Teams and competed for $60,000 in prize money.
The list of notable Swedish exported products is impressive: ABBA, IKEA, Volvo and now the Swedish Putting Team, whose six members constitute a supergroup in the world of competitive putting. This collection of Swedes has been a staple of the game for years, collectively winning thousands of dollars in prizes in individual and team events.
Competitive putting has become a very lucrative sport. No longer a subculture, it attracts serious competitors who compete occasionally during the season across the country. Most require buy-ins, infrequently up to $2500 or more for the best curling tournaments, but regularly between $100/individual and $600/team fee.
It’s not common knowledge that mini-golf was invented by Old Tom Morris in 1867, at iconic St. Andrews Links in Scotland. The course was specifically designed to give women a place to play, and became the St. Andrews Ladies’ Putting Club, locally known as The Himalayas.
The “short game” concept eventually crossed the Atlantic, and in 1916, James Barber created the Thistle Dhu course at Pinehurst, considered the first mini-golf course in the country.
A deeper dive into the booming sport reveals a surprising number of competitive putting associations and competitions.
North Carolina-based Putt-Putt® Corporation, for example, has been sporting the miniature golf sign for nearly 70 years. The company is credited with the creation of the Professional Putters Association (PPA) and has sponsored competitions that have awarded more than $8 million in prize money.
The Major Series of Putting (MSOP), World Putting League, National Putting Tour and the US Pro Minigolf Association (USPMGA) are just a few entities that also sponsor tournaments with significant purses.
The most recent entry into boxing, and arguably the best funded and fastest-growing, is PopStroke, the entertainment, putting, and high-tech concept that includes Tiger Woods and TaylorMade Golf as partners.
Since the opening of the first PopStroke in 2019, existing venues across the country have hosted qualifying leagues and tournaments leading up to the year-end PopStroke Tour (PTC) Championship.
Held this year in Scottsdale, AZ PopStroke, the team festival featured a $50,000 purse, of which $10,000 was awarded to the winning two-person team and the rest was split among the 25 remaining more sensible teams. The two-day festival consisted of 4 circulars over 18-hole red and black courses: two most productive ball circulars, followed by an exchange circular and a final overall scoring circular.
The $10,000 singles festival purse was split between the winner ($3,000) of the tournament in 3 rounds of stroke play and the top eight.
Among the favourites who entered the competition, the members of the gregarious Swedish putt team, despite everything, discovered their position and, contrary to their custom, went home without control or a first-place belt.
In the team competition they finished second, third and fourth, but only Alexander Molina (T3) and last year’s winner Mattias Hägglöf (7) made the top 10 on the list of individual victories.
The competitors buzzed about the difficulty of the Scottsdale courses and the unusually high scores. It was a level playing field because the venue was new and very few golfers had ever been on site.
Remarked Swede Kevin Sundstrom, who dropped from second in 2022 singles to a T12 place this year, “It’s a very tough, tough course. Especially the red one. It’s a monster right now when the speed is so fast.”
His team captain, Hans Olofsson, admitted he prefers the PopStroke of Sarasota, FL, where he placed third in singles last year. The 49-year-old putting enthusiast owns and operates five mini-golf entertainment venues in and around Stockholm (three outdoor, two indoor) and is a legend of the sport.
“I think there’s a need for more skills there,” he said of Sarasota. “I mean, the end results here are more down to luck than skill. Here, you have to play a lot of rebounding.
The degree of difficulty was no deterrent for the team’s winners, rookie Tri Nguyen and his spouse Adam Shanks, a veteran competitor, caddie and tour staple.
Team winners Tri Nguyen and Adam Shanks.
Their one-shot victory over a talented team was extraordinary, given that the two had never met or trained in combination prior to the championship. Nguyen, a young finance professional from Katy, Texas, needed a spouse and came to Tennessee Shanks through a mutual friend. It turned out to be a win-win duo.
Said Nguyen as he held up his winner’s belt proudly, “I texted him. I said ‘you don’t have to take me as your partner, but just know if we are, I’m coming here to win. So I’m going to play as hard as I can.’ I’m glad it paid off.”
Chris Johnson, Individual Winner
The singles title was won by veteran Chris Johnson, who stood out on the tag team winners’ podium with his former spouse Jacob Stasiulewicz.
Competitive putting brings out a unique and varied organization of players of all ages, genders, skill levels, and putting styles. Even PGA pro Taylor competed in Scottsdale, completing T14 in the team event.
PGA Tour pro Taylor competes at PopStroke Scottsdale.
The 28-year-old UNLV graduate is statistically the PGA Tour’s putter (first in putts per round; first in putting percentage; first in average distance of putts made, second in strokes gained in putts).
He put that skill to good use on the MSOP series, where he won three titles and well over $100,000 to help finance his budding PGA career.
In Scottsdale he said, “I love like the whole putting thing. I think it’s fun because everybody can do it. You don’t have to be like physically gifted or anything like that.”
He considers his $75,000 win at the inaugural MSOP in 2017 to be a career highlight.
“The first year was fantastic. It was a great stadium and they had a huge ranking,” he said. “It was the biggest laugh I’ve ever had playing in a golf event, and it’s amazing to say because I’ve been to a couple of U. S. Opens. It was great to play golf in the middle of the Las Vegas Strip. And the cash was amazing for a golf contest.
Another great Scottsdale competitor is Charlotta Sorenstam, a retired LPGA Tour golfer who is the younger sister of Hall of Famer Annika. Charlotta, who had never tried to play mini-golf, convinced her to play through her friend Robert DeLosh, an avid competitor who qualified for the nation’s fourth-place finish.
Charlotta Sorenstam and her spouse Robert DeLosh compete in PopStroke Scottsdale.
Charlotta, 50, currently a functional golf coach at the IMG Academy in Bradenton, Fla. , has no plans to engage in competitive putting, even though she and her teammate finished a very respectable T6. Instead, her goal is to qualify for the US Women’s Senior Open. (finished T11 in 2023) and competing in Legends Tour events.
There is a real sense of camaraderie in the competitive putting world. Most of these golfers face each other numerous times throughout the year and while some names appear consistently atop the leaderboards – the Swedes, Johnson, Stadum, Stasiulewicz, DeLosh – newcomers are warmly welcomed into the community.
The putt is a wonderful equalizer. A top-tier handicap on an 18-hole regulation course can still be the most productive mini-golf putter in the world. This game requires only a club, a ball, and a position to train. And as the number of indoor and outdoor putting courses increases, so do the opportunities to sign up for a league and start climbing the ladder to competitive putting dominance.