Certainly not, but for the sport some of us are doing a good job of burying it! When reading many of the blogs and comments here you could easily get a picture that something is wrong with international minigolf.
is it then?
Yes and no. We love the game, and I think we "love" each other, but are not so good at showing it sometimes. Besides from a few outbursts sprung by a Swedish friend of mine, (no names...) I have never seen any major controversies at the banquets after the championships. More or less the opposite really.
So I guess all this unsportsmanlike behavior everybody seems to talk about is just fantasies? unfortunately not, I have seen too many things over the years. We all have different mindsets and ethical standards when it comes to this, it is like:
"Part of the game",
"not caught, not guilty",
"Everybody else does it"
etc
I think we have and have had a major problem here many years, but what could be done? WMF seems to try with the education of new referees, standardization of rules (not always succesful...) etc but every year (at least quite often) when they say lets act, something happens. There are too many times situations where the referees act and get hindered by the jury. Many times the referees don't dare to act upon some of the stars.
What should be done about this issue, well I honestly donīt know. But it needs to be adressed in a serious way!
What is not "dead" about minigolf then?
Well there are shimmers of light here and there, but I think we need to raise our heads above the millimeters of the obstacles, the absolute fairness of the courses etc.
MOS? maybe, but what is needed is more of an open mindset and an ability to actually see what happens around us. We canīt stay in our bubble forever.
More about that later on!