Mr. Tee’s Wild Ride: A 2024 Competitive Mini Golf Journey

Words by Mr. Tee

January 3, 2025

I’ve dialed up my competitive putting activity significantly over the past two years. Before 2023, I had helped organize local tournaments for A Couple of Putts, played national tournaments (including the US Masters), competed in the international Putt18 virtual league, local league events, and helped found the national organization the American Mini Golf Alliance (AMA). I was bit by the competitive bug through my experience on Holey Moley and went deeper into the sport during the isolation of COVID. Last year, I dipped my toes into international competition with a CityGolf Tour event in Sundbyberg Sweden, and then both Robin and I played in the 2023 World Crazy Golf Championships in Hastings, England. The experience of competing internationally raised the bar combining my love of international travel and exchange with the game I love. Both experiences were easily the most fun tournaments I had played in up to that point. To finish off 2023, I competed in the US Masters again to qualify for a major international team-focused event, World Adventure Golf Masters (WAGM), in the Czech Republic. The process to play for Team USA is a bit goofy where you only had to pay a few extra dollars at the Masters and you made the team. Despite the capriciousness of the process of being selected for the team, I was serious about bringing my best and getting back overseas to play on Team USA in a competition that was on my bucket list.

The initial appeal to play WAGM was the tournament’s location, Bowling BRNO. The photos and videos I had seen of the facility blew my mind. The Mindcraft-inspired Adam course was like nothing I had ever seen in all of our travels and even though the tournament was not going to be held on this course, I was eager to play it. Numerous people told me that the Venus course was one of the most difficult courses they had ever played and the Eve course required precision putting as top scores were expected to be in the 20s. A facility with 3 uniquely designed courses in a country where I had never played mini golf? Yes, please!

The other big part of this tournament was that it would be my first venture into playing with specialized minigolf balls. The majority of competitive tournaments held in Europe and the UK allow for minigolf balls to be used. The US only has a single tournament where competitors are allowed to utilize minigolf balls, the Matterhorn Pro-Am in Connecticut. Players can use a different ball on each hole if they choose. The balls vary in size slightly with the smallest ones being a little bit smaller than your standard golf ball. Nearly all minigolf balls lack the dimples you’d find on a golf ball that are intended to help in driving shots in the game of golf. Minigolf ball properties vary on a scale of 0 to 100 in hardness (shore) and bounce (jump) in addition to a range of weights. The majority of balls are vulcanized rubber but some are made of acrylic, resin, and a few other materials including glass. Given that it would be the first WAGM to be held on two separate courses, Eve & Venus, I would have the opportunity to learn how the varying properties of the balls could help me lower my score across 36 different holes. Trial by fire! If you want to hear more about the history and use of minigolf balls, I strongly recommend the podcast we did with Pasi Aho here:

The number of potential balls out there is nearly endless and you can find a database of balls online at Balldatenbank. I knew the WAGM competitive atmosphere and expertise of the top international players would provide me a special opportunity to indulge in a world that had been a growing curiosity to me up to that point. I acquired a few balls between 2022 and 2023 and set out to better understand this version of the game of mini golf that was completely foreign to me.

In advance of traveling over early to practice for the 3-day event on 2 wildly different courses, I put in reps with minigolf balls on my local courses at Golf Zone and a newer contoured astroturf putting course across the border at St. Croix National that seemed to be similar to the Venus made by the Bowling BRNO course owner Vlastimil Chládek. Nothing could have prepared me for the challenge and excitement of playing with minigolf balls in a major tournament with some of the best putters on the planet on courses that were like nothing I had played previously. I was so fortunate to get great tips and advice from the top players from across the planet and shared 9 rounds of mini golf with players from Sweden, Switzerland, Czech Republic, and Finland. My results were a mixed bag but I was so grateful for the experience and all of the assistance from players around the world. I ended up using over 14 different balls across the event (see photos below) and began to understand some of the complexities and nuances of the game utilizing a variety of balls in different conditions. I could drop a 1000 words on everything related to WAGM 2024 but if you want more on my experience, check out the Puttcast episode where I talked about it. It was a special opportunity that I’ll never forget.

All of the work on my game made me even more eager to travel to play different tournaments in later 2024 where I could utilize minigolf balls. Based on my fondness for the British mini golf community and the opportunity to play in multiple World Adventure Golf Tour events that could qualify me to compete in another major international tournament, I ended up going to England for several competitive events (see the videos of the tournaments and photos below in my visual recap). Competing on different courses across the country in Manchester (Dino Fall), Gloucester (Aces Minigolf Gloucester), and Margate (Strokes Adventure Golf) in less than 2 weeks in October eclipsed any of my prior experiences playing in the annual US Masters. The weather was characteristically British (aka rainy/dreary) but I gained more experience playing with minigolf balls and had an absolute blast with the lovely people who traveled far and near to each tournament. As I share this post, I’m a few days away from finding out if I earned enough tour points to compete in May in the World Adventure Golf Tour final in Portugal. I could end up missing the cut for the top 42 by a couple of putts across several tournaments but my memories from my experiences in those events in England eclipse any trophies, prizes, or tournament invites. As always, I talked about my experience in the UK on the Puttcast, and was left eager to return to England in 2025. As of right now, I’m planning to play the World Crazies this upcoming June.

At this point, I’m past the point of being verbose in my look back at the past year but I have one final bit to touch on. I once again competed in American Mini Golf Alliance (AMA) tournaments across the Midwest and at the Matterhorn Pro-Am. With expanded interest in the AMA and more tournament options for the top putters in the US, I was grateful to finish in the top 10 once again. You can find photos below from a few of the tournaments. I’m pleased with how I finished in most of the tournaments but most proud of my work behind the scenes with the AMA in helping foster a welcoming community that has grown in leaps and bounds. Nearly 500 unique competitors played in events across the US in 2024 in the AMA. While the size and quality of the fields improved across all AMA events, the most important part of it for me is the spirit and energy of those who show up. Hoping the joyful spirit of competition and camaraderie continue into the new year.

Mr. Tee

WAGM 2024 – Bowling BRNO