Crazy Golf seems a natural match for the seaside, the standard location for this endearingly exuberant form of pitch and putt – both are all about colour, diversion and good, clean fun. The game that places a windmill, the Eiffel Tower or King Kong above the final hole had its heyday in America in the 1920s. Across the nation, 20,000 courses kept families and first dates entertained, and a factory in New York state employed over 2,000 people in the manufacture of 'Tom Thumb' course kits for 'dime game' franchisers. The game crossed the Atlantic, and nearly a century later, there are courses throughout Europe – many of which Liam Bailey visited to make this series.
Part of Bailey's attraction to the subject is the notion that in a post-apocalyptic world most of the built environment would have been swept away, leaving only the signs of our existence that were inches high – how would it be if future analysts of human society had only the outlines of crazy-golf courses to go on as forensic evidence? But there is also the appeal of playing the game itself, as well as the chance to turn something not known for its subtlety into a series of striking and often slightly eerie abstracts.