TEEING OFFCAPITAL REGION MINIATURE GOLF COURSES RANGE FROM REALISTIC MODERN TO OLD-FASHIONED FUN.(PREVIEW)

Byline: PAUL GRONDAHL STAFF WRITER

We were bound for a miniature golf tour, inching along Route 7 in Latham through late-afternoon traffic, when the leaden skies opened up and splashed the car's windshield with large dollops of precipitation.

The showers seemed a fitting accompaniment, since mini-golf and rain go together like clam rolls and Cape Cod, lobster tails and Maine beaches.

After all, who hasn't embarked on an seaside vacation and been forced to kill long hours on rainy days with the kids at ubiquitous mini-golf courses?

We called them ``putt-putts'' growing up in Washington state in the early '70s, when the courses were cheesy fantasy lands of windmills, Fiberglas gnomes, clowns astride burbling aqua-colored brooks and ribbons of bright green Astroturf with wacky curves and mystery tunnels.

It was an artificial world for manufactured family fun.

Putt-putt was an acquired taste, like The Three Stooges or Riunite on ice.

The extravagantly nerdy of my generation aspired to tour play with the Putt-Putt Professional Golfers Association, formed in 1959 and now called the Professional Putters Association. Today, the PPA has its own interactive Web site (http://www.putt-putt.com) and a national championship shown on ESPN. The winner collects $50,000.

In my putt-putt youth, we were just happy with a free ice cream cone for a hole-in-one on No. 18 -- although my son, Sam, received a golfing trophy for his ace on the final hole at Parkland Putters in Tacoma, Wash., several summers ago, and still proudly displays his putt-putt hardware.

Thirty years and a new …