Mini Golf

Aim by pulling back, and use the walls

The control here is a slingshot: you drag back from the ball in the opposite direction to where you want it to travel, and the further you pull, the harder the putt. Release, and the ball rolls, bouncing off the walls until friction brings it to a stop. Those walls are the best tool you have. A ball leaves a wall at the same angle it arrives, so instead of forcing a straight line to a hole tucked behind a corner, aim at the point on the wall that kicks the ball toward the cup. A good bank shot turns a blocked hole into a one-putt.

The mirror trick for bank shots

Here is the aiming method pool players use, and it works just as well on these courses. To bank the ball off a wall into the hole, imagine the hole reflected to the other side of that wall, like its image in a mirror. Aim straight at the imaginary reflected hole. The spot where your aim line crosses the wall is the true bounce point, and the ball will come off it toward the real cup. Try it on a simple L-shaped hole: picture the cup mirrored beyond the far wall, fire at the ghost cup, and watch the ball wrap around the corner. Two walls work the same way, you just reflect twice, though double banks punish sloppy power. Speaking of power, keep it modest on bank shots. A hard strike still leaves the wall at the mirror angle, but it arrives at the cup too hot to drop, and a ball that rims out at speed can run half the course away.

The short game wins it

Your score is total strokes across the courses, so the gap between a good round and a bad one usually comes down to restraint near the hole. Blast the ball and it rims out or ricochets off the back wall, adding a stroke you never needed. Real golfers call the safe version a lag putt: a first putt meant not to sink but to stop dead next to the cup, leaving a tap-in. On any long or messy hole, lag first. A guaranteed two-putt beats a hero shot that caroms anywhere. When you are close, ease the pull right down and hit a soft tap that dies in the cup. Judging power, far more than aim, is the skill these little courses are testing, so calibrate it early. On the first hole, notice how far a half pull rolls the ball on open ground and file that away as your measuring stick. The physics never changes between courses, which means every putt you watch teaches you something about the next one, and by the last few holes you should be landing first putts within a ball's width of your intended spot.

• Line up the reflection: aim at the mirrored hole, and let the wall do the turning.
• Short pull for a soft touch near the cup; save the big pulls for open lanes.
• Read the whole course before your first shot, and pick the two-putt route if the one-putt looks like a gamble.
• After any bounce, watch where the ball settles and plan the next stroke from there, not from where you wish it had stopped.

A very old good idea

Miniature golf grew out of putting greens built for people who wanted the short game without the long walk. The Ladies' Putting Club at St Andrews in Scotland laid out a famous dedicated putting course back in 1867, and it is still played today on a rumpled green nicknamed the Himalayas. America caught the bug later: a fancy private course called Thistle Dhu appeared at Pinehurst, North Carolina in 1916, and in the 1920s Garnet Carter's Tom Thumb Golf on Lookout Mountain, Tennessee turned tiny obstacle courses into a national craze, with thousands of copycat courses springing up within a few years. Windmills and clown mouths came and went, but the heart of the game never changed: a few walls to play off, a cup that only accepts a well-judged ball, and a running stroke count you are always trying to keep down. This version keeps that essence. Learn the mirror trick, respect the lag putt, and the scorecard takes care of itself.