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Argentina  INESfun

22 Feb 2020 at 13:37

There are about 300 recesses on one golf ball, and thanks to them, the ball flies three times farther than a smooth one. ... Balls of the same size...

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United States of America  Smitty

07 Jun 2023 at 04:45

Jason and team make this place beautiful and the tournament is fun and well run.

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22 May 2023 at 13:19

We’re All Loony Here....


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United States of America Patrick Sheridan's blog« See all blogs

Been running The Putting Penguin website since 2001. Entered by first tournament in 2003 and have been hooked on those ever since, playing primarily in local tournaments and USPMGA tournaments. In 2016, I took over as Editor-in-Chief of Minigolfnews.com and in 2021 I became Chair of the WMF Media Committee.

A 2023 Masterful Experience
17 Nov 2023 at 13:07 | Posted in: Competition | Views: 22079 | Comments: 0
A 2023 Masterful Experience
For the 6th time, it is that time of year where I write some words about the experience of playing in one of the largest miniature golf tournaments in both the United States and the world, the USPMGA Master's. It's a little delayed but I wanted to make sure I had time to get my thoughts out and it's been a very busy competitive 2023 across all the organizations I support. At the end of this blog I have linked back to all of the previous years as well as to the most recent Puttcast podcast episode where I talk more about this years Masters with my co-host Tom Loftus and our guest Kyle Courcy. I have also linked to the overall Minigolfnews article which provides a bit more background on the overall construction of the tournament in case you aren't familiar.

Each year has brought something different to the experience and this year the stars aligned for some easy travel. Last year we had to delay our trip down by a day due to a hurricane coming through Myrtle Beach but....

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We’re All Loony Here Don’t Cha Know?
22 May 2023 at 13:19 | Posted in: Competition | Views: 20676 | Comments: 0
We’re All Loony Here Don’t Cha Know?
I realize it has been a hot minute since my last blog post and I didn’t even do a true 2022 recap. With everything else I’ve been trying to do, especially the Puttcast, I’ve put the long form writing a bit to the side but felt it was a good time to return. Before jumping into the real reason I’ve returned to the blog, I’m going to take a quick paragraph to sum up 2022 and look at 2023.

In short, 2022 was a success for me. I played well at Odetah, O-Street, Dolphin and Matterhorn and got my 3rd win at Farmington. I added icing to the cake by coming in a personal best 16th at the Masters to wrap up the year. Matterhorn was also a great success of a tournament and despite a rough start to the year, the AMA ended up with a solid inaugural season. The Puttcast continued to have strong episodes and we’ve built up a decent little following. I’ve worked hard on WMF things and in general it just seems like minigolf was in a good place coming out of the....

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Returning to the Matterhorn
05 Dec 2022 at 13:31 | Posted in: Competition | Views: 8827 | Comments: 0
Returning to the Matterhorn
I skipped over my recap of our tournament given the timing of the Masters and what came out of that event this year. However, I do want to give our tournament its due as it was another excellent year for us.

This was the 6th year of the tournament and our 2nd moving it to just a 3 round format for both divisions. It was also part of the American Minigolf Alliance (AMA) this year, which helped with some of our tournament participation, especially in the professional division. This year we had the most ever in the pro division - 24 (representing 6 states), while our amateur division actually dropped to just 12. Recently that had been our bigger division but we have seen that some former amateurs have moved up to play in the professional division. We’d like to continue to grow that division as we see it as a stepping stone but also know we’re one of the few non-Putt-Putt tournaments that do multiple divisions in the US. Either way, just under 40 has been where we’ve....

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An Honest Look (USPMGA Masters Part 2)
14 Nov 2022 at 15:03 | Posted in: Competition | Views: 7603 | Comments: 0
An Honest Look (USPMGA Masters Part 2)
For my recap on my overall play, check out Part 1 of my USPGMA Master’s blog. In here I’ll go through some of the things I saw as good, bad and frankly a bit ugly from the tournament this year. Many of these I also covered over on our Puttcast episode about the Master’s. I’ll start on a positive note:

Good:
- The competitors. It was a skilled field this year and it did see some new blood, not only playing but doing well in the money spots. It also saw a high level of amateur players this year, which has been a rarity in the most recent years. Being around players like that and the atmosphere they can provide on their own is a good reason to keep me going.

- Much better organization upon checking in and getting our shirts, hats, etc. In the past there’s been issues with sizes, etc - but that wasn’t a....

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Of Butterflies & Bees (USPMGA Masters Part 1
02 Nov 2022 at 12:07 | Posted in: Competition | Views: 6956 | Comments: 0
Of Butterflies & Bees (USPMGA Masters Part 1
I’m writing this a bit out of order, covering the Master’s first while it is more fresh in my mind. I will circle back to our Matterhorn tournament soon to close out the season. I’m also breaking this up into two parts. Part 1 will focus on the experience playing, how the week went, etc. Part 2 will focus on some specific observations I had during the week. You can check out the article on this year’s Master’s for some base information on the tournament if you forgot some of the details, but overall it’s 12 rounds over 3 days on 3 courses.

Building on the more relaxed schedule I put into place from
last year, my plan was to arrive a bit earlier on Sunday to give myself a full family-day at the beach as they were again with me. That was put into disarray as Hurricane Ian blew through on Friday and we decided it would be wise....

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Once More into the Loop
30 Sep 2022 at 19:47 | Posted in: Competition | Views: 6565 | Comments: 0
Once More into the Loop
It’s very easy to go back over your scores and each hole you played when you missed out on a spot or two in a tournament by a single stroke. What if I didn’t go out-of-bounds? What if I didn’t miss the loop? What if I didn’t have one of the few unlucky lip-outs on the near guaranteed ace run? Logic tells you, however, that none of it matters. If you made one other shot, who is to say you wouldn’t have missed another? Or the same applies to the people you are playing against.

That’s not to say it’s not worth thinking about if there is something you can gain from it in the future. Maybe knowing how to play a hole now if you have an unlucky bounce out, or adjusting your strategy to minimize those chances. It just doesn’t change your outcome from the tournament.

So went the Lee Stoddard Dolphin Open this year for me - in my 14th year playing this tournament it still happened to be a year of firsts for me. Overall the plan for the....

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Finding the Groove…Part II
16 Sep 2022 at 12:41 | Posted in: General | Views: 7268 | Comments: 0
Finding the Groove…Part II
“Why are you surprised that you won?”

It’s been the common response to me saying that I was a little surprised that I won this year’s Farmington Miniature Golf Tournament. It’s a fair statement from people considering I had won it twice before, was in the money at the O-Street $1,000 tournament a week earlier and it is at the course where The Putting Penguin was literally founded.

As much as all those factors are in play, I was looking at it from the aspect of having not practiced at all on that course other than one random round with my 4 year-old daughter. The course is quirky so I had no real background with how it was playing that year until I managed one round before the very early tee time of 7:30am. Against most of the field, that was going to be ok because they didn’t have much more practice or my experience would definitely work for me. However, there is the top group of local putters that I know were putting in the work and also....

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Finding the Groove…Part I
03 Sep 2022 at 14:17 | Posted in: Competition | Views: 6346 | Comments: 0
Finding the Groove…Part I
Over the past few years I’ve been lucky enough to build up my skills so that in many tournaments I’ve either been in contention or at least in the money. So in June, while I finished a very respectable 5th at Odetah, I was still disappointed that I didn’t make it into 4th on a course that was one of my “home” ones. Coupled with my finishing well below my expectations last year at the O-Street $1,000 tournament (going from 1st in 2020 down to 15th) and I had some motivation headed down to New Jersey this year. However, I would call it realistic motivation - I wasn’t going to spend hours on the course nitpicking every putt because a) I didn’t have time for that, b) Tee Time, while true to many putts, isn’t really a course where that would help and c) I think I over practiced last year and ended up getting into my head more than helping. So my plan was a little practice on Saturday, some Sunday morning before the tournament and then go for it.

I....

