Putt Putt Mermaid Beach: Famous attraction celebrates 50 years

Mermaid Beach’s famous Putt-Putt course is one of the city’s best-loved attractions. This week it will celebrate its 50th anniversary. This is its incredible story.

IT’S one of the Gold Coast’s best-loved attractions.

Putt-Putt Golf at Mermaid Beach will next week mark 50 years since it opened to become an icon on the Gold Coast Highway.

That magical stretch of the Highway at Mermaid Beach is well-remember by generations of Gold Coasters who even today fondly look back at the heyday of the Mermaid Beach cinema, Queensland’s first McDonalds, Sizzlers and the miniature golf course.

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The Putt-Putt golf head today.

Today, just two of these remain, with Putt-Putt being the oldest.

But many people don’t realise – the famous course actually started its life in the streets of central Surfers Paradise.

It was founded by Tom Wykoff who had become fascinated by the US sport, which was created in 1954.

Wykoff became interested in the sport while on an overseas holiday in 1965 and he went on to meet the creator of Putt Putt, Don Clayton.

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Putt-Putt Mermaid Beach 50th anniversary Putt-Putt course pictured in the 1970s. Picture: Supplied

By 1967 Wykoff had led a dramatic expansion of Putt Putt across Africa, reportedly opening 64 18-hole courses in locations including South Africa and Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe).

While these were enormously successful, a government-led crackdown led to the closure of the courses.

Wykoff relocated to the Gold Coast in mid-1969 and relaunched his business, this time on Surfers Paradise’s Hanlan Street.

Putt-Putt being played in the streets of Surfers Paradise.

Its opening, on Friday September 19, 1969, came the same day the fate of a famous Gold Coast attraction of the previous 50 years was sealed.

The Gold Coast City Council that day announced it would move ahead with demolishing the old Southport pier cinema which had fallen into disrepair.

Gold Coast Mayor Sir Bruce Small opening the putt-putt course on September 19, 1969

But then-mayor Sir Bruce Small’s eyes were entirely focused on the future has he attended the opening of the Putt-Putt course, ceremonially hitting the first ball.

The course proved incredibly popular but its location in Surfers Paradise proved only temporary and was forced to search for a new home.

By in 1973 it relocated to its current site in central Mermaid Beach where it soon became a landmark.

Tom Wykoff (back left) & Ellie Wykoff

This move, near the original Mermaid cinemas, sparked a mini boom in the area, with the McDonalds opening next door in August 1975.

The fast food palace soon proved to be a major drawcard which brought plenty of patrons to the golf course.

A Meter Maid learning how to play Putt-Putt.

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During the 1980s the course gained a video game arcade which had some of the most popular cabinets of that decade and into the 1990s, including Outrun, The Simpsons and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

By the late 1980s the Mermaid Beach cinema expanded to become the largest in the state at the time, bringing with it Sizzlers and plenty of business.

But by the early 2000s things had changed - the McDonalds closed in the late 1990s and the cinema followed suite in 2003.

But the Putt-Putt continued to thrive.

It will mark its anniversary with a fun day on Saturday, September 21.

Putt-Putt today. Picture: Luke Marsden.