Hello minigolf players of the world…
My name is André Campos and I am since yesterday the Portuguese reporter of minigolf news. I have participated in some youth international competitions and in the last Europacup.
I think that is important to tell you something about Portugal as it is a small nation in what concerns to minigolf. Portugal has more a less a hundred active players and the majority are from the North of the country. The biggest club is CM Porto which represents approximately 35% of the Portuguese players. It is the team with more titles, as in the pass it was very difficult to beat them. Nevertheless, in the present, MC Portugal won the last 5 team national championships, being defeated by CM Porto this year in CM Porto’s course.
Here, the national individual championship is much more important in general than teams’ competition and it is played in three weekends of six rounds each. The winner is the one with fewer strokes in the end of the eighteen rounds.
The teams’ national championship is played in only one weekend with 6 rounds in the same kind of surface of EC course. Man’s teams are composed by 6 players plus 1 substitute; the other categories are 3+1.
Although Portugal rarely achieved good international results it is known by a very good organization of championships. In a recent present we organized EC Porto 98, YEC Lamego 2000(considered as one of the bests ever organized), YNC and YEC Pombal 2005. This year, Lamego will be the stage of the Senior European Championship.
Another relevant information about the Portuguese Minigolf is that the Portuguese Minigolf Federation’s President is also President of the European Minigolf Federation.
One of the biggest problems of this sport in my country is related with the few open minds and with the very high age’s average. Clubs and Federation are trying to get more youth players in schools but it is hard to fix them in the sport. Two reasons for that: minigolf is not a media target and it takes a lot of our free time what is sometimes incompatible with studies.
This is a short description of Portuguese minigolf and I would like to know your opinions about Portugal as a minigolf nation…
See you later,
André Campos