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Revenge of the Hippo
14 Aug 2022 at 13:18 | Posted in: Personal | Views: 12018 | Comments: 0
Revenge of the Hippo
It’s now the middle of August and for me, the competitive minigolf season is going to ramp up quickly. In the next two months I have 5 tournament that I will play in – O-Street, Farmington, Dolphin, Matterhorn and the Masters. All of them my regulars over the past couple of years.
Before getting to those, this year I did have a chance to do a couple of new/returning events. The first saw us going back to Odetah Campground in Connecticut for the Odetah Mini Golf (OMG) Tournament. I never properly recapped that tournament so here’s a quick lookback. Overall it was far from my best performance on the course, but somehow I managed to pull it together to finish 5th, even if that was one spot out of the money. High 30s was what would be needed to be competitive in this tournament and my first round was anything but as I put together a 46 which included an out-of-bounds 5 on a hole where I hadn’t happen in the 50+ times I had practiced it. Without exaggerating that was....

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2022 Tees Off in June!
03 Jun 2022 at 05:46 | Posted in: Competition | Views: 7305 | Comments: 0
2022 Tees Off in June!
I can’t believe it is June and shortly I’ll be teeing off my competition circuit for 2022. Things have been so busy the past nine months or so that I didn’t even do my normal wrap up of 2021 at the end of the year. Thank you to the folks who have been keeping the blogs going and for those sending in articles making it easy for me to keep the news updated. It’s been a great help!

I had thought about turning this post into a big recap but pretty much everything of importance can be found in one of my more detailed blogs. The TL;DR of 2021 for me competitively is that it started out slow and inconsistent but finished with videoing a course record, a tournament win and my first money placement in the USPMGA Masters.

The first few months of 2022 have been crazy trying to get things wound up at the WMF for the return of big tournaments, getting the AMA off the ground and making an unsuccessful attempt at....

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Semi-Mastering the Master's
28 Oct 2021 at 12:53 | Posted in: Competition | Views: 6922 | Comments: 0
Semi-Mastering the Master
Early in the year, before any tournaments and it looked like I would be making the trip to Myrtle Beach after missing 2020 due to Covid, I had set a plan for the USPMGA Master's. In the past few years when I had attended with my family I had spent so much time grinding on the course that I missed a lot of the other fun to be had down there.  So I made the decision to pull back a bit on practice and make more time for family and other fun, and I'm happy to say that I stuck to that plan for the most part this year.  the only thing that threw a little wrench into that was playing a second tournament during the same week (more on that later).

For anyone contemplating the Master's, to make the most of it you need to try to give it a full week starting practice on at least Monday if you can. Not only do you need to learn 3 courses and put in the grind that you will eventually get in the competition but there is so much catching up with friends in the minigolf world that....

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Getting the Goat
06 Oct 2021 at 13:03 | Posted in: Competition | Views: 5139 | Comments: 0
Getting the Goat
Sometimes success hits you when you least expect it. That's what it seemed like a couple of weekends ago when I played in the 5th Matterhorn International Pro-Am. This isn't to say I don't think I was prepared or hadn't worked toward success but that tournament has a couple extra reasons why it's hard for me to expect success each year and going into it this year I didn't have high expectations.

If you don't remember this tournament (and why would you unless you are a Putting Penguin super fan), I've written about it before and in short this is the tournament that we administer for Matterhorn Mini Golf. So as a result, there's a lot of additional planning, pre-tournament work and in-tournament work that happens on top of the normal competitive routine. Our focus is always on having the best tournament and not exactly our own scores because if the tournament sucks for other people, they won't....

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Into the Woods Again
30 Sep 2021 at 14:57 | Posted in: Competition | Views: 4419 | Comments: 0
Into the Woods Again
I love writing about the Dolphin Open. One of the reasons is because how it always seems a bit cut off from the rest of the world for the weekend. Due to the location of the course itself with respect to everything else in the town (hotels, etc), it actually acts as this sort of gateway to another world. After a 5ish hour drive up from Connecticut with the family, once you pass Dolphin it's like you are in another world on the Maine seacoast. It's wonderful, but then sad when you inevitably leave, either right from the course or later and have to pass the course, as it acts as the gate back to the real world. You drive by it and think "till next year my friend."

The experience was no different this year, my 13th trip in September (and 14th overall), and as I passed the course on the rainy Thursday that arrived I wondered what it held for me. The course rarely changes. Lee (former owner) changed up the first hole slightly a few years ago, though it didn't really....

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You (and by you, I mean me) Only Win Twice
19 Sep 2021 at 07:10 | Posted in: Competition | Views: 4079 | Comments: 0
You (and by you, I mean me) Only Win Twice
I admit that the prospect of being a three-peat winner of a minigolf tournament was very alluring. Over my competitive career, I’d classify myself as successful but with only a few items that have really stood out over others. Being only the second person in the 39 year history of the Farmington Miniature Golf Tournament to win back-to-back in 2020 was certainly one of them and I was looking forward to perhaps staking my claim in history with a third win in the celebratory 40th year. Alas, in a tournament that was plagued by some bad bounces and terrible holes for all the top competitors, I just couldn't squeak out that victory.

This was the 8th year I would tee it up for this tournament and the year I probably practiced this course the least. I had played it a few times with my family during 2021, including some winter outings and had played a couple of my fellow Northeast competitors (Aaron Kaminski and Justin Pelletier) in more “official” matches during the....

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Alligators, hippos, giraffes and pinball machines
22 Aug 2021 at 14:02 | Posted in: General | Views: 3765 | Comments: 0
Alligators, hippos, giraffes and pinball machines
To paraphrase the Stranger in Big Lebowski- “Sometimes you eat the alligator, sometimes he eats you.” It seems a fitting way to think about my latest tournament fun down in Ocean City, NJ.

I write this blog for two reasons – a) I just want an archive of some of these events because far too much of what happens in competitive minigolf goes uncovered and potentially lost to time and b) I want to make it as interesting as possible to get some new people to tournaments and/or to give regular players just some more fun media to read about minigolf. With that in mind, I was trying to figure out what my angle for this post was, and I think it just ends up being simple – sometimes you are going to play a tournament and it’s just not going to work out anywhere near how you planned, but when that happens try to keep having fun and just know there’s always another one not far around the corner.

The O-Street $1,000 tournament down in New Jersey in....

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Could I Beat Biggy?
03 Jul 2021 at 12:17 | Posted in: Personal | Views: 4189 | Comments: 0
Could I Beat Biggy?
One of the nice things about minigolf as a competitive person is that there always seems to be something out there to quench the thirst of trying to get the better of fellow putters. It ranges from major international tournaments, to virtual putting events, to local course tournaments, to local weekly leagues. Or in the particular case I’m about to write about, a local journalist with an excellent surname, who thought throwing down the minigolf gauntlet would be a good story series for his paper. Enter David Biggy of, the now in its 3rd season, “Can you beat Biggy?”.

For my non-East Coast American readers, Biggy writes for The SandPaper a newsmagazine that covers Long Beach Island (LBI) in New Jersey, which is just South of the (in)famous Jersey Shore so many folks might be familiar with. One thing LBI has is a lot of minigolf courses, so this idea of doing challenges and holding them at different courses meet the....

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Putt18 League - The Sequel
25 Apr 2021 at 13:30 | Posted in: Personal | Views: 4035 | Comments: 0
Putt18 League - The Sequel
At the end of last year, I wrote a bit about the Matterhorn drop-in league as well as the first season of the Putt18 World League . As the calendar for 2021 has now moved beyond the 1st quarter, there’s been a lot of activity about minigolf leagues across the country, some new and some returning. Minigolf does seem like one event we can mostly bank on here in the US with everything else going on, especially when it comes to keeping locals busy. We know that O-Street Mingolf, Greater Baltimore Minigolf, Maine Minigolf, Swingtown Germantown, as well as Putt Putts across the country all are holding some form of leagues this year. You can check them out but also just keep an eye on your local course’s social media pages as you never know what else is out there.

For me locally, the Matterhorn league will be starting again this summer and I’m hoping to get to as many weeks as possible. It’s a....

