Putt-putt: the other U.S. open

Golf Digest, June, 2003 by John Barton

There's no fame and fortune for the champion, but for the putting professionals gathered in Augusta, this is no trivial pursuit four miles from the gates of Augusta National Golf Club, out past the many splendored fast-food temples and religious emporiums, beyond the off-brand video parlors, the Skate Red Wing Rollerway ("Christian Nite on Tuesday!") and the Wife Saver Chicken Sea Food restaurant, on the other side of the tracks of the freight line that runs to Atlanta, lies a collection of the scariest putting surfaces in town.

We are gathered here today for the 43rd annual National Championships of Putt-Putt, a serious endeavor--not to be confused with miniature golf--but one that nevertheless is to sport what the kazoo is to music, what holding hands is to sex. It's August in Augusta, the dog days of summer. The azaleas have long since wilted, the National is shuttered until October, and Tiger and the tour are in another town, far away.

At the Putt-Putt Golf & Games facility, where major champions like Mark Calcavecchia, Lee Janzen and Scott Simpson have come to putt during Masters week, the atmosphere is electric. At 10 a.m., a crackly national anthem is played over the loudspeakers. A huge, bemused fiberglass giraffe looks down on the proceedings from a fake rock outcropping in the middle of the course. The official starter, sitting behind a counter surrounded by racks of putters and candy-colored golf balls, leans in to the microphone and announces the first group onto the tee.

The defending champion steps up to the first hole of the Red Course and meticulously places his ball in just the right spot on the little green plastic square that constitutes a Putt-Putt tee. It is perfectly quiet as he wipes away an imaginary impediment in front of him, hunches over the ball, takes a series of tiny practice swings, and hitches up the back of his pants. Then he strikes the ball, and it silently rolls over the synthetic green carpet, traverses a hump and falls tidily into the center of the hole. The game has begun, this tournament that everyone refers to as "our Masters" but is really Putt-Putt's U.S. Open, amateur, junior and senior all rolled into one.

The defending champion is Greg Ward. He would never say such a thing, given his modesty, but he might be the greatest putter who ever lived.

First stop: Lynchburg

The road to Augusta began for me three months earlier, on a warm Tuesday night in Lynchburg, Va. Because I wasn't a Putt-Putt pro, I had only one avenue to play in the Nationals--join the Amateur Putters Association. To do that, you have to play in a local tournament and be recommended for membership by a Putt-Putt course owner. The owner of the Lynchburg Putt-Putt, Joe Aboid, happens also to be the commissioner of the sport, so I had come to the right place.

"All kinds of people play the game," said Joe, who was grappling with a malfunctioning machine in the videogame room when I met him. "You can play with grandmothers and grandchildren, you don't have to be able to hit the ball 300 yards. It really gives me a thrill to see families come out and all have fun together."

Joe's father, a Putt-Putt Hall of Famer and the son of a Lebanese cobbler, built the first ever Putt-Putt in Cleveland, in 1960, and Joe soon entered the family business. In the heart of the Bible Belt, he is a full-time Putt-Putt evangelist.

He gave me a Strata Tour Ultimate--the official ball of Putt-Putt--then I paid my $7 entry fee and headed toward the first hole of the tournament course, where I met a fellow named Ron who showed me the ropes over a couple of practice rounds. Local knowledge is a big part of this game. Ron explained how heat, moisture, wind and even time of day can affect the way the ball rolls. He would say things like: "This hole we use the No. 3 tee spot, bank it off the left rail, front door."

We played with a retiree named Gene, who took up the game four years ago, has 104 trophies to his name, and was dressed in denim shorts, sneakers and a baseball cap sporting the logo of a mobile-home dealership.

There were kids playing with their parents, older kids playing with their dates, students from nearby Liberty University, middle-aged middle managers, an accountant, a janitor, a painter, a guy who works for the Ramada Inn, retirees, some fuzzy-haired ladies--the whole carnival of humankind was on parade beneath the neon lights of the nearby Dairy Queen on Timberlake Road, utterly engrossed in the wholesome, sweetly innocent act of putting. Popular hits from long ago lost summer afternoons hung in the air like a warm mist.

It was when we were on the third hole in the second round that the proceedings were interrupted by the arrival of a big black SUV, honking its horn. A big man in a big black suit stepped out. It was the Reverend Jerry Falwell.

Falwell's house is just down the road, as is Liberty University, which he founded. He had stopped by to see his son and some of his grandchildren, who were playing on one of the other courses. It turned out that Ron, whose family is in the Christian music business, knows him. In fact, everyone seemed to know him. "He's been great to me," said Ron. "He took me on his private jet to meet President Bush once. It was the highlight of my life, I would say."