The par-3 13th at Barnbougle Dunes epitomises the fun and adventure inherent in the gnarly green beast in Tasmania’s north-east. Not for the angle of attack, per se, though that can be exciting from a succession of tee-boxes from 188 metres at the back, all with a view over Bass Strait and the wilds of the dunelands.

Rather, however, for the green complex itself, which ripples and roils like a sea of frozen aqua bumps. It’s a billowing green sheet suspended in time. It’s a graveyard for dugongs. And there are professionals who hate it because it isn’t “fair”, but those cold-eyed money-ballers don’t own golf. Rather we, the people, know it’s a cracking, fun golf hole with many circuitous roads leading to Rome.

For professional mini golfers, it’s just golf.

Golf Australia magazine is at the mini golf circuit of Lynwood Golf and Country Club in Sydney’s north-west, and we’re competing as a professional in the Australian Mini Golf Masters because, well, anybody can.

Here, upon this land-locked-links-of-sorts, some of the world’s best putters are caressing Scotty Camerons, Odyssey two-ballers, archaic Ping Ansers, and running soft-touch golf balls over the synthetic rivulets of this Golf Creations’ creation.

And competitive juices are bubbling like Fanta.

@golfaustraliamagazine Cracking day out at Lynwood Country Club for the Australian Mini Golf Masters. Brilliantly run by @JOSH MARS - PUTTING WONDER ♬ som original - Dirceu Ribeiro822

I know this because I’ve been paired in the opening group of the tournament with a gun: Matt Anstey of New Zealand. The advice from multiple Australian Open champion, Allan “The Putter King” Cox, is: “do what he does”. I do my best. Touch, speed and aim-point is all.

Some putts require the lightest touch, the softest hands. Others you can take a whack at, bounce off a sleeper at the back. The yellow flags are relatively gentle; the ball can feed to them. The red ones make you earn it.

I follow Anstey all the way; or think I do. He shoots 32-36. I record 38-45. Then we go around again. Roughly same score for both of us. I swear I bounced off the same bollards. He is the world-number-two, of course.

Now, I can sense some people scoffing. Pfff. Please. It’s novelty golf. Kids’ stuff. Bunny mouths and windmills, under which Homer and Marge Simpson conceived Bart, and so on.

I can assure you, friend, it is not. Australia has professional mini golfers. There is an Australian Mini Golf Federation (AMGF). And there is something of a tour, with state tournaments leading up to an Australian Open, an Australian match-play championship and an Australian Masters. It’s not what it could be, but plans are afoot, and more on them shortly.

Anyway, if you think it’s kids’ stuff, pony up the pineapple, and have a crack. Then knock in three aces in a row and see how you’re travelling. You’ll be pumped. Then come to Lynwood’s 16th and its devilish red flag; and end up in a valley down below putting upwards to an escarpment once, twice, three times a bogey. And then you can write down a five. And you can feel sad, given you have five-putted, and have tumbled down the live leaderboard.

Yes, it’s a smaller arena and it is “only” putting, but it is, when played competitively, for money; a proper test of putting and of nerve. There are swales, ups and downs, and you need touch and precision. You need to pick a line, decide on the speed, commit and execute. Putt after putt, hole after hole, for six loops, for 108 flags.

Australians play competitive golf to the point of madness. This Australian Masters is competitive strokeplay. And, no joke, you can choke. It might look like fun – and it is. But for a certain group of serious players, it’s a test of nerves, skill and precision. And money. And thus, pressure’s on.

After four rounds, the top three seeds are Australia’s Steve Samuelson, who is partnered with two Kiwis - Anstey and his mate, Cam Couper, the world-number-one. I run 12 of 12 among the pros and am paired with Jeff “Jaffer” Simonetta, a 44-year-old who once played rugby for Australia schoolboys and was an apprentice chef at Rockpool. Today he makes award-winning salami.

They are an eclectic crew, these People of the Putt. Other long-time pros include Nathan “Lumpy” Lamplough, who hasn’t played golf in 25 years. President Josh Mars goes by “Putting Wonder from Down Under”. There is Scott Clancy, the “friendly, gap-toothed policeman” whom I met at Cobram-Barooga for an Inside Sport story about the Australian Open of 2006. Putter King Cox has the article framed on his wall.