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Starting 2021 Off with a 2020 Lookback
04 Jan 2021 at 21:55 | Posted in: Website | Views: 4767 | Comments: 0
Starting 2021 Off with a 2020 Lookback
It would be surprising if any recap of the year didn’t make some sort of mention of the pandemic. It makes sense, it’s a pandemic after all. In the United States, you’d also be hard pressed not to mention politics, the President or the election in some way either. Luckily for minigolf, only one of the two played an impactful role in my 2020 year (and the minigolf year overall), so you’ll be spared anything overtly political in this post. If you are interested in seeing a more visual recap of the year, Tom Loftus from A Couple of Putts and I did our 2020 review for We’re Gonna Need a bigger Windmill over on YouTube (more on that show later in the post).

As I’m sure was the case with most people, 2020 started off promising in my minigolf world. There was new season of Holey Moley coming, the U.S. Open was back on one of my favorite tournament courses in NJ (and close to me), the Master’s and a trip to Myrtle....

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It's Just a League Thing
07 Dec 2020 at 13:15 | Posted in: Competition | Views: 4910 | Comments: 0
It
For my readers in Europe and the folks who are close to Putt-Putt courses, the concept of minigolf leagues is probably not novel. However, in the Northeast United States we haven’t see a whole lot of organization around multi-week leagues. Prior to a couple of years ago, I only remember hearing about one that my friend Gary Shiff ran down at Odetah campground. This past summer, COVID and all, I knew of at least 5 across the Northeast. While that is still not a big number for a larger geographical area, there does seem to be more appetite for that type of entertainment, akin to a darts or bowling league. I’m not quite sure why there isn’t more of this but I suspect a large amount of it has to do with course owners not having anyone who knows how to/willing to run a league, coupled with potentially not wanting to take up valuable course space in what is already a short earning season.

Fortunately, one of the leagues is at Matterhorn Mini Golf, which hosts our....

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Crack Kills? – Part 2
25 Oct 2020 at 13:06 | Posted in: Competition | Views: 4069 | Comments: 0
Crack Kills? – Part 2
After leading off my last blog post with a discussion of the impact of the cracks between bricks on Harris courses, I’m amused when I look through my scores for the weekend and realize that none of my dropped shots ended up being due to a crack. I still blame the metal cups for a couple of them but ultimately 4+ of shots that I “shouldn’t” have had were due to my own over-confidence, stubbornness, and let’s face it, stupidity. If nothing else, at least that makes for a good story and maybe something I (and you dear readers) can learn from.

With a 10am start, it was nice to be able to sleep in a little bit for a tournament and get to the course around 8:30 versus the usual 7am. With it being October in New England, the air was crisp but not as chilly as they had previously called for, but enough that a sweatshirt was recommended for the morning practice. I traveled over to the course with Highlighter, who was staying at my hotel and we were the first people....

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Guest Post - Starting From Scratch
19 Oct 2020 at 17:28 | Posted in: Competition | Views: 4192 | Comments: 0
Guest Post - Starting From Scratch
Posting this on behalf of Justin Pelletier, a relatively new competitive minigolfer from Maine, USA.
***
Somewhere on the front nine of the second round of the Tabers Fall Classic in Auburn, Maine, on Oct. 11, I started thinking about prize payouts, late registrations and scoring updates. And live video. And photos.

My mind was everywhere but on the 14-inch putt in front of me. And I missed it. And another on the next hole. And another two holes later, and so on.

That second round was a mess. After a second-best 39 in the opening round — of my own tournament — I choked my way to a 46 in Round 2. While I recovered in the final round with a 41 to creep back into sixth place, it was disappointing.

I expect zero sympathy from any of my competitors on that day, nor anyone else reading this. Tournament mini golf is tough — tougher than every-day, play-with-your-pals or even practice-round mini golf — and everyone in the....

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Crack Kills – Part 1
11 Oct 2020 at 05:12 | Posted in: Competition | Views: 4463 | Comments: 0
Crack Kills – Part 1
For all of us who have played Harris miniature golf courses, we know too well the pain of watching a perfectly good backdoor putt go awry because it doesn’t hit the brick flat and catches the crack instead. I can safely say that almost all of us tomorrow will have that experience at least once during the 3 rounds. The cracks are there and they are ready to bite you like a movie monster. To add to the fun, the course also has the cups with the metal edges around them, which besides being a personal pet peeve, just tend to raise the average score of a round because you aren’t getting the favorable side drops to putts. It can (and is) said that the cups are the same for everyone at least but the frustration of watching what would normally be an ace with regular cups not drop doesn’t make that sentiment feel any better. There will be a mental game to over come that.

Despite what you might think given the above, I actually like this course as a tournament course.....

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Never Forget Your Penguin
09 Oct 2020 at 13:50 | Posted in: Competition | Views: 8860 | Comments: 1
Never Forget Your Penguin
Ever since we introduced Putt as the official mascot of The Putting Penguin, he has been with me on the course at every miniature golf tournament except for Holey Moley (didn’t want him to get ruined, he stayed at the hotel and was subbed in for by Duffer, one of our other penguins). That was until a couple of weekends ago at the Matterhorn International Pro-Am. As I’ve discussed before this is our tournament to administer so there’s a lot going on that morning when I’m prepping to leave the house. Unfortunately, this year I had to add on making sure I had my masks due to COVID and at some point I managed to walk by Putt sitting on my shelf about 12 times before exiting the house. Of course, I didn’t realize it until I was far enough away from the house to make it not viable to turn around and still be on time. Luckily, I have a reserve penguin always in my car, Skipper, who was going to get called up to the majors.

When it comes to minigolf I do tend to....

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Guest Post - How do I lay up on this hole?
01 Oct 2020 at 13:54 | Posted in: Competition | Views: 4089 | Comments: 0
Guest Post - How do I lay up on this hole?
Posting this on behalf of Dylan Koerner, a local minigolfer from Connecticut, USA.

The title of this post is a question I never thought I would ask myself while playing mini golf. It's a question no one would ever think I would ask myself if they've ever seen me play mini golf. Yet here I was, standing on the 18th tee at the final round of the 4th Annual International Pro-Am Mini Golf Tournament at Matterhorn Mini Golf in Canton, CT asking myself a question everyone else knew the answer to. But before we get to that, you should probably know how I got here.

I felt very prepared for the tournament this year. I had been close at another local tournament in Farmington, CT two of the last three years, playing against other pros in the area. I had placed 4th in this tournament last year, my best to date, with a record-tying 10 aces as well. I also had my best year in the weekly mini-golf league at Matterhorn, winning three of the nights including one dominant....

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When the Classics Do You In
27 Sep 2020 at 15:00 | Posted in: Competition | Views: 3863 | Comments: 0
When the Classics Do You In
I can probably sum up this blog post by replacing Happy Gilmore’s discontent with a clown with my own for a certain loop-de-loop and I’ll save myself 2,000 words. Sometimes life does imitate art.

But you know I like to weave a tale, so let’s see how I got to the point of hatred of a minigolf obstacle. It was the weekend after Labor Day, which means it was time to head North to Maine for the Lee Stoddard Dolphin Open. This was my 12th time playing in this tournament, the most of any tournament in my career. Since 2016 this tournament has seen a number of format variations for various reasons and this year would continue the trend. With the specter of COVID-19 hanging over everything, and Maine being a state that has strict travel restrictions, we knew it was going to be difficult for people to travel. Even for me, I wasn’t sure of Connecticut would be on the “approved” list to travel to Maine. As it was, Mandy was unable to make it because Maryland was....

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A Banner Almost Birthday
10 Sep 2020 at 13:16 | Posted in: Competition | Views: 3611 | Comments: 0
A Banner Almost Birthday
When I made the decision that I wanted to play the O-Street $1,000 Tournament down in NJ it was done mostly with the thought of supporting a fellow group of minigolf fanatics and Holey Moley alums. I had yet to make it to any of their tournaments and with the schedule being funky this year with other life/minigolf events due to COVID, when I found I could make it I jumped on the opportunity. It was a nearly 4 hour drive down there so I decided to head down Saturday afternoon (my birthday), stay the night and then drive back after the tournament. Despite it being an off year for vacations, I knew it was going to be a little expensive to stay given it was the Jersey Shore but it was worth it to play in another tournament.

A drive down to the NJ shore can always be iffy from Connecticut due to the need to cross the Hudson and then it always seems like every highway in NJ has traffic on it. But I was spared anything too bad and got to the hotel early evening where I met up....

