For all of us who have played Harris miniature golf courses, we know too well the pain of watching a perfectly good backdoor putt go awry because it doesn’t hit the brick flat and catches the crack instead. I can safely say that almost all of us tomorrow will have that experience at least once during the 3 rounds. The cracks are there and they are ready to bite you like a movie monster. To add to the fun, the course also has the cups with the metal edges around them, which besides being a personal pet peeve, just tend to raise the average score of a round because you aren’t getting the favorable side drops to putts. It can (and is) said that the cups are the same for everyone at least but the frustration of watching what would normally be an ace with regular cups not drop doesn’t make that sentiment feel any better. There will be a mental game to over come that.
Despite what you might think given the above, I actually like this course as a tournament course. Part of it is the setting on the lake, but the other part is that its one of those courses that makes you think on nearly every hole. A lot of times courses, even those the Masters are played on, have a set of holes where you can more or less autopilot your way to a 2 and the ace is about the muscle memory. Here I feel like you’re constantly making decisions on how to approach all the holes and few of the deuce putts are gimmes with the metal cups. While this tournament is only 3 rounds, I can see them being mentally exhausting.
As for my own practice, I wish I had snuck in another day of it. This is the type of course that could use another day of work on the deuce putts, not just marking them off but being comfortable making them. In addition, speed is a bit factor on a lot of these holes because the reason you’re in a tricky position on the deuce putts is many of the holes take off past the cup and quite a few penalize you for being short too – so you’re acceptable window is thin. It’s a course that should play to my strengths – not a lot of easy aces, have to leave yourself good deuce – a true minigolf course – so I’m hoping that helps to overcome the lack of practice. Side note – I didn’t forget my penguin this weekend.
On a related side note (since most of this interaction came while I was on the course today), I’m so happy to have built up such a wonderful minigolf family. With the Masters wrapping up in Myrtle Beach today, I got a few reports on how things went from a variety of people down there. I also got to talk about course play some with other friends virtually and I jumped on a Zoom call at the course for a few minutes with folks around the world who just wrapped up the Putt18 virtual putting league (blog to come on that later). Hard to really have a day more filled with minigolf!
Because it’s been a while since I’ve done a blog pre-tournament, I have some predictions. No handicapping of the field though because I don’t know all pf the participants but you might want to look into seeing what the odds are for the Connecticut contingent to come out on top.
- I’m putting the over/under at 122 for the winning score and I’m taking the under.
- I will ace hole 13 at least once in the 3 rounds
- I will have one sub-40 round. Not sure if I can get all 3 that way but I feel like I can get at least one round with some good drops
- I don’t think there will be a playoff for any of the paying spots
- The lowest single round score for the tournament will be a 38
That’s is for the pre-tournament blog. Here’s to missing cracks and sinking putts tomorrow!
The views expressed in this blog are solely the views of the writer and do not represent the World Minigolf Sport Federation (WMF), Minigolfnews.com or any other organization that the writer may be associated with unless expressly stated in the blog.