Australian Mini Golf Federation

Eclectic? Samuelson is Sports Editor of The Australian. He took up mini golf during Covid so he could spend time with his brother, Greg. It is fair to say the bug bit. At Lynwood he will become the Masters champion of Australia to go with the matchplay title he won on the Friday. Both times he had to keep the Kiwis at bay. He told Golf Australia magazine he was “pretty chuffed” to knock them over, particularly after New Zealand retained the Trans Tasman trophy.

“Those Kiwi boys are hard to beat; they’re just relentless,” Samuelson says. “So, to put one over them, it’s good. It was a real grind. You just have to concentrate, concentrate. You can’t give them an opening.”

Arnold Palmer was once asked by an amateur for a putting tip. He said: play for money. These professional mini-golfers rarely don’t play for money, even socially. Thus, they regulate their breathing. They draw on inner steel. They are resilient. They are students of Rotella and O’Hern. They would, in all likelihood, kick your arse.

Samuelson says in competition “there’s pressure on every hole”.

“I used to play a lot of golf when I was younger, then stopped for various reasons – bad knee and all that,” Samuelson says. “But once you start getting into it, changing your putting stroke a bit, you work on small, incremental improvements like concentration and learning to relax. Even learning to put bad holes behind you. That’s been a big thing.”

May be an image of golf, golf course and text

Prizes are awarded, speeches are made, photos taken. Children wander through the ceremony. And it’s clearly a nice and supportive community. Yet there is unfulfilled potential here. From this perspective, after 108 holes at Lynwood G&CC’s mini golf course, competing in the Masters, feeling the juices of competition flow, again – don’t scoff – there is potential for growth of the professional game, the circuit, the tour.

They do have some sponsors, some support, including from the governing body, Golf Australia, albeit not (yet) financially. Yet the event at Lynwood still feels small beans, certainly compared to the other Golf Australia-supported extracurricular “tour”, Long Drive – particularly given it’s far less accessible than mini golf for most people.

The Masters at Lynwood attracted 26 players, including the ring-in journo. Nobody from the golf club’s thousand-strong membership competed in it. The game is not “cool”. Publicity was scant outside social media pages. Golf Australia promoted it not at all.

Should the governing body promote the same small clique of weekend warriors doing their thing in a niche? There’s an argument they should. Golf Australia boasts that four million Australians played in golf in 2024-25, at golf courses, driving ranges, simulators, or mini golf facilities - a 9 per cent increase year-on-year. Of those, 650,000 played mini golf.

The senior figures at AMGF - Mars, Lamplough, Cox, Samuelson, et al – are good people in the game for the right reasons. “We just do it because we love it,” Lamplough says. To grow, however, Australian mini golf needs money, and help with publicity, marketing, pathways, competitive structure.

Golf Australia’s General Manager of Golf Participation, David Gallichio, says “the questions for AMGF are: what are we? What do we want to present to the public?”

“Mini golf’s stats are fantastic – the growth of off-course facilities and the number of people using them. Over 640,000 people in the past 12 months, growing in double digits. That’s a massive opportunity for the game,” he says.

And yet, there has been no money for mini golf, even if GA is “always looking for ways to move forward,” according to Gallichio. “If organisations feel they can benefit from our assistance, we’re open to that. That’s why we’re meeting – to better understand what is needed.”

In discussions with previous AMGF administrations, according to Gallichio, “there wasn’t a clear vision – no agreement on what it should be, how it should be presented, or how commercial it should become”.

“Is the focus professional or amateur? With the long drivers, we’ve had similar conversations. What’s the priority? It’s not about making money for professionals right now; it’s about growth and future funding,” Gallichio says.

“We’ll take some time to understand the strategic priorities.”

At Royal Queensland for last year’s PGA Championship, there was a long drive tournament held virtually in a net and actually from the first tee. There would be scope to run a professional mini golf competition concurrently with a national title, or state PGA, for example.

Maybe not on site at Royal Melbourne, but tournaments at PGA Tour of Australasia stops at Willunga, Kalgoorlie, the Hunter Valley, for example. Bring along some pros, some celebrities, influencers. And bring money. Money would be good.