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A Personal Return to In Person Competition
29 Aug 2020 at 13:47 | Posted in: Competition | Views: 3711 | Comments: 0
A Personal Return to In Person Competition
I realized when starting this post that it was going to be hard to steer clear of world current events when writing any personal views of minigolf, at least for the foreseeable future. I used to be of the mindset that sport was supposed to be this “escape” from the real world, a place that was protected from things like politics or social unrest. However, over the years I’ve come to understand that this is misguided. Sports has always been influenced by the “real” world – and why not? It’s played in the real world by real people, so how could it not possibly be a reflection of what those people are experiencing? Even our sport of minigolf has its challenges with regard to the current issues, whether it be lack of diversity or adapting to health restrictions. If you are taking your time to read my writing, just be aware that this stuff will bleed into my minigolf discussion.

Which sets the table for why it’s August and I’m just not writing about my....

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Guest Post - Farmington Glow Golf Tournament
04 Aug 2020 at 14:11 | Posted in: Competition | Views: 3773 | Comments: 0
Guest Post - Farmington Glow Golf Tournament
Posting this on behalf of Dylan Koerner, a local minigolfer from Connecticut, USA.

My name is Dylan Koerner. I am here to talk on my team’s win at the Farmington miniature golf glow ball tournament 2020 in Farmington, CT. This was the second year of the glow ball tournament and it is a two-man best ball event. This meant that my partner Brian and I would both play the hole and we would write down the best score. I knew that we had a chance to win because we were third-place last year and we both knew the course very well, having both shot 35 in tournament play on our own ball. What I didn’t know was how little that would matter with all of the changes that Doug, the tournament host, had made. {Editor's Note - Farmington Miniature Golf is a classic obstacle style course that has been holding a local tournament for almost 40 years. You can find our latest article on it here.}

Let’s start with the....

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Virtual 4 Nations Cup – A View of a Minigolf Future?
25 May 2020 at 15:14 | Posted in: Competition | Views: 3679 | Comments: 0
Virtual 4 Nations Cup – A View of a Minigolf Future?
At 40, I wouldn’t consider myself old by most measures except the eyes of a teenager and am certainly not old in the world of professional miniature golf. However, back when we started reviewing courses for The Putting Penguin in 2001 there wasn’t much of an Internet presence for miniature golf - even finding information on local courses was hard. It is safe to say I never thought I would be competing in a virtual putting event, streamed live on the Internet, with people from 4 countries around the world. In fact, it seems to be another in a long list of “never would I have thought” minigolf related items that I seem to be continuing to add to.

The Putt18 mat first crossed my path early in the COIVD-19 quarantine era as I was looking around for a new putting surface. I only had a simple putting mat that I normally used when we were creating things like our Tailgating Minigolf....

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Miniature Golf in the Time of Virus
08 May 2020 at 12:49 | Posted in: General | Views: 3354 | Comments: 0
Miniature Golf in the Time of Virus
At this point, after what is almost two months of stay-at-home orders across the globe (or even more aggressive lockdowns depending on where you are), you’ve probably already read 20 thought pieces on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on life, entertainment, business, politics, etc. You have also likely seen that the World Minigolf Sport Federation (WMF) has canceled all 2020 international championships and many other minigolf events such as the USPMGA’s U.S. Open, that was to be held in May, are also canceled. This leaves the competitive miniature golf landscape a little dry but there are signs of it starting to get rolling in certain parts of the world.

There have also been a couple of pieces already written about the impact to miniature golf and what putting might look like as we come out of the lockdown orders.
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An Aussie's First Look at the USPMGA Master's
05 Nov 2019 at 13:31 | Posted in: General | Views: 5586 | Comments: 1
An Aussie
Note: This blog was written by Allan Cox, perhaps best known for his trick shot and 18-ace series videos on YouTube under PuttPuttdownunder (link below).

After a 22 year gap from competing in the USA, it is time to play in the 2019 Master's. In 1997 I competed in the PPA nationals in Orange Lake with mixed results. The Masters has always been on the radar and now is as good as time as any to play with some of the best mini golfers on the planet. I first contacted long time friend and mentor Brad Lebo as to the best way to go about preparing and what to expect come competition time. As usual his advise is on the money and comes from vast experience in this tournament. Who better to ask help from then a former Masters champion?

This year the Master's is going to be run over 3 different courses, Hawaiian Rumble, Aloha Mini Golf and Hawaiian Village the Pineapple course. Originally I was thinking a week may be enough but opt for a fortnights preparation. This....

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Sometimes the Best Shot is Behind You
28 Oct 2019 at 12:39 | Posted in: Competition | Views: 7064 | Comments: 0
Sometimes the Best Shot is Behind You
9-1-1-1-2. It’s an interesting series of numbers and unless you were at the Master’s this year or have already heard my story, then you might not be able to guess what they represent. They are, in fact, my scoreline for hole 17 at the Hawaiian Rumble course during the Master’s.

Before I get to that part of my week’s journey, let’s start with some overall tournament thoughts. This is going to be a very long post given I didn’t do a blog mid-week of the tournament, and I’ve got a lot to say, so please bear with me.

I arrived down in Myrtle Beach late afternoon on Sunday with the family and by Monday mid-day I had settled in and was on the courses. My original plan had been to split up the 3 courses over the 3 days I would be there – attack Hawaiian Rumble first with my shortened day, since I felt most comfortable there, go to the Pineapple course at Hawaiian Village for Tuesday and then end up on the Island course at Aloha on Wednesday.....

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Moving Up a Spot
28 Sep 2019 at 13:56 | Posted in: General | Views: 3664 | Comments: 0
Moving Up a Spot
Another year is in the books for the Matterhorn International Pro-Am, held at the Swiss themed Matterhorn Mini Golf in Canton, Connecticut. I’m excited we’ve stretched this out to three years and am hoping to keep it going as long as we can. I have no idea if this will become one of those long running tournaments but as long as we’re in the area and Autumn, the course owner, is willing we’ll do our best to put on a great event.

From an administrative aspect, everything went about as well as a tournament could. The weather was outstanding, the tournament moved at a good pace, there was some drama in the final pro round that carried into some playoffs and records were broken. Most of all, it seemed like all of the participants left happy with having been a part of it which is the biggest mark of success. The only downside is that we ended up losing a few people from last year and didn’t show growth in the tournament overall, even though we picked up one....

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The Miniature Golf Family
19 Sep 2019 at 14:06 | Posted in: Competition | Views: 3391 | Comments: 0
The Miniature Golf Family
Driving home from Maine after the most recent tournament (the newly renamed Lee Stoddard Dolphin Open), I was contemplating what I was going to write about for the blog. This would be the third year I blogged about the tournament and with the same results (2nd all three years), I didn’t want to get repetitive. Then I realized that despite the fact that this was my 11th time playing this tournament (and 12th time at the course at the 2008 U.S. Open was held there) there was something that made this year different. It was the first year without course owner Lee Stoddard, who passed away in November 2018, and then I knew what I should focus on – miniature golf tournaments as family. Because that was the driving theme of the entire weekend.

Even before Lee passed, I would have said that the Dolphin tournament players were the best example of minigolf “family” I have. Many of the folks I only see once a year at that tournament, and sometimes it may be a few....

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Sixth Times a Charm
28 Aug 2019 at 13:24 | Posted in: Competition | Views: 6523 | Comments: 2
Sixth Times a Charm
The summer months in the US are home to a lot of local course tournaments (defined by me as those not part of the USPMGA or Putt Putt official tours, but just held by local course owners). One of the longest running ones in the country is the Pat Guglielmo Memorial Farmington Miniature Golf Tournament, which turns 38 this year. Despite being the tournament that is closest to me geographically in the 40 years I’ve lived in Connecticut, it took me until 2011 to play it for the first time. This was in part because of the timing in August, as I tended to have a lot of things going on personally so there were sometimes conflicts. The lack of play was not for lack of trying and the course is also home to the first Putting Penguin review, so we feel tied to it spiritually (though in looking at our review – it’s time for an update!). I wrote about the tournament the USPMGA U.S. Open and my 8th appearance overall in the event’s 22-year history. In this post I’m going to set the stage a little for the tournament, with it coming up in a little more than a week. My plan, as it has been the past few years, is to provide at least a couple “real time” posts from the tournament week, which kicks off for me May 20th, with the actual tournament running May 24th and 25th. There’s still time to join the fun if you are interested!

