One of the very finest sources of facts and enthusiasm about minigolf is Richard Gottfried, he of The Ham and Egger Files, a blog dedicated to his relentless search for new minigolf courses in the UK and beyond. If there’s a question about the sport, he’ll probably know. It’s not surprising he’s a fount of putter knowledge, because he’s visited six hundred and seventy-two – yes, that’s 672 – minigolf courses so far and is showing no signs of slowing down. A recent interview with Richard has just been published by clothing brand Oi Polloi, who were doing a photo shoot at a minigolf course in Fleetwood, Lancashire and found out about him and his exploits.
The interview is well worth a read for crazy golf fans. It covers Richard’s first experience with the sport (a concrete course in his home town of Abingdon), the origins of many of the obstacles we are now familiar with (many come from the USA), hotbeds of crazy golf in the UK (Skeggy, Hastings, Blackpool, Whitby, Great Yarmouth and others).
He also summarises his major wins so far (seven National Tour wins and several independent tournament wins). He seems to be rather modest when talking about his wins – a more complete list can be seen here and is much longer. The interview even runs to the World Minigolf Federation’s efforts to gain Olympic status for the sport, and a discussion of which clothes are best for playing crazy golf in. There is also a brief mention of the intriguing sport of finger jousting, at which Gottfried apparently also excels.
At Putterfingers we know Richard Gottfried well, having worked with him on our minigolf course at the Oswestry Games. Here is Richard’s own report on that event.
