouncy bounce."

Despite all those extra attractions, mini golf ties with the go-carts as the top money-earner at Funplex. "More people come to play golf than anything else," he said.

Commander's course features lots of water.

"We get a lot of compliments here with our golf course that it is a very challenging course," he said.

The water is essential, and his plan is to install a new pump so he can have more moving waterways and deeper ones cutting through the course.

"It's very important to keep the course neat and clean and keep it up," Commander said. "Customers that are coming to play miniature golf don't want to play on a dirty, ratty course. It's a constant thing we have to do. Landscaping is important. We plant a lot of flowers and a lot of plants."

Over in Latham, Control Tower Miniature Golf also puts an emphasis on clean and neat facilities.

Located at the end of the Albany International Airport runway, just off Troy-Schenectady Road, the Control Tower markets its proximity to the airport.

The holes on the miniature golf course are named after airports, old pictures of the airport decorate the walls of the on-site restaurant and the submarine sandwiches Duggan sells are named after aircraft.

People like playing miniature golf, having an ice cream and watching the airplanes fly overhead.

"You come here on a Sunday night and it seems like the airport is busiest then and you should see all the people here just sitting and watching the planes," Duggan said.

Control Tower's location also means 40,000 cars roll past his location every workday, so he doesn't have to spend anything on advertising. The business draws heavily on families from Latham and Niskayuna, but he has regulars who drive almost 45 minutes to play the course.

He designed and built the course with his father, Ed Duggan, who once owned and ran a construction firm. They looked at other courses and tried to develop something that was fun for the kids, but also challenging for grownups, he said.

Since mini golf tends to be a good-weather business, Duggan is looking at ways to make money when the weather turns cold. The restaurant is open for lunch to draw on the offices up and down Route 7, and Duggan sold Christmas trees during the holiday season. He also operates another business--All 4 Fun--which conducts roller-skating parties as school fund raisers and rents bouncing tents for kids parties and fairs.

His newest initiative is a planned 3,000-square-foot kids' gymnastics center to be built behind the location. That will be a new draw during the fall and winter months, Duggan said.

Tom Paone and his wife, Andrea Paone, director of housing at Northeast Health Inc., did a lot of research before embarking on miniature golf course ownership.

"This guy has created such a beautiful miniature golf course because he carved it right into a hillside. He built the golf course into the existing topography and landscaped it," Paone said.

The Paones wanted the same type of course to fit the location they had in mind, a wooded plot of land on Route 4 in North Greenbush near Hudson Valley Community College. "We saw the ability to incorporate the beauty of nature into a walk-in-the-park type atmosphere," he said.

They opened in 1999 with the course and an ice cream stand.

In the past, Paone said, the rule of thumb was that people would drive 15 minutes to play miniature golf. Now the industry standard seems to be a half-hour to 45 minutes.

His goal is to expand the business and make it worthwhile for people living in Albany County to cross the Hudson River to North Greenbush. A connector planned to run from I-90 to HVCC will make getting to his location even easier for the bulk of the Capital Region's population, Paone said.

"We are not having a problem getting people to our site--our numbers are very good. The issue is giving them more things to spend their money on while they are here," Paone said.

The bumper boats are a big deal because on hot days, people are less likely to want to play miniature golf, even if the course is shaded by trees.They want to get wet and the bumper-boat pond will give them the opportunity. The new clubhouse and a picnic area will also make his venue more attractive for kid's parties, Paone said.

He is also taking advantage of the construction to redo the course and change some cup locations.

"From the people we have spoken to that have been in this business [and] that have been successful, it is really, really important to change a hole every year once you've been in business five years," Paone said.