Words by Mr. Tee on December 31, 2022
During 2019, we took the plunge, figuratively and literally, into high-stakes mini golf by competing in the inaugural season of Holey Moley. With our toes fully thawed from the frigid Sable Ranch waters, we truly dipped our toes into the realm of traditional competitive mini golf in 2020 by hosting our first tournament, The Miniest Mini Golf Open. As the world opened back up in 2021, we continued our trip down the rabbit hole and traveled to the Jersey Shore for the O-Street $1000 Tournament. We additionally both played in a local league that popped up in our home of Minnesota. I couldn’t get enough of the competitive fun and opted to travel to Chicago for the 24th M.C. Mini Masters in August and followed that up with my first time playing in the Masters of Mini Golf in Myrtle Beach.
This all led to combining efforts with friends to kick off a new US-based competitive mini golf league called the American Mini Golf Alliance (AMA). The AMA created an opportunity for people to earn points and for us to create a national ranking system that included numerous long-running tournaments throughout the USA.
2022 became the year of tournaments for the two of us and had some wonderful highlights that we had not fully shared on the website so here is a recap of the busy year across the US.
February
One of our favorite Minnesota-based indoor courses, Big Bear Mini Putt at Golf Zone, opened back up in the middle of 2021. After visiting the course and talking with the owner, we decided it would be fun to host a mid-winter tourney with a qualifying period followed by a 2-round championship. The Coziest Mini Golf Open happened in and around Valentine’s Day 2022 and much to my own surprise, I finally won a tournament! In 2023, we’ll be running this tournament again and it will be part of the AMA circuit of tournaments.
April
After our AMA team had to, unfortunately, cancel a tournament in Texas, we figured we’d make the best of our scheduled time off of work and play a slew of courses between Austin and San Antonio. Pat and Mandy from The Putting Penguin, Randy Rice, and Highlighter joined myself in a single-day tournament that included rounds on both courses at Cool Crest, a wild round at Pixar Putt in San Antonio, and a final set of 18 holes at Putt Pub. Again, much to my surprise, I won the day and was the champion of the first of many AMA internal competitive tournaments.
May
At the start of the pandemic in April 2020, we were invited to check out the Putt18 rollout putting mat game. Through self-filmed live rounds on Facebook, a group of people in the US, United Kingdom, New Zealand, and Australia were able to compete in skill-based putting competitions. After a handful of one-off events, a Putt18 World Pro League began in earnest with seasons that spanned 1-2 months. I slowly improved and in 2022 sub-divisions were created within the league. The first several seasons had runaway wins by Matt Ansley (New Zealand) and David Gomm (UK) and divisions would allow for more winning opportunities. After losing in the final rounds of Series 5, I took home 1st place in Division II.
June
In our desire to compete with friends in the northeast of the US and to play some of our “bucket list” courses, we headed out to Connecticut to play in the Odetah Mini Golf Classic. This tournament had previously been on hiatus and had been run by the operator of the fantastic mini golf tournament resource The Squeaky Bagel and new putting pal, Gary Shiff. Friends and familiar names from the area were playing and they helped us dial in our putts with minimal practice. The Pink Putter took home the top amateur prize and I tied for the cash prize for the aces-only round.
With the M.C. Mini Masters celebrating its 25th anniversary and being part of the AMA circuit, it was a no-brainer for us to drive to the greater Chicagoland area to play in a day-long tournament featuring our all-time favorite course, Par-King. After six rounds on 5 different courses across Illinois and Wisconsin, we both took home some new hardware to display at home. See the results and the full recap on the AMA site.
August
For many years, the Red Putter in Door County, Wisconsin had been on our list to play. It was a charming family-run course that is a community asset in a bustling summer vacation location. With help from a co-worker for last-minute lodging options, I took the 5+ hour road trip to compete in the 20th Red Putter Mini Golf Pro Tournament. I qualified for the tournament and practiced enough to finish only 10 strokes off the league in a 3-round tournament. No trophies or hardware but so much fun that I’m planning to return in 2023.
The Pink Putter spent many family vacations when she was growing up at the Jersey Shore. When we went in 2021, we spent the entire week seeing family and friends that we had not seen during the first year of COVID. Ocean City was a perfect place to reconnect with family again in 2022 so we added in another visit to the Shore for the O-Street $1000 tournament. We love the course, Tee Time, and given the competition was also part of the AMA circuit, we thought it was a no-brainer to return. We both played better than in 2021 and had a ton of fun. This seems like a tournament we’re likely to travel for each year.
September
The final AMA tournament of 2022 was set to be the annual tournament we hosted at Lilli Putt, The Miniest Mini Golf Open. We had putting pals from out of town traveling to play including Aaron Kaminski of O-Street, The Cullen Family, and Schweiss Family. After the biggest turnout for qualifying, we had a 2-round barn burner finale that featured some of the lowest scores in the 3-year history of the tournament. In the end, Mick Cullen of Holey Moley and M.C. Mini Masters fame won the tournament and with that victory, he secured first place for the inaugural AMA season. For the third year, I came in 2nd with my best-combined rounds to date and only 2 strokes off the lead. This annual tournament is something we’re excited to host every year and expect it will play a big role in the final rankings for the AMA in 2023 again.
October
I returned to Myrtle Beach to see if he could improve his scores and provide some media coverage for the Puttcast podcast at the 2022 Masters. After several days of practice and reports from the field, Mr. Tee took on the grueling 3-day event. Tom improved his score at the challenging Pineapple course at Aloha North and helped provide play-by-play commentary during the final rounds of the Masters. While he had a couple of putts he wished he could take over, it was a blast seeing so many putting pals like Pat, Vanette, Jeremy, and others finish with personal bests.
November
Aside from local league play, I thought my competitive putting year was over. Lo and behold, I received an invite from Gary Shiff to take part in a virtual Putt18 event as a member of Team USA for the 4 Nations Cup. Myself, Pat Sheridan, Aaron Kaminski, and Gary would each play a single round where the scores plus team best-ball results would determine who wins this international competition. With steady scores at or below par, our team was able to win the competition and bring the Putt18 4 Nations Cup to the US for the first time ever. It was a great honor to be invited and contribute to this fun team event.
Can’t wait for more in person and virtual putting events across the world in 2023.