I’m happy I’ve had such a good run in U.S. Open attendance and am thankful more flexibility in my work schedule and wallet have allowed for the travel, whereas in the past it hasn’t been as easy. (Not to mention a big thanks to Liz and my family for allowing me to travel for the tournament and/or traveling with me when possible). Of the two....

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A crazy 2019 already!
21 Jan 2019 at 13:42 | Posted in: Personal | Views: 5430 | Comments: 2
A crazy 2019 already!
In just the first couple of weeks of 2019 there's been a couple of miniature golf items I saw fit to throw my opinion together for, so here you go dear reader.

The first is the really fun news. The USPMGA recently announced Team USA for the 2019 World Adventure Golf Masters (WAGM) to be played in Sweden. There are three teams of 4 playing (Red, White and Blue of course) and while I didn't make one of the core teams I was named the alternate player for the team this year. I have to say it's one of the coolest things I've experienced in my miniature golf life. I don't think that growing up I ever had a real expectation of representing my country in a sporting event and even when I found out about international miniature golf tournaments, I figured it was an outside chance at best or something that was way down the road with all of the great players in the US. I'm obviously hoping that I can....

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2018: A Minigolf Year in Review
31 Dec 2018 at 17:48 | Posted in: Personal | Views: 6252 | Comments: 1
2018: A Minigolf Year in Review
I find writing a year in review blog in some ways self-serving, almost as if I'm bragging about all the cool stuff I've gotten to do in the year, but it's that diversity of events which drives me to want to write one for the site. Most of my blogs are focused on the competitive nature of our sport, rightfully so for the site, so I like to take the opportunity to highlight the expanse of experiences miniature golf has to offer. You may not be able to do everything that I have had the chance to but hopefully you will see something interesting and grab onto that one piece of minigolf to help further your own connection with the sport. I always feel incredibly lucky in that I've been able to do a ton of interesting things in this sport and that my work/life/family have allowed me to participate in so many activities. In some years I would have tried to do a top ten or rank the things that happened but in a year like this I think it's easier just to walk through the year. It's hard to....

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Not Quite Mastering the Master
22 Oct 2018 at 14:51 | Posted in: Personal | Views: 4163 | Comments: 0
Not Quite Mastering the Master
It's no surprise that writing this blog is much easier after a tournament when I feel like I've met, or at least come close, to my personal goals and/or have finished in the money. That being said, while I feel a bit disappointed with my finish in the USPMGA Master's, I can't say that I played "bad" during the whole tournament and I definitely can't say that I didn't have fun. Having two beautiful tournament days on a miniature golf course can almost never be bad (especially when one of them is a weekday and the alternative is working my day job). If it was, I'd stop playing, and I think a lot of players on tour feel the same way. You can never forget that our sport is built on a foundation of windmills and clown faces!

After all of the practice and Hurricane induced delays, I got to the Aloha course before dawn on Thursday, where I'd be playing my first 4 rounds. In an interesting bit of grouping, I would actually be playing with Mark "The Highlighter" Novicki, my....

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Minigolf Madness and Going Tropical
11 Oct 2018 at 21:55 | Posted in: Personal | Views: 6631 | Comments: 4
Minigolf Madness and Going Tropical
It's quite interesting at times when things in a certain sphere just all come together at one time. That certainly seemed to be the case over the past ten days as they lead up to the USPMGA Master's happening this weekend in Myrtle Beach.

This past week work found me right in the heart of minigolf country in Orlando, Florida. I wasn't sure if I would have time to sneak away for some putting but after a team event, 6 of us headed to Pirate's Cove on International Drive. I never seem to have a problem getting people to come with me since at this point several of the people I work with are always looking for their chance to beat me straight up on a course. Upon arriving, one of my co-workers felt the need to point out they were there to take down a pro-minigolfer. I'm not one to usually announce what I do when I'm at a course (especially when reviewing for The Putting Penguin) but sometimes people figure it out from a shirt or hat. This time, however, the clerks....

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Climbing the Mountain Again
28 Sep 2018 at 13:35 | Posted in: Personal | Views: 11558 | Comments: 2
Climbing the Mountain Again
Success! That's the theme of this post. Part of it is personal, but more it's the success of the wider concept of the Matterhorn International Pro-Am. As I had noted in my previous post, I was concerned about having a sophomore slump for the tournament and overall it didn't turn out that way as we had 31 people compete (compared to 34 in 2017). I was hoping to have a few more on the pro division, which is something we'll work on for next year, but the competitive nature of that division made up for the lack of numbers.

The morning starts early on Saturday versus a regular tournament day as I spend an additional 30 minutes making sure I have everything packed to run the tournament as well - computer, printer, things like that. Autumn (owner of the course) is providing some extra help this year on the administrative side which means we can get the score totals out quicker to the crowd. Since we haven't moved fully electronic yet, and I know the suffering of waiting to....

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Making it Annual
22 Sep 2018 at 04:11 | Posted in: Personal | Views: 3793 | Comments: 0
Making it Annual
One of the most difficult things about success is following it up with more success. That's true when both playing in miniature golf tournaments and running them. Last year we had the opportunity to run the 1st Matterhorn International Pro-Am, over at Matterhorn Mini Golf in Canton, CT and we had a beautiful day of weather and over 30 people play between the two divisions. This is a fair amount for a local tournament, running for the first time. The question on our mind this year was if we could replicate those types of numbers or even exceed them.

As of the time of this writing, it looks like we'll have a slightly smaller field than last year (we had a lot of sign-ups the day of last year so who knows what Saturday will bring) but the pro division looks like it's going to be super competitive. This year we expanded the paying places to 8th and it looks like we got a couple of people to jump from amateur to pro as a result. This is awesome, and the same exact path....

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Time for Lobstah - Part 2
17 Sep 2018 at 13:24 | Posted in: Personal | Views: 3758 | Comments: 0
Time for Lobstah - Part 2
This is Part 2 of my trip to Maine for the 25th Maine State Dolphin Open. You can see part 1 in my blog archives.

Day of the tournament is finally here and Highlighter gives me a ride to the course. The pairings are drawn that morning and I'm playing with Terri Lawson from Pennsylvania, who I know from many years at this tournament. I'm feeling good but immediately shank my first putt. Luckily it's not too bad as I watch it hit off the brick and careen towards the hole - and gods be praised I get a lucky double bounce and it's in for an unconventional ace! I hope that's a good sign of things to come. It would be on that hole at least as I would ace it four times in a row (the last three being more "traditional" in style).

I'm feeling good about my round, especially when I ace the double-decker 13 (which is all about speed to the small center hole up top) to go one under. Then disaster strikes on the loop at 14. I swear I'm good for this once a....

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Time for Lobstah - Part 1
15 Sep 2018 at 13:24 | Posted in: Personal | Views: 3862 | Comments: 0
Time for Lobstah - Part 1
Hard to believe it has been a bit over three months since I took part in a miniature golf tournament but that's kind of how it goes in New England. As a result, to catch up I'm breaking this post up into two sections, I hope you enjoy.

While there are some tournaments that are popping up over the summer, most tend to be in the fringe of the season (May or September) to take advantage of slower times at the courses. Unfortunately I also missed the most local tournament to me, the Farmington Miniature Golf tournament in August, due to a death in my extended family. That ends up being a double downer because I tend to find that miniature golf, especially tournament prep and play, if one of the ways I use to pull myself out of the rough stuff of everyday life and have something positive and fun to focus on.

However, since it was a two-day tournament I did get a chance to visit day two and support my fellow penguin Mandy (who came in second in the lower....

