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 one of the worst competitive rounds I have had in a long time when you compare actual score to what I would normally shoot. I guess it’s somewhat a testament to what I can do that I came back with a 39 to bring me closer to the leaders and finished out with two 43s which were just good enough to be respectable. My predictions were ok:

- I was right on the under of 160 for the winning score as it came in at 159
- I don’t know what the aces count was for the winner but I wasn’t accurate in my personal push at 6 as I went under
- The winning number of aces was under the 4 and the winning margin was slightly larger than I expected, with it being 4 strokes instead of 2
- Finally – I did have one personal round without an ace and surprisingly it wasn’t the round where I blew up.

I did enjoy being back at the course and think it was a great tournament overall and hope that Gary continues to make it happen. My own personal wish is that I don’t go straight to it next year after a campout in the woods with the Boy Scouts (I’ll make a little bit of an excuse and say I was quite tired that day!)

The other event I got to be involved in wasn’t as much a tournament for myself. The Joe Abate Foundation reached out to me to help with their first miniature golf tournament. I was happy to and one of the things I would do is set a “beat the pro” round at Hidden Valley in Southington. I had hoped to get in more practice and more rounds to set a lower score (because I know I can on that course) but I ended up carding a respectable 37 after just one practice round. Interestingly enough when I went back and play just a fun round during the tournament with the course putter and ball, I would card the same score! In the end they only had two folks beat the score, which is pretty much which you wanted with something like that and over 70 participants. It looked like everyone had a great time and I hope they do it again next year.

The next tournament staring me in the face is the O-Street $1,000 tournament which returns to Tee Time Golf in Ocean City, NJ on the boardwalk. Two years ago I captured the win on a different course and didn’t have my best day last year coming in at T-15. I know I could win on a course like this but this year I’ve admittedly not had a lot of practice so not sure my chances. However, I do think I should be able to move up into the Top-10 and definitely have it in me to grab a spot in the Top-5. If nothing else, the only thing I want to make sure I accomplish is successfully getting through the hippo in both rounds after it killed me last year with a very annoying 3 in the first round. (I had misremembered and thought it bit me twice but in looking at the scores I did ace it the second time). I also just want to make sure I improve on my scores in general, and here’s my overall predictions/hopes:

- I will increase my aces count from 8 to over 10
- The winning ace count will be 12 or over
- I will drop my overall score by at least 4 strokes
- The winning score will be 65 or under
- I will card no more than one 3+ hole per round
- Someone from NJ will NOT win the tournament (it’s been 2 CT and 1 PA in the previous 3 years)

With that, lets go out there and have a good tournament today!

The views expressed in this blog are solely the views of the writer and do not represent the World Minigolf Sport Federation (WMF), Minigolfnews.com or any other organization that the writer may be associated with unless expressly stated in the blog.