I'm not going to fight about it, thanks.
"In the world of mini golf, her talent isn’t par for the course" by Sarah Lyall | New York Times August 15, 2014
OCEANPORT, N.J. — She looked like nothing out of the ordinary, just another platinum blond in baggy shorts hanging out at the miniature golf course. But in the rareified, close-knit, hypercompetitive world of professional miniature golf, Olivia Prokopova is nothing short of legendary.
“Olivia? There’s no fear in her,” said Rick Alessi, 57, a municipal heavy-equipment operator from Erie, Pa., who is to compete against her in the 2014 US Open Miniature Golf Tournament that begins here Friday. “She just loves the game.”
There are many unusual things about Prokopova, beyond the fact that last year she swept the sport’s three top competitions — the US Open, the Master’s, and the World championships— for an unprecedented triple crown in miniature golf.
In a sport dominated by middle-aged American men, she is foreign, 19 years old, “and she’s a gal,” said John Forbes, manager of the Bluegrass Miniature Golf Course, the elegantly landscaped spot, free of plastic clowns and windmills, where the tournament is to take place.
While few Americans have heard of any of the players, Prokopova is a celebrity back in her native Czech Republic. She has been the subject of a book and a documentary. She has corporate sponsors, her own website, and her own line of windbreakers.
With many tournaments awarding top prizes in the mid-three figures, no one is going to get rich playing miniature golf. Yet Prokopova takes the sport seriously. She practices for 8 to 12 hours a day, every day, except Wednesdays, when she does schoolwork from 3 to 8 p.m.
She is one of the few foreigners competing on the US circuit and the only one, it appears, to travel with an entourage. It consists of one or both of her parents; sometimes her brother; and Ales Vlk, 39, a buff employee of her father’s miniature golf course-building company back home, who functions as nutritionist, masseur, motivational coach, physical therapist, and training partner.
In America, where most people think of miniature golf as something you might do after getting drunk and exhausting other entertainment options, being a world-class competitor might not seem like such a big deal. In truth, it is not hard to be a professional miniature golf player: All you have to do is join the ProMiniGolf Association, for $25.
“You can declare yourself a professional and pay the fee, so literally anyone can do it,” said Brad Lebo, a 53-year-old dentist from Pennsylvania who won the Masters in 2008.
Similarly, among the many advantages for potential entrants to the US Open, besides the $3,500 first-place prize, is that there is no need to qualify.
“You just pay your entry fee,” said Carol Newman, the tournament director. Men pay $100; amateurs, seniors, and people in the women’s category pay $40.
About half the competitors at the Open, she said, are likely to be amateurs who live nearby in New Jersey and who just happen to enjoy playing. Some talented Bluegrass employees might compete, too. “Chris, who’s blowing the course right now, shoots a 35, and it’s a 40-par course,” Newman said, pointing toward a young man using a leaf blower to blast debris off the course.
Professional miniature golf certainly suffers from a lack of respect. “I get a mixed bag of comments,” said Lebo, who reckons he has won 105 tournaments in his career, for a total of about $9,000 in prize money.
Competition-grade miniature golf courses differ from the kind of course that most Americans think of — there are no gnomes, dragons, or pirates stalking the professional circuit. They feature a series of AstroTurf putting greens that look sober and almost respectable. They are sculpted to be tricky, with variations in the elevation and pitch of the greens.
Players can gain an edge by mapping out, in their heads or on paper, exactly how to hit their second shot, depending on where the first shot falls. That is where Prokopova shines.
“She’s not that much better than the others. She just practices more,” said Bob Detwiler, president of the US Professional Miniature Golf Association.
There is another way to put that. “There’s always an infinite amount of information to learn, and Olivia’s work ethic is extremely good,” said Lebo, interviewed as he tried to come to grips with the pesky sixth hole at Bluegrass. “She sometimes goes to places seven weeks in advance and charts out the course, and that gives her a big advantage.”
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I couldn't read the writing. Must have been the short pencil.