GA has no money for mini-golf. But it has resources, assets, people. Gallichio says that along with his Participation team, there’s scope for GA’s Events, Public Affairs and Marketing teams to support AMGF. “[But] you’re not going to immediately have 500 people playing professional events,” Gallichio says. “It’s about getting the word out – that there’s an opportunity to have fun and compete.”

It’s worth noting that the most-viewed golf program ever, before Happy Gilmore 2, was Holey Moley. “That’s mini golf – and that’s golf – and there’s a real appetite for it,” Gallichio says. “Even if people don’t know about it yet, this is a great opportunity.

“For Josh and the team, the next step will be to develop a strategy. It’s not for us to say, ‘We’re going to do it’ but we can absolutely help shape what it becomes.”

Gallichio adds that “ultimately, we want everything under one umbrella – because all golf is golf. That phrase really resonates.”

PLUS...

Sinnott takes charge on Day 1 at Rosebud

Despite testing afternoon conditions, Todd Sinnott has taken the outright Round 1 lead at Webex Players Series Victoria, hosted by Marcus Fraser at Rosebud Country Club on Thursday.

Samuelson, as winner of the two national titles, pocketed $2000. For the likes of Couper and Anstey – who will win $2500 a week later at an event run by the award-winning Thornleigh Golf Centre – prizemoney mostly funds their trip. It’s similar when they travelled to the World Titles in Prague; they won enough for accommodation and airfare. They could also travel to the USA, where there are four major mini golf tours.

And yet, without publicity and commercial appeal to professional golfers, AMGF events remain something of an “in” club; there is a core rump of half-a-dozen golfers who’ve been sharing prize money, swapping titles, and taking the same photos of each other on podiums for the last 30 years.

Mini golf pros will tell you that they would immediately wipe the floor with the best PGA professionals in the land. PGA pros would call bullshit on that. Money needs to be put where mouths are, reckons PGA of Australia professional, events man and trick shot artist – and 2022 Australian Mini Golf Open Champion – Henry Epstein.

To promote mini golf as a dinkum, professional contest, mini golf needs dinkum professionals competing in the top mini golf pro events, Epstein – who runs his own mini golf tournaments - asserts.

Epstein sent Golf Australia magazine a bullet list of tips for mini golf expansion. He would create divisions, invite families, juniors, influencers, social players. He would run it like a business. He would create a genuine professional tour – not one where anyone with $50 can contribute to the prize fund.

“Mini golf needs to stablish a clear, goal-oriented board to guide the sport, focus on profitability and make the organisation sustainable,” Epstein contends. “They should host a week of mini golf in each state, with multiple venues and events leading up to the state Open and then national titles. Schedule events when people can play and spectate, ensuring accessibility for international and interstate players.

“They could keep the family friendly, 45-minute competitions leading up to national events, but national titles should be for experienced players only – entry should be earned, not assumed.

He would introduce a points race, rankings, a season finale. He would include team formats to “create storylines, rivalries and ongoing engagement”.

“Mini golf is visually appealing and family friendly,” Epstein says. “Use livestreams, short-form content and lively commentary. Think Blitz Golf energy meets Holey Moley polish.

“Add music, MCs, trick shots, fan interaction. Mini golf thrives as theatre – it’s not Augusta; it’s performance sport.”

Other ideas include investment in player development, junior leagues, school competitions, and family focused weekends. There could be merchandise and a stronger social media presence than Lumpy and the Putter King posting stuff on Instagram.

“Mini golf has the bones of a spectator sport,” Epstein adds. “With structure, theatre, and storytelling, it can thrive as both a fun activity and a professional competition. These mini golf pros need to test themselves against very good golfers. The state bodies should send their gun juniors, their amateurs.”

For the time being, Samuelson, a 54-year-old journo who took up professional putting five years ago, can revel as a national champion. For anyone willing to have a crack, he couldn’t recommend it more. The game’s accessibility is a major plus.

“With mainstream golf, you have to learn to chip, to drive, to do all sorts of things,” Samuelson says. “Here, you just have to learn how to putt.”