Sunday, May 15, 2011

Did Pop get a Py-sicle after winning this round of golf in Clearwater?



Today's piece of ephemera is an old miniature golf scorecard1 that must date to at least the 1960s, if not earlier. The scorecard is from the Golf Inn miniature golf course at 50 Causeway Boulevard in Clearwater, Florida.2 Fred K. Biel was the manager. I couldn't immediately find anything about Golf Inn or Biel in web searches.

Three players competed -- "Self," Mom and Pop. And it was Pop who putted a consistent 26-26--52 to win by three strokes with a five-over 52. "Self" and Mom tied for second place.

Rule No. 8 on the scorecard seems a little foreboding: "Penalty for lost ball -- see management."

Also interesting: The snack bar's other offerings included Popsicles, Fudgsicles and Py-sicles. What's a Py-sicle? That's a great question. It was some sort of ice pop. In 1956, the Joe Lowe Corporation filed for a trademark for Py-sicle in Canada, with this description:
(1) Frozen confections on sticks.
(2) Handlesticks for frozen confections and bags for dispensing said frozen confections.
Here's an image of an old Py-sicle advertising card from 1938 that I found online:


The history of Popsicles and ice pops in the 20th century is fairly tangled and interesting. If you want to learn more, the online article "The Frozen Sucker War: Good Humor v. Popsicle" by Jefferson M. Moak seems to be a good place to start.

Footnotes
1. This scorecard came from the same southern York County yard sale as the E.H. Koester bread coupons I wrote about in March.
2. I lived in Largo, less than 10 miles south of Clearwater, from 1983 until early 1986, and we often went to Philadelphia Phillies spring training games in Clearwater. I attended Largo High School for part of ninth grade. Broadway star Terrence Mann is a Largo High grad and the school was also featured in the 1996 book "South of Heaven: Welcome to High School at the End of 20th Century" by Thomas French.

1 comment:

  1. Great blog and nice Minigolf blog post.

    I like the line "BIGGEST LITTLE GAME ON EARTH" on the scorecard :-)

    All the best,

    Richard

    ReplyDelete