I have mixed emotions when I think about 2023. I achieved some goals I wanted to achieve (like my first top 10s at ranking events), and some other things I didn't believe I would be capable of (like having a course record). However during the last half year, I had big problems with my game during tournaments, where I could not hit a ball straight, and I was really upset about it. I had to skip a ranking event because of a car accident, and I didn't play at all in the last 2 months. At least this is going to change very soon, as I'm going back to play next weekend.

Apart from minigolf this year, I decided it was time to come out from early retirement in table tennis, and joined the greatest club in Budapest, the Dream Team. I had the opportunity to play a match last season, I won 2 out of 4 games, and the team won 11-5, so it was a great start. The plan in 2024 is to play another game, or more if it's possible, and keep it successful. :)

Let's have a look.... Read more »

We already played our first tournament back in January in Gloucester. Usually, I didn’t play very well here on strokeplay events so far before, but this time I surprised myself with a 4th place finish. I was very happy with that.
Next stop Hastings Open, I didn’t have high expectations on a course I have never played before. I finished in the top half of the field, and I was ok with that, just a bit disappointed because of the last round.

In the same month, we played the Strokes Open and the Club Championships. First, the strokeplay was my result this year based on my expectations, I played badly. On the second day, we finished 6th in the Clubs, which is a respectable result for a 3-player team, and we barely missed out on the semi final. Both days we had challenging conditions on an already challenging course.

This month we visited Gloucester again, this time we played the bigger events, singles matchplay, and the Gloucester Aces Open. In the.... Read more »

Hi folks, it’s been a while since I found time to write a new post, now it’s a good time for me to look back at the second half of the year, show you my latest minigolf videos, and set my goals for 2023.

Tournament reviews and videos:
- UrbanCrazy Cardiff Open: I played and won my first playoff in Category 3 for a bronze medal.
- I made a new video with Ian at his home course in Taunton:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_dmre0tFFvc
- Balaton Cup: I made a top 10 in singles (8th) and 3rd place in doubles with Karl Lakos. He was a great playing partner and played very well during this event. I’m planning to go back and play again next year.
- Sussex Wasps Open: I lost a playoff for an aces prize (I played that so badly) and I finished 2nd at the team competition with Simon Brown and James Shaw.
- British Championship: I barely made a top 20, the best thing about this one, I achieved my 50 average target on this hard, cruel.... Read more »

Since the last blog, I made another aces compilation video about the course in Gloucester. You can check it on this link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sivWPPXALjo

World Crazy Golf Championship:
In June I had a nice 2 weeks long holiday for minigolf, and first I played the WCGC in Hastings, which is a great event. I spent about 2,5 days with practice, and I was satisfied with my results, I had a few rounds of 32, and managed to hit 30 once. 3-4 rounds without a drop, so it looked really great, as a preparation.

Then it’s hard to get an excuse for why I played so badly during the tournament. Maybe I was too nervous and that didn’t help. I’ll need to work on my mindset for sure. For the novice event, I scored 37,35,35 and missed the cut by 1 point. Ouch. At least my friend Marton reached the final round. The second day was just a tiny bit better, after being on -1 on the first day, on my second day I made -3 and finished overall with a.... Read more »

Gloucester Aces Open and Singles Matchplay + Aces compilation video in Swindon
Recently we visited the course in Gloucester again and tried to play as well as possible. My preparation for the event felt great, and first, we played the singles matchplay, and I didn’t do too badly. I won my group, then I won 2 and lost 2 matches in the main draw, ended up 11th out of 40 players.

Then when we had the strokeplay, I just repeated what I did in January. I had 2 good rounds, then 2 bad ones. hole 9 and 10 killed my rounds, I’ll need more practice there, I want to avoid the same mistakes next time. My friend Marton had a great weekend there, first, he won a medal in the matchplay’s plate event as ha became 2nd there. Then on Sunday he shot a new course record (18 – 12 holes) and became overall 4th, and 1st in our category.

Videos
I made a video for the national minigolf day, where I tried to ace all 18 holes at my local course. It took 4.... Read more »

This is a short recap of the last 3 events I played.

Sidcup, BMGA British Masters
We had a nice, sunny weekend… well until Sunday when it was freezing. The practice wasn’t bad on Saturday, but during the tournament, I just didn’t find my A-game. We didn’t become friends with the metal rims, I missed a lot of putts on them narrowly. I changed my game plan for a few holes and most of the changes didn’t work. Hard to say a lot more about this event, here is the result:
http://bmga.online/results/2022/2022BM/result.htm

Taunton, Ace of Hearts Open
The next stop was Taunton. Years ago, it was part of the BMGA tour, but not recently, so for most of us, it was a new experience, and I like these courses where my opponents don’t have a huge knowledge about the holes. I took 2 practice days, and we found out quickly it is an easy course with many good ace opportunities. I really wanted a better result than Sidcup. Before we started I.... Read more »

Goals
To start every year, I write about my goals. For the last season, I wanted to get a top15 finish at a singles strokeplay tournament, and I achieved that at the second event of the year in Cardiff (12th). In the end, I could repeat that twice with the WCGC Novice (13th) and at the Cornwall Open (4th).

For 2022:
- I want to get a top10 finish somewhere at a singles strokeplay event.
- Have a top3 finish in Category 3 or get an aces prize at one of the events. It will be hard as we’ll have plenty of talented new players this year, but it’s a good challenge.
- Hit a new personal best score on an 18 hole course. At the moment it’s 33. On a 12 hole course, I already made a new personal best this year from 24 to 22. :)
- Achieve Category 2 status at the BMGA.

This year I’ll be pickier about which event I’m going to play, simply because of financial reasons. I want to play mainly those courses which are not too.... Read more »

Hello Dear Reader!

As this is my first post here, I would like to introduce myself to you. My name is Balazs Tompa, I’m Hungarian, and 29 years old (for a few more weeks). I already have a long history of blogging, I started to take it seriously in 2010 and that was a Hungarian poker blog. It’s still alive, although I’m posting way less than before and I don’t really have any poker-related content there, as I stopped playing regularly.

My main sport was always been table tennis, I was playing since I was 10-11 years old. Sadly in 2015, I’ve got a shoulder injury, and I couldn’t find a solution for that. I continued playing for a while longer, but in the end, it was too painful to play competitively, it forced me to give up. For a period of time, I felt really empty as I didn’t have any kind of replacement. Until the moment I found minigolf tournaments.

Minigolf is a game that I already enjoyed before I discovered the.... Read more »