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 less than it should be. Since the Master's in October I haven't done any competitive golfing (mostly because there hasn't been much in the Northeast) and my time on "classic" courses like the U.S. Open ones have been limited. I've been otherwise occupied with events such as library minigolf and bar minigolf. While I get some putting in there, it's not with my gear and certainly not on a course that resembles what we'll see in the tournament. Any time spent on a traditional course has also been with the family or friends, so it hasn't been focused practice time either. However, I'm not too worried about the rust. We finally got a decent day last week in New England (although as I started writing this, there was snow/ice on the ground again) so I went out to Farmington Miniature Golf and knocked in an "ok" round. I've also been working on the putting stroke some inside on the carpet until I could feel the muscles getting their memory back. The difficult part, of course, won't happen until I get down to the course to see how I play there.



Between now and then, though, I do have a couple of other minigolf events coming up. First, should everything continue to work out this weekend I will be visiting the British Masters. A work trip to London coincided with the timing of this event so I'm looking forward to getting outside of the city, meeting some folks and watching some minigolf. I decided not to try to play because I wasn't sure if I would be able to devote the whole day but I look forward to meeting a lot of folks whose names I've become familiar with through other reporting and Steve's blog. With any luck I will sneak in a "friendly" when the tournament is over as well.



The other event I'm looking forward to is visiting Swingers' new West End location in London, which will conveniently be close to where we are staying for the week. We had the chance to visit their original location a little over a year ago and not only did I love it but the few work friends I brought really enjoyed it as well. It probably helped that The Putting Penguin got "VIP" status while there and my work friends certainly never knew the power of being an internationally known miniature golfer :) . This time around my entourage has grown (word of mouth works well) and we're up for another great time of food, drink and putting. You'll surely see the outcome of the event on my socials and we'll definitely touch on it when we do our next food and putting article.



Finally, before signing off this episode of the blog, I got a nice minigolf compliment this week. The USPMGA is looking for nominations to their Hall of Fame and a couple of folks put my name up because of my dedication to the sport. It's always humbling to receive a compliment like that (even if I think there are other more deserving individuals who belong in the Hall first based on their competitive success) and I plan on doing what I can to keep up that reputation as someone who is looking out for the sport.



Next time I write, we'll be that much closer to the Open!