Minigolf has much in common with billiards. Both games are quite young, quite popular as leisure activity, and not very popular as competition activity (in most countries). Money is a big difference between billiards and minigolf: all different forms of billiards have professional leagues, shown on television and supported by sponsors: snooker, pool, carom (carambole), Russian pyramid...

Like so many small sports, also billiards wants to be included in Olympic Games. Sounds quite easy for a sport so widely visible on satellite television channels, and richly supported by sponsors, but decades of negotiations have not opened the door to Olympic Games for billiards. Some rumours say that the problem is wrong kind of sponsors: billiards is commonly sponsored by cigarette and alcohol companies. Olympic Games wants to be connected with more neutral drinks and products.

One of the many conditions that Olympic Committee set for billiards associations, before they can become a potential sport for Olympic Games, was global unity of the different billiards associations, under one global federation. This condition was fulfilled in 1992, when the international federations of pool, snooker and carambole founded World Confederation of Billiard Sports.

One difference between billiards and minigolf is the type of unity that the global federation is seeking for the sport. In billiards, each player focuses in his own "playing system" only: Pool players play pool only, and nothing else. Snooker players play snooker only, and nothing else. Carom players play carom only, and nothing else. Each "playing system" of billiards has its own world championships. No "combi" competitions.

Minigolf had the same situation in 1960’s and 1970’s: international beton and eternite federations played their own European championships every year. Then these two federations joined and founded IMGF, the forerunner of World Minigolfsport Federation. Since then, European minigolfers have had only one European or World Championship tournament per year. (Excluding the Putting World Championships arranged by PPA in United States, and World Crazy Golf Championships arranged by BMGA in United Kingdom.)

The practical problem in unity of this kind, "the price of unity", is the fact that minigolfers don't really want to play all playing systems. Many felt players don't like eternite, many eternite players don't like MOS, and many MOS players don't like beton. (The same is true between players of snooker, pool, carom and Russian pyramid.)

Global unity of a sport sounds like a beautiful concept, but in reality it is not so easy to unite people who come from different parts of the world, where basically the same sport has evolved into different forms, which require different skills from the players. Or which simply look or feel a bit different.

In World Minigolfsport Federation (and its forerunner IMGF), we have had global "unity" for many decades now. Only one championship tournament per year. The price of this unity, the price of playing World Championships on beton and eternite (plus sometimes felt), has been stripping honour from talented players who enjoy other systems than beton and eternite.

Any billiards player would think it strange, what we are doing in minigolf. Instead of letting each player choose his favourite playing system, where he can play for a world champion title, we have a long history of favouring eternite and beton players over everyone else, while the best felt players of the world have received only crumbs falling from the table, and adventure golf specialists have received nothing yet, ever, from World Minigolfsport Federation.