Failure™ Magazine

As The Windmill Turns

The U.S. professional minigolf tour goes for the green.

Written by Jason Zasky   Filed under Sports

With dozens of minigolf courses (and 115 golf courses) Myrtle Beach is arguably the U.S. capital of miniature golf. In recent years, Detwiler says he’s noticed more and more golfers sneaking in 18 holes of minigolf between rounds. But casual players still have no conception of the way the sport is viewed overseas. “Over in Europe, it’s very competitive. Germany has four thousand facilities and they have a tournament at each facility,” says Detwiler. The local winners travel to a national bahnengolf competition, which is used to determine the country’s six best men and three best women. Not surprisingly, Germany is currently considered one of the world’s preeminent miniature golf nations. “It’s hard for us to compete, but I’m trying to teach people here so we can one day be the best in the world,” announces Detwiler.

A major difference between U.S. and European minigolf is that Americans compete for cash prizes, while Europeans simply play for Gold, Silver and Bronze medals. Yet, even the purse at the U.S. Masters is modest. This year’s winner, David McCaslin—a bartender who resides in Myrtle Beach—took home just four thousand dollars. Still, that’s more than the entire purse of the 2002 U.S. Open (three-thousand dollars), which McCaslin won back in May. According to the aforementioned Norman, who works as a sound engineer/musician, “You can’t make a living at it, but you can make a little here and there. If I was doing it for the money I would have stopped playing a long time ago.”

Another difference is that instead of unique, theme-oriented, “adventure golf” layouts, Europeans play on standardized courses like Betong, Eternit, or Swedish Felt Run, all of which are approved by the World Minigolf Sport Federation (WMF) for international tournament play. Betong was invented in Switzerland and features a lightning-fast, smooth concrete putting surface and continuous perimeter border of galvanized steel; Eternit features a cement-fiber putting surface and fiberglass obstacles; and Swedish Felt Run courses have a felt putting surface and solid wooden surround. In the case of Eternit, there are just 25 WMF sanctioned holes, any 18 of which may be included on a layout. “It’s like going to a basketball court in the United States—the courses are all the same,” says Detwiler.

Every other year Detwiler takes Team USA (the top American players, as determined by the results of the Masters and U.S. Open) to Europe for the WMF international tournament, an event where many players are obsessive-compulsive about their equipment. Detwiler reports that some competitors carry bags modified to accommodate a car battery, which is used to keep balls heated to a consistent temperature. “When we were in Finland this past year, there were two men and two women that shot perfect 18’s. That’s almost impossible,” he says, incredulously.

Back home, McCaslin—who is probably the closest thing minigolf has to a Tiger Woods—dominates the U.S. tour. McCaslin has won the last five USPMGA events, bringing his career earnings to just over $250,000—one-quarter of what Woods earned for winning the PGA’s 2002 Masters at Augusta National. Taking just 438 putts during the Minigolf Masters, he beat his next closest competitor (his brother Danny), by twelve strokes. By contrast, yours truly needed 552 putts to complete the 14 rounds, good enough for a respectable twenty-ninth place finish.

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