Putt-putt nuts
MINIATURE GOLF | Myrtle Beach tournament is major-league event for best in mini-game
MYRTLE BEACH, S.C. -- Miniature golf is big in the Myrtle Beach area. How big is it?
There are 52 mini-golf courses in Myrtle Beach and North Myrtle Beach.
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Bo Taylor is from the U.S. Pro Mini Golf Association, which holds a Masters National ProMiniGolf Championship every fall at the Hawaiian Rumble mini-golf course, 3210 South Carolina 17 in North Myrtle Beach. It draws about 150 professional miniature golfers. Taylor is tournament director. This year's tournament is Oct. 16-19.
"We have people from Germany and Italy," Taylor says before putting at the Dragon's Lair mini-golf course at the Broadway at the Beach entertainment complex. "We have the [Masters] green jacket and all that goes with it." Expect Olivia Prokopova to fly in from the Czech Republic. She is the world's best miniature golfer. She has her own golf coach. And a masseur. She is 11 years old.
Myrtle Beach is the miniature golf capital of America.
All this came about because Myrtle Beach as a vacation destination dates to 1901. The Burroughs & Collins Co. (now Burroughs & Chapin) was a timber and turpentine firm with beachfront holdings. It envisioned the area as a regional Coney Island or Atlantic City. In the past, Myrtle Beach was known as "The Redneck Riviera."
In 1901, Burroughs & Collins built the beach's first hotel, the Seaside Inn. Franklin G. Burroughs' widow, "Miss Addie," won a 1907 contest to name the new area after the wild wax Myrtle bushes of the region. Regular golf courses were built. And mini-golf followed. In the 1920s, it was called "Garden Golf."
Burroughs & Chapin is still family owned as a real estate development company. The group developed Broadway at the Beach (with more than 100 specialty shops), provided land for the Myrtle Beach Pelicans minor league baseball team and developed five miniature golf courses. A sixth one at the NASCAR Speedpark was sold earlier this year.
"Miniature golf is an inexpensive way for a family to have fun," said Taylor, a former Wilmington, N.C., nightclub DJ who moved to Myrtle Beach in 1991. "We have dragons blowing fire, a volcano that shoots fire. That's what people want to see. The older ones were putt-putt courses and there was nothing to them. The new ones are why mini-golf is becoming more popular."
Putt-putt is a no-no in some mini-golf circles.
Taylor declares, "Putt-putt is flat. It has boards and rocks. Adventure-style mini-golf has hills and angles. It's a big difference."
The 50-year-old Taylor knows the secrets of playing a good round of miniature golf. "I can set a course record of any course you put me on," says Taylor, general manager of the Hawaiian Rumble and Hawaiian Village mini-golf courses. Portions of the 1992 Dennis Hopper film "Chasers" were shot at Hawaiian Rumble.
"Mini-golf is the same as regular golf," Taylor says. "There's a type of ball you use. Are you bouncing off brick? Is it a straight shot? Different balls react to the same thing. I use a European style putter. That has a rubber face on it, which doesn't make the ball bounce. If par is 36, I'll shoot a 24, 25 playing one-handed. Two-handed I could eat any tourney player for breakfast."
Whoa. This Bo knows mini-golf.
"If you want to be real good, come out at 3 in the morning when the sprinklers are on," he says. "Watch the water. Every one of the holes on these courses is a drain for water. All you got to do is put the ball where the water runs and it will carry the ball to the hole."
Taylor once beat pro golfer John Daly at mini-golf in a charity event in Texas. As USPMGA tournament director, he is ineligible to play in the tournament.
Taylor says miniature golf is family fun in a clean atmosphere. "Budweiser wanted to sponsor our tournament," he says. "And Mr. Bob [Detwiler, owner of Hawaiian Rumble and Hawaiian Village and USPGA founder] turned them down. They wanted to put their logo on the bottom of the course cups. It's an amazing scene here. But Burroughs and Chapin started it. All we did was grab a coattail and ride with it. We treat people good. People call me a redneck, but I have my truck and all my teeth. To me there's a difference between a redneck and a redneck Southern person. Redneck is a way of life."
And miniature golf is part of that life.