Two years ago, on 6 September 2007, I wrote my "first" minigolf news articles for the minigolf2008.com website. "Germans triumph in Canegrate", "Uppsala wins Swedish Elitserien", and so on. Since then I have written a few hundred minigolf news articles, during these two years. Not every day, but more than once a week.
www.minigolf2008.com/en/news/archive_2.html
These were not my first minigolf news, of course. My first minigolf publication was the Finnish Minigolf Memo 1991, published more than 18 years ago. Much has happened in minigolf, and in news publishing technology, since I made this black-and-white front page (see the picture above) for my first minigolf publication in 1991, with Atari 512 computer.
One thing has not changed in these 18 years: news sometimes create conflicts of interest, or differences of opinion. The most controversial reports in my Finnish Minigolf Memos of the early 1990's were the prize money statistics of Finnish minigolf players. Every year I published a complete list of how much each player had won money prizes during the year. Some people didn't like it, because they feared that the Tax Authorities would see the list, and start asking uncomfortable questions about the tax payments for this money.
In 1999 I launched the
migoNet website, which again created its fair share of controversy and storms in a waterglass. Even the name of the website was suspected to be a violation of the trademark owned by Nico Suselbeek. My most hated news article of all time must have been the Absolut Minigolf article in September 1999, where I touched the big taboo of Finnish minigolf of that time, widespread use of alcohol as doping substance in competitions, on top level.
This scandal had not fully calmed down before
Vaasa 2001 World Championships. Some leaders of Finnish Minigolf Federation tried to use their power to ensure that I would not be the webmaster of 2001 World Championships, because they couldn't control or trust what I write in my news. But there I was anyway, behind the webmaster's desk. Also WMF was interested to have me as their webmaster at that time, but some key persons in Finnish Minigolf Federation stopped supporting me for the position.
My only scandal during Vaasa 2001 World Championships was when a player of team USA marched to the webmaster's office with his wife, angry like a tornado, and asked where the webmaster is. I felt that this was not a good moment to tell that I am the webmaster, so I first asked what the problem is. They had found on the Internet an old migoNet news article from 1999 World Championships in Papendal, where I had taken a photo of the wife, as she was assisted by a coach more than the rules allow, turning her putter and helping her to aim to the right direction.
I promised to make sure that "the webmaster" will immediately remove this photo from the Internet. They thanked me and went away, without ever knowing that it was me who had taken the scandalous photo. These Americans were so angry about the photo that they had threatened to travel home from Vaasa immediately, without playing the competition at all. But as the photo was removed from the Internet by this friendly person in the office, they calmed down and participated in the competition after all.
Vaasa 2001 was the breakthrough of digital photography and "live" results (in the old meaning, updated after each player completes a full round). A young Dutch minigolf player bought from me the photo CD of the competition, containing some 1000 minigolf photos. Was that the seed from which
minigolfpics.com was born, I don't know. Many of those photos were included in minigolfpics.com as the website was launched.
7 years later,
minigolf2008.com became a breakthrough of global minigolf news reports, live results updated hole after hole, so many live webcams as you ever want to see, so many player statistics as you ever want to read, and player photos shown in the results service. On 25 October 2007 I published a sample design of the top 10 of
Geldrop results 2006, and we soon decided that this will be the layout of the live results service. And so it has been ever since, wherever the Finnish live results system has been used.
This minigolfnews.com website, which we launched in January 2009, has become some kind of a breakthrough as a global minigolf community, where minigolf players from all parts of the world share news and opinions about the game. Some small scandals and debates come and go, but most of the time everyone is quite happy. And everyone learns something new about the minigolf world, something that they didn't know that even exists in the world of our sport.