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On the Big(ish) Screen!
11 Jun 2018 at 15:07 | Posted in: Personal | Views: 3967 | Comments: 0
On the Big(ish) Screen!
When I started my minigolf journey in 2001, I had no idea where it would lead me. Since our first reviews were posted online, Mandy and I have been in numerous newspaper and magazine articles, I've been on the radio a few times, including PGA Tour radio, and the name "Putting Penguin", has become more recognizable in the miniature golf world than "Pat Sheridan." About four years ago we were contacted by filmmaker Amanda Kulkoski for a documentary she was working on called Through the Windmill. Her goal was to showcase why people loved the sport of minigolf, focusing on the US, through talking to course owners who live and breathe it as a business, to those of us who have it as a driving hobby, to the professional/competitive side of putting. We spent a good chunk of a day with her team at Saybrook Point, a local course, shooting us playing and being interviewed.

We kept in touch....

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Sheridan's March to the Sea (or the Flood Streets of North Carolina)
28 May 2018 at 14:03 | Posted in: Personal | Views: 3897 | Comments: 0
Sheridan
It's funny sometimes how an actual tournament can be so disconnected from your practice rounds. To say I was pleasantly surprised with how I ended up at the 2018 U.S. Open is an understatement. I did much better than I thought I would and am very happy for it.
It was no much of a surprise when I woke up on Friday to pouring rain since it had been doing that all week and it was forecasted for the morning. Nonetheless I was at the course by 7:15 and the rain let up enough for me to get in a few holes of practice. Then the heavens opened up again and we all went running for cover and the start of the opening ceremonies. The rain would push the start time back by about an hour and the big question was going to be how would the field react to it.

For this year's tournament the threesomes (and two twosomes) were set by random draw and I would end up playing with Justin Seymour, one of my CT putting buddies, and Tommy Ellis, a local player. I was the 8th group....

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Snakes on a Minigolf Course!
18 May 2018 at 03:48 | Posted in: Personal | Views: 3814 | Comments: 0
Snakes on a Minigolf Course!
I want to start this blog with a quick correction from my last one. I mistakenly said we were playing 8 rounds with a cut after 6 at this year's U.S. Open. I was thinking of the last Open here and 8 rounds stuck in my mind. We are actually playing 10 rounds with the cut happening after 8. My bad. Now on to my long pre-tournament post.

The past couple of days have been an interesting time of practice. First, the weather has been iffy and at times has played some havoc. Wednesday morning it was particularly bad. Usually on a practice day I wake up around 7am and try to be at the course before 8:30am. On Wednesday I woke up to a torrential downpour and decided that I would not be going to the course too early. It would be almost 10:30 before the rain broke and even then it was only long enough to get in about 27, very waterlogged, holes. On the plus side, I figured out how to "float" a few putts into the cups if it comes down to it. During the next rain break I....

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Making the Trip to the U.S. Open
16 May 2018 at 04:20 | Posted in: Personal | Views: 6638 | Comments: 1
Making the Trip to the U.S. Open
After 8 states, 13 hours of driving and quick stop to sleep a few hours, I made it from Connecticut to Hendersonville, North Carolina, home of the 2018 U.S. Open. The tournament returns to the Par Tee Time course at Champions Golf Center, where it was last held in 2015. I rather liked when the U.S. Open was a bit closer since making the trip down to the Carolina's twice in one year (as the Master's is held in Myrtle Beach) is a bit of a haul, but you do what you need to do for one of the majors. I wouldn't recommend this for people looking to get into the sport (try something closer at home) but hopefully once you get the bug for tournaments you won't think twice about traveling around the country to play. I had briefly considered flying down but for this year I opted to drive, leaving the family at home for the week (for better or worse). The flexibility of being able to throw all your stuff into your own car and not worrying about whether or not the airline will actually....

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Introducing Our Newest Writer - Mathieu Labrie
04 May 2018 at 14:06 | Posted in: General | Views: 7093 | Comments: 1
Introducing Our Newest Writer - Mathieu Labrie
Editor's Note: It's always great to see our family growing here at Minigolfnews, so I take pleasure in introducing a new blogger/writer for our site from Canada, Mathieu Labrie. We haven't had much content on the sight from my neighbor's to the North so really looking to get to know about the minigolf scene there. After this first post, he'll be posting under his own username, so keep a lookout for them! If anyone else is interested in providing their viewpoint or helping the site cover other parts of the world, please let me know. Without further ado, let's get to the good stuff...

It is with great pleasure that I accepted Minigolfnews' invitation to report this summer about the minigolf activities in Canada. More precisely, I will focus on the tournaments organized by Mini-Putt.net which is the organizer of the provincial tour across multiple courses in my home province of Quebec.

A little something about me:
As far as I can....

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London Calling
02 May 2018 at 13:37 | Posted in: Personal | Views: 4170 | Comments: 0
London Calling
I'm happy to have a job that affords me the ability to travel as it usually means I can loop in some personal fun as well, which was definitely the case with the latest trip to London in late April. I arrived on Saturday with two work friends and after checking in at the hotel in the middle of Leicester Square we immediately moved onto Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese, a pub that was rebuilt before my country even existed. After a bit of fish'n'chips and a few pints in the historical basement, we were off for a tour of some London sights and pubs. Given that, it's a bit surprising that I was able to rouse myself at 7am to start my trip on Sunday out to the British Masters. Nothing quite like waking up early for minigolf.

I had given a thought playing the tournament but I didn't know if I would be able to dedicate a whole day to the tournament. As it turned out, I was but it ended up being enjoyable getting to watch a tournament from end-to-end versus worrying about how I was....

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Almost That Time
19 Apr 2018 at 14:36 | Posted in: Personal | Views: 12184 | Comments: 0
Almost That Time
Yikes, it's a month away!



That was my thought when I turned the calendar the other day and realized that it would soon be May, the month home to the U.S. Open for the past couple of years. This meant a few things: 1) I better start preparing for it, 2) I better start writing about it and 3) oh crap, I'm that much closer to having another tiny human being running my life (and we've found out this one is going to be a girl - hopefully good for upping the gender diversity in the sport soon).



This year the U.S. Open returns to Hendersonville, North Carolina and the Par Tee Time course at Champions Golf Center, which held the U.S. Open in 2015. This course got the best of me last time there but I'm looking to avenge those scores this go around (more on the course in a later discussion).



In preparation for that, I'd like to say I've been preparing but my "offseason" work has been-well not lacking entirely, but surely....

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A new minigolf year is upon us!
05 Jan 2018 at 13:33 | Posted in: Personal | Views: 6012 | Comments: 2
A new minigolf year is upon us!
With 2017 now in the rear view and 2018 laid out before us like a brand new lane, I wanted to take a few minutes to look back on my year as a minigolfer and Editor-in-Chief of the site. 2017 ended up being one of the busiest minigolf years for me in a long time. It was one of our slowest years at The Putting Penguin, getting in just about 15 new reviews between our own travels and visitor reviews, but we expected it to slow down as we conquered more and more of the easily drivable courses. Mandy and I have both done our best to hit up courses when work or other vacation plans take us out of the Northeast and that has helped to expand our reach as we got into some new states and played some more internationally. It's also been a challenge to run both that site and Minigolfnews at the same time but it's been worth it.

While we didn't get a whole lot of reviews done for The Putting Penguin I did play in the most....

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Finishing the Master
30 Oct 2017 at 12:55 | Posted in: Competition | Views: 6909 | Comments: 3
Finishing the Master
Once again, there was a long time between me actually finishing the tournament and getting to this post but I think the extra time was good, being able to think through a few things.
The earliest I had to get up during tournament week was Saturday, the last day of the Masters. Since I wasn't in the top 35, I was in the first wave of players to hit Hawaiian Rumble and we teed off by 7:30am. It was actually nice to play a bit in the "dark" with the lights on at Rumble but it's tough to play tournament minigolf before the sun comes up. Usually any round before 8am and a bit of coffee is a disaster for me!

Upon getting to the course I try to hit a few balls on some of the easier holes in the attempt to dial in some aces on the final day. It's during that practice when I hear of a controversial decision that ends up compounding itself and angering quite a few players. In the next few paragraphs, I will warn you that I will be critical and a bit negative so if....

