THE GOLF GAME WARS
by Larry Bieza and John Papa
Settling differences over a golf game in court? It
happened this time. Big time game producer
Chester-Pollard of New York vs. little guy Popular
Games Inc. of Minneapolis, Minnesota. At issue
were the two golf games the companies were mak-
ing. Chester-Pollard (The Golf Game) claimed they
had golf game patents that were infringed on by
Popular Games Inc. (Hoot Mon) game.
On January 18, 1927 Donovan arrived in
Minneapolis to sign a deal with the newly formed
Midwest Amusement Co. The principals of the
company were, Sam Snyder, Odin Norum, Louis
Gross, Benjamin Haskell, and Mr. Goldstein. Al
Walzer was there at the contract signing. Seeing
thousands of dollars changing hands convinced him
to go ahead on his sports game idea - a miniature
golf game. The problem was, Walzer didn't have a
nickel to his name, so he had to find a money man.
He called a U of M classmate, Dr. Steinman.
Steinman was a dentist and had some extra funds,
so Walzer described his idea, probably mentioning
the big football game deal, and Steinman was sold.
In early February, Steinman sent Walzer to a local
patent attorney, where he met Lagaard, an attor-
ney/inventor. Lagaard was intrigued by the idea,
and the two agreed to co-design the game. By May
19, 1927 they had a working prototype and invited
people over to see and play the game. By coinci-
dence, one of Dr. Steinman's patients was Ben
Haskell - one of the original investors in the
Midwest Amusement (now called Midwest Football
Games Co.). Haskell's wife had money to invest, so
with their funding, Walzer, Steinman, and Haskell,
formed Popular Games Inc., setting up at 510 Fifth
Ave. in Minneapolis.
Who won? Not so fast. First, let's give you some
background on one of the more interesting coin-op
court cases.
It all started innocently enough. Sam Snyder, owner
of the Minneapolis Recreation Co., a billiards and
bowling establishment, asked an acquaintance
Louis Gross, to go to Chicago and check out a new
football game advertised by Chester-Pollard. Louis
Gross was an assistant football coach at the U of M,
so the idea of a miniature football game intrigued
him. The promise of being a partner in this new ven-
ture clinched the deal and off he went to Chicago in
December 1926. A friend of Gross', Albert Walzer,
who was on his way to Michigan via Chicago,
agreed to come along for the ride. In Chicago the
pair find themselves in the lobby of the Hotel
Sherman with the year-end coin-op manufacturers
convention going on. The Sherman was the site of
this event for many years. After viewing many coin-
op items, the pair came across the Chester-Pollard
Football Game. After planning a few nickels the
company rep. Donovan shows up. He begins dis-
cussion on how their operation works. You see,
Chester-Pollard doesn't sell games. They lease them
for the life of the game patents (17 years). The lease
deal also allowed you to lock up your territory (in
this case Minnesota and N. Dakota) with the pur-
chases of 75 games. At $450 a game we're talking
about #37 ,500, which was real money back then.
Talk of this kind of money made an impression on
Al Walzer. He was 25 years old and still living at
home, working for his father in his auto parts store.
An agreement was made for donovan to travel to
Minneapolis to meet the principals of the new busi-
ness. Walzer said his goodbyes, traveling on to
Michigan, all the while thinking about sports games
and how maybe he could come up with something
like that football game.
At the same time, Chester-Pollard was developing a
golf game. They even noted it on the marquee of
their Football Game, mentioning future Hockey and
Golf games. But were they really working on a
game? Supposedly they'd been working on the idea
since mid 1926, but by mid 1927 there was still no
game. Popular Games incorporated in June of 1927.
It seems the word got out to Chester-Pollard which
spurred them on. But Chester-Pollard went for a dif-
ferent style game than their football game this time,
and made a small cabinet game. By August 23rd,
Popular Games had the first ten Hoot Mon golf
games done and Walzer went out and stared placing
them in the best Minneapolis hotels, replacing the
Chester-Pollard Footballs. When Chester-Pollard
learned about this they realized they were caught
flatfooted . They had no large cabinet game, and
their small game wasn't ready yet. So what to do?
Spy on the competition! In early September 1927,
Tom Townsend, a Chester-Pollard employee visited
Popular Games to inquire about this new golf game.
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