Mini Golf Putting

[RandallT]

I've always been frustrated by how badly I putt on these surfaces.  I'm sure these guys who win these tournaments are good at what they do, but it sure seems to take a different set of skills than putting on a golf course.

Off the top of my head, some of the differences that throw me off in mini-golf:

• uneven carpets, less uniform than golf greens (for example, mini-golfers wouldn't have a need for Aimpoint, is my guess!)
• the stupid little volcano effect that seems to be around many holes- throwing your ball off line if it is going too slow as it nears the hole
• the need to shorten your backswing when you're near a wall or obstacle

I'm not sure what skills these guys have that make them good at dealing with these things. Is it just that they practice and are used to it all? Some of the folks in the video don't appear to have very good traditional putting form to my eye, but presumably they're pretty good to be competing in this tournament. 

Interesting video though. Not sure if this is related to the real Masters, but they have certainly "borrowed" a few things such as the "green jacket" and the logo.

http://prominigolf.com/tournaments/masters/masters-schedule/

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Anyway, I just stumbled onto that video above in one of my news feeds, and thought it was kinda fun.

[natureboy]

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Mini-golf is not a sport for everyone

IMO it's not a sport, period.

As far as the skills, I'm hardly an expert but it seems a little more like billiards with knowing banking angles. Don't see a lot of curving breaks across slopes, occasional ramps yes, but they tend to be straight. Lots of holes don't have the penal downhill runout where the ball goes forever on a miss. I wonder how these carpets typically stimp?

[iacas]

I don't think you have to be a great putter to compete… I think these guys do it for fun, mostly, and if a bunch of money ever went into it, good putters would begin to dominate, and you'd never hear of the Matt Male types again.

I mean…

His stroke is terrible. I put dots on the top heel on the left and the middle of the Odyssey hurricane logo on the right, and in both cases he's drastically hitting the ball off the toe while swinging well to the left.

Yeah, if you can do it consistently you'll do well, but I don't even see that as being a very consistent stroke.

Yet… he won the Masters in 2015.

http://prominigolf.com/wp-content/uploads/2015-MASTERS.pdf

He shot 374 this year while the winner shot 347.

http://prominigolf.com/wp-content/uploads/SCORESHEET-3.pdf

[shanksalot]

Comparing that to real golf is like comparing checkers to chess. 

[Valleygolfer]

Lol @iacas in depth analysis of the mini golf "star."

I think I would rather "cut my own throat" than do this.

[iacas]

Many don't know this, but Matt came to me to do some putting work at Golf Evolution a few months later.

Just a few days ago he won the U.S. Open by two shots.

Minigolfnews - Matt Male Wins 2021 U.S. Open in Florida

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Cape Coral, FL - On the heels of having to cancel the 2020 U.S. Open, the United States Pro ...

Leaderboard: https://usaminigolfresults.com/USOpen/2021/result.htm

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He's kept in touch and his putting stroke has improved tremendously. He's still a long putter user, of course, just not anchored.

[woodzie264]

10 minutes ago, iacas said:

Many don't know this, but Matt came to me to do some putting work at Golf Evolution a few months later.

Just a few days ago he won the U.S. Open by two shots.

Minigolfnews - Matt Male Wins 2021 U.S. Open in Florida

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Cape Coral, FL - On the heels of having to cancel the 2020 U.S. Open, the...

Leaderboard: https://usaminigolfresults.com/USOpen/2021/result.htm

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He's kept in touch and his putting stroke has improved tremendously. He's still a long putter user, of course, just not anchored.

That’s cool!