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The Heat is on...
14 Oct 2017 at 02:58 | Posted in: Competition | Views: 4630 | Comments: 0
The Heat is on...
Day 1 of the USPMGA Masters starts like most tournament days and I'm up by 6:30am and at Hawaiian Rumble by 7:15am for the player check-in and opening ceremonies. Everyone will meet at Rumble first before splitting into their respective courses for the first five rounds. Instead of doing any practice, I decide to chat with various folks that I haven't seen in a while, or just met, and go about the business of talking tournament and expanding the sport. The weather is warm, but not hot, and at that point the sun has stayed behind the clouds.

The opening ceremonies are great with honor guard, national anthem, and a speech by the mayor. All of the stuff you would expect from a major tournament. The only thing I don't like about the morning meeting (and I'm not being disparaging, just telling it like it is) is that there is virtually no explanation of the rules of the tournament. While most of the players have either played in the Masters or another USPMGA event, I....

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Mastering the Masters...
12 Oct 2017 at 03:14 | Posted in: Competition | Views: 4359 | Comments: 0
Mastering the Masters...
This is the first year that I will play in the USPMGA Masters after many years playing in tournaments. The October time has never seemed to be good for me to get to Myrtle Beach and this year was almost no different as I ended up having to go to Missouri for a wedding the weekend before. So instead of heading down early for a few days of practice I was up at 3am on Tuesday morning to make the 14 hour drive to South Carolina from my home in Connecticut. Lucky for me I was armed with plenty of podcasts, audio books and music which I could sing along to in order to keep myself company on the drive (Tom Petty and the Hamilton soundtrack kept me pretty occupied once I got to Virginia).

I was actually pretty happy with the trip as I only hit a bit of traffic around Washington D.C. and the rest was smooth sailing, even if it was lonely at times. By 6pm I was checked into the hotel and meeting with Mark "The Highlighter" Novicki for a quick bite of dinner and a pint (if you....

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Conquering the Matterhorn
09 Oct 2017 at 18:01 | Posted in: Competition | Views: 4116 | Comments: 0
Conquering the Matterhorn
Apologies upfront for the lateness of this blog post. While I had pretty much completed it two things got in the way of me finalizing it: 1) the computer on which I wrote it crashing and me being an idiot and not backing it up and 2) life. But here I am having re-written this lengthy post for you and I think it was true to my original thoughts!

It's over! That's what I was thinking about 5pm on September 23rd as we finished passing out all of the rewards and taking the final pictures of all the winners. What an exhausting day it was between the stress of playing and the stress of running the tournament but I was happy with how both turned out. The 1st Matterhorn International Pro-Am got a great reception by the players and we had some great play to kick off what will hopefully be a multi-year tournament.

The day began at 6am as I got up, grabbed a bit of coffee and headed over to pick up Mark "The Highlighter" Novicki who asked for a ride the night....

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Setting off For Switzerland (sort of)
23 Sep 2017 at 04:22 | Posted in: Competition | Views: 4336 | Comments: 0
Setting off For Switzerland (sort of)
I'm barely done documenting my last tournament when it's time to turn around and get ready for the next one. I guess this is the life of a "touring pro!" This one will be a little different, though, as Mandy and I are running the tournament via The Putting Penguin. It's the first time in 4 years we've run a tournament so we're excited to bring a "tour date" back on the schedule, even if it's just a "local" at this time. This does mean a whole other set of challenges on top of preparing for the play, which Mandy and I will both be taking part in.

First, the course. Matterhorn Mini Golf is the result of a lot of hard work put in by Autumn Sutherland who determined the theme after spending many years living in Switzerland. The love affair paid off as the course is one of the best Connecticut has to offer. It's been open for 3 years now and we were involved a bit in the beginning as a sounding board for Autumn to pitch some ideas. The result was a course where all 18....

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Defending a Title - Part 2
18 Sep 2017 at 13:45 | Posted in: Competition | Views: 4136 | Comments: 0
Defending a Title - Part 2
Now it's game time! I'm up at 6:30 AM and I quietly shower and get out of the hotel room without waking the wife or son. After grabbing a bagel and coffee at the hotels breakfast I make my way over to the course. It's a beautiful late summer day in Boothbay with a slight chill in the air and sunny skies. I'm not the first one to the course, with John and Highlighter beating me there. I have time to sneak in two more practice rounds, shooting a 35 and a 39. I was as ready as I will ever be.

As the tournament has gotten smaller in recent years and registration a little more "lax" we don't really know who will be playing until its time to tee off. It's a small group this year, just 10 of us, but they are almost all contenders including Lee who has actually never won his own tournament. I'm paired with Randy Rice, one of the largest people on the USPMGA tour. You may also have seen him in commercials or on the show �Smartest Guys in the Room� that was on the....

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Defending a Title - Part 1
17 Sep 2017 at 14:11 | Posted in: Competition | Views: 3989 | Comments: 0
Defending a Title - Part 1
When tournament blogging I've been trying to do at least one post pre-tournament with some stuff to look forward to and then one post-tournament as a wrap up. However, with a crazy travel schedule leading up to the Maine State Dolphin Open, I didn't have the chance so I'll be doing a two-part blog after the event. Hopefully both parts will keep you entertained as you read it on your commute, while waiting in line or while using the toilet (I know that's where most of you are reading this). I'm going to try to sneak another post in prior to our upcoming Matterhorn International Pro-Am.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, this year's Maine State Dolphin Open is the first time I will be rolling into a semi-major tournament as the defending champion. My goal this year was not necessarily to defend the title, although that would be nice, but to have a strong showing to prove that the prior year wasn't just a fluke. The difficult thing is that I won't be getting much....

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Getting Pummeled on the Course
25 Aug 2017 at 13:27 | Posted in: Competition | Views: 4394 | Comments: 0
Getting Pummeled on the Course
It was after the first day of the Farmington Miniature Golf tournament that I realized sometimes one can have too high expectations when one takes minigolf tournaments as seriously as some of us do. Most people would have been very happy to be tied for 3rd after two rounds, yet there I sat annoyed at my play during the second round and wondering what could have been. Not that it mattered though, a beat down was in place and I'll get to how badly we all got smacked later.

The first day started earlier than any Saturday ever should. My alarm was set for 5:45 but I ended up being woken up quite a bit earlier than that by our cat. She finally decided to catch the mouse that had been running around our house this week and woke me up at 3:30 that morning by crunching loudly on the mouse's head next to my bedside. After removing the rest of the headless mouse from her (it was my estimate that she had enough of the fresh meat) I slept off and on until the alarm went off.....

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Just a few practice rounds...
19 Aug 2017 at 04:03 | Posted in: Competition | Views: 3660 | Comments: 0
Just a few practice rounds...
My plan was to hit a few practice rounds this afternoon as my last preparation for the tournament tomorrow. A few turned into 8 rounds over 4 hours! Luckily the heavy stuff didnt come down for a while, so all I was left with was incredibly humid air and a few sprinkles. Overall I was content with my rounds, bringing the total practice rounds for this tournament to 15. Its sort of the same feeling I had prior to the U.S. Open rounds. I had done ok, but I knew I could do better. Im hoping perhaps to get a repeat performance from the Open where I did just that. My average for the rounds was 39.8 which is about a stroke higher than I would have liked to seen it. Depending on the round a different hole seemed to kill my score though for the most part I was finding a decent amount of aces to offset the bogies (and in some cases double and triple bogies), even if some of them were rather lucky. I ended practice with only one hole below par and one at even not exactly what Id....

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It's Time for Locals!
16 Aug 2017 at 14:18 | Posted in: Competition | Views: 4483 | Comments: 0
It
Now that the U.S. Open its time to turn my attention to a busy couple of months of tournaments. August and September is when I do most of my tournament playing given the availability of events local to me (within a few hour drive). If I were a single man and could do crazy road trips I could play two tournaments in one weekend about 8 hours apart from each other. Alas, I am happy with my family and am not that completely insane when it comes to tournament play.

My upcoming tournament schedule features the Farmington Miniature Golf (FMG) Tournament (August 19 & 20), the Maine State Dolphin Open (September 9), the Matterhorn International Pro-Am (September 23) and hopefully the USPMGA Masters (October 12-14). Ill save the Masters talk for another blog but want to talk briefly about the other three, including the start of my preparations for the FMG. Each of these tournaments brings a different set of challenges that set them apart from each other and a tournament....

