Ascona and the tidy invention that outlived its modesty

Ascona is not usually where sporting mythology begins, which may be why the story sounds almost too neat to be true. Yet several sources place the first standardised minigolf lanes in the world on Via Circonvallazione, where the garden architect Paul Bongni opened his course on 19 March 1954. He used lanes and obstacles he had developed and patented himself, and the result was as practical as it was unromantic: weatherproof, clean and designed to spare both shoes and clothing.

Bongni clearly understood that a leisure sport survives only if it is easy to understand and easy to repeat. He wanted experienced players to be able to sink the ball on each lane with a single stroke. That idea, combined with a clear rulebook, gave minigolf the sort of discipline that tends to appeal in Switzerland: simple rules, little fuss, and a product one can reproduce without too much theatrical self-regard.

The game itself is straightforward. A player uses a putter to send a ball into the hole at the end of the lane with as few strokes as possible. The ball usually measures between 3.7 and 4.3 centimetres in diameter. If it has not gone in after six attempts, seven points are written down and the player moves on. In practice, that means one family gets its turn while the next one waits with growing impatience, which is perhaps the most democratic feature of the entire sport.

The spread was quick. By the end of 1954, there were already 18 courses built to Bongni’s standard. He had also been clever enough to patent the development under the name Minigolf, which helped it travel beyond Switzerland. By the end of 1962, 120 courses existed in Europe, especially in Italy, Austria and Switzerland. The little game from Ticino had become an exportable standard, which is more than many grander national ideas can claim.

Its roots, of course, reach back much further. Golf is said to date to 15th-century Scotland, where men used club-like sticks and feather-stuffed balls on a field with a hole at the end. Old Tom Morris, one of the first professional golfers, is linked to the miniaturised version. In the United States, James Wells Barber, together with a hobby architect and a landscape gardener, created a small course in 1916 that looked more like a baroque garden than a minigolf facility. Soon, American fairs were offering Garden Golf or Miniature Golf, with straight lanes and obstacles such as garden gnomes, ramps, windmills and pipes. The imagination was generous; the standard came later.

In Switzerland, the sport gained ground after the 1950s and eventually settled into the national routine. According to the blog of the Swiss National Museum, Switzerland won three of the four world championship titles at the first Minigolf World Championships in Norway in 1991. Today, Swiss Minigolf runs three national squads: youth, senior women and seniors, and elite. Around 380 licensed players compete regularly in tournaments across the country.

Amateurs still play in large numbers, which may be the clearest proof that minigolf has become a genuine Swiss folk sport. The course in Ascona is still in operation today. For a country that likes order, prosperity and a tidy system, it is a fitting emblem: a modest invention from Ticino that spread far because it did not try to be grand.

Written by Sandy van Dongen sandy.vandongen@alpineweekly.com