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Welcome Cameron Couper!
31 Jul 2017 at 13:28 | Posted in: General | Views: 3860 | Comments: 0
Welcome Cameron Couper!
Minigolfnews: We'd like to welcome Cameron Couper from New Zealand as our newest blogger on Minigolfnews. Cameron is a relatively new competitive minigolf player and will be providing some local perspective on the growing miniature golf scene "down under" as well as some thoughts on playing the major international tournaments. His first post is below and future posts will be under his username.

Who knew that there was a mini golf world championship, that you could play the game as a competitive sport as well as a fun activity while on holiday in the summer time with friends.

I certainly didnt, well I kind of knew vaguely that there was some sort of championship somewhere in the world, but not to the extent that Ive now come to find out about.

Late last year I found out that the New Zealand mini golf federation were looking at hosting the first ever New Zealand open, I thought to myself that this could be something that would....

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Down the Stretch They Come...
24 Jul 2017 at 23:34 | Posted in: Competition | Views: 4111 | Comments: 0
Down the Stretch They Come...
I was so exhausted from the weekend I had to take a bit of break before getting back to my last post from the U.S. Open. It's amazing what up to 12 hours of putting, in the 90 degree heat, over 5 days will do to a person. It was probably as much mental exhaustion as physical given that over 350 putts all called for concentration and mental acuity to get them made.

To kick off day 2 of the Open I was up at 6am and at the course just after 7am. I was surprised at how calm I was. Normally when I do well in a tournament, especially of this caliber, I've got the jitters and am constantly thinking about how do I keep my place. This time out, however, I was only thinking about the fact that I knew I could deuce every hole and get a few aces as well, which would be good enough for some good scores.

Practice was simple - just a short walk around the course, hitting a couple of balls and testing out the speeds. I wasn't changing any shots at this point.....

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US Open Day 1
22 Jul 2017 at 04:17 | Posted in: Competition | Views: 3972 | Comments: 0
US Open Day 1
Its finally here the first day of the 2017 U.S. Open. Time to put all that practice to work. I arrived at the course around 7am and a great many of the players were already there practicing. I was surprised to see how good a condition the course was in after last nights storm but in talking with John Forbes (who is co-running the tournament) he mentioned the grounds crew as out there cleaning up early this morning. Kudos to them on doing an amazing job. I also was pleasantly surprised to see my mug on the giant board with some of the best players of the tournament. Not sure I will ever get that level of infamy again until I get to winning a major tournament. I practiced a few holes where I wanted to try my best to get some aces but didnt overwork myself. I felt I had what I needed to get the tournament started.

At around 8:30 everyone came in for the opening ceremonies. They went all out this time. We had the National Anthem, a few speeches, a ribbon....

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US Open Eve
21 Jul 2017 at 02:48 | Posted in: Competition | Views: 4069 | Comments: 0
US Open Eve
Well here we are on the eve of the tournament. Today was a very sweaty day of practice as the temperatures were in the mid-80s by 8am and settled around the low 90s the whole day with some intense humidity. Most of the rounds were brutal for the middle of the course that was in direct sunlight.

I spent the first part of the morning charting shots again with Danny Baddeley, then we turned our attention playing a few more practice rounds. The first few I was playing cleaner than yesterday but with less aces. However, that brought my overall score down a bit before sliding up the rest of the day. During the afternoon, Matt Bellner (who many of you know for his bright outfits and wonderful personality) arrived and I played a quick round with him on his first go-around for the course. Overall, including the North/South rounds below, I will have played 24 practice rounds at around an average over just over 38, which I was happy with. It's about where I ended up in 2014.....

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US Open T-Minus 2 Days
20 Jul 2017 at 04:05 | Posted in: Competition | Views: 3604 | Comments: 0
US Open T-Minus 2 Days
Today at the not-too- early hour of 8am as I swung by Dunkin Donuts for a quick bite and a coffee before kicking off the putting. I was bit surprised to see the volume of people on the course at 8:30 but perhaps it was because people were trying to get in as much putting in as possible before it got too hot. By the time I took a break around 2pm, the temperatures had reached into the low 90s and as I've mentioned before there is very little shade on the course. I saw that most of the Connecticut crew had arrived and were already out working on a few shots. While most of the Europeans, including my friends in the UK, often talk about which minigolf club they belong to, we really don't have the same concept here in the States. So mostly we just align ourselves by geography when it comes to side hustles or bragging rights. Theres already some discussion of a North vs South bit to be had and usually we played for the Connecticut cup at these tournaments where a group of us our....

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US Open T-Minus 3 Days
19 Jul 2017 at 04:12 | Posted in: Competition | Views: 4332 | Comments: 0
US Open T-Minus 3 Days
Today it was time to return South for a few days of practice leading up to the two day event of the US Open. I left about mid-morning from Connecticut and made the trip to mid-New Jersey in a comfortable 3 hours and 30 minutes, listening to recaps of Game of Thrones the whole way. I checked into the hotel first before heading to the course. The past few years my wife, dog and then child have been traveling with me to the US Open and we were undecided about the plans for this year. They decided to stay home (at least for the practice days) but I still had booked a rather spacious suite just in case so I get to enjoy a multi-story room with a full kitchen. It's a Marriott and getting the upgrade to the way-too-large room is just one of the perks from all of my travels for work. While I enjoy having my family around to provide support, putting in hours of practice is a bit easier when you just have to worry about your own welfare.

It was a quick stop at the hotel....

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And So It Begins...
04 Jul 2017 at 14:26 | Posted in: Competition | Views: 4086 | Comments: 0
And So It Begins...
I'm taking a bit of a break from writing articles for the site to hit up a few blog posts around the 2017 U.S. Open. Previously I had done this on The Putting Penguin site, but have moved over here to keep in line with our other blogs. A bit later I'll also be talking about the tournament we are helping to run and what goes into both sides of getting competitive minigolf off the ground.

This year the U.S. Open tournament returns to Bluegrass Minigolf in Oceanport, NJ for the 2nd time and the tournament will be held on July 21st and 22nd. It will be a 10 round tournament. The last time it was held here, Matt McCaslin took the top spot.

The U.S. Open has been the one USPMGA event I've played fairly regularly, especially over the past four years. The last time it was at Bluegrass, I finished my best to date (12th) and was actually pretty excited to move up from 20th on the last day of the competition. I'm hoping this year to do even better but I'm not....

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Taking on the Competition in Cardiff
03 Nov 2016 at 13:04 | Posted in: Personal | Views: 5334 | Comments: 0
Taking on the Competition in Cardiff
Editor's Note: We welcome back Steve Lovell who is bringing us another post, this one from the Welsh Open in Cardiff.


Thursday: Part of me is delighted, almost elated, to be heading down to the second ever Welsh Open in the morning. Another chance to be shut off in my own little putting bubble, forgetting about all the worries of the world. Part of me almost questions my sanity for wanting to get to Cardiff for opening, which means waking up at 5.15 am. Also at this point, I would like to add that I have involved someone else in these plans, a tour veteran named Terry Exall. My idea of an early night is scuppered by staying up to watch TSN Top 10 plays videos on YouTube. Just one more can't hurt and then, I see the time. Blast.


Friday: I feel amazingly fresh ahead of the four hour drive to Wales, punctuated by meeting Terry around 75 miles from the venue. Bearing in mind we both have around a journey of 120 miles from differing....

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A Player's Look at the British Open
30 Sep 2016 at 16:42 | Posted in: Competition | Views: 5428 | Comments: 0
A Player
Editor's Note: We're posting this blog on behalf of Steve Lovell who was kind enough to volunteer his insight as a player at the 2016 British Open held in Hastings. It's one of several items we are posting about the British Open and hope you enjoy the coverage.

It's that time of year again, those without international commitments have to wait nearly two months to put right what went wrong last time. I'm Steve Lovell, a touring minigolfer on the British tour and this is my British Open story.

Wednesday: Coming home from work and rushing down a meal, this is my only night of the week to myself, having received a guest from out of town for a few days. I throw a number of clothes in the direction of the bag and print off my notes for the Pirate Course in Hastings. I had only previously visited the track ten days earlier but had no practice due to an accident on the way down. 'The notes. They'll be fine,' I thought. I try to get an early night. No luck.

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