# Could a major league golf pro play putt-putt? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 8, 2010, 7:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-a-major-league-golf-pro-play-putt-putt/549586 "2010-08-08T07:09:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Captain\_Midnight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/977dab/32.png) [@Captain\_Midnight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Midnight)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2010, 7:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-a-major-league-golf-pro-play-putt-putt/549586/1 "2010-08-08T07:09:01Z")
Could Tiger Woods, Arnold Palmer play putt-putt golf better than anyone else? ---
**Author:** ![The\_Second\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2010, 7:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-a-major-league-golf-pro-play-putt-putt/549586/2 "2010-08-08T07:15:46Z")
Yep. Provided it doesn’t interfere with their contracts with sponsors. ---
**Author:** ![Superhal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Superhal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superhal)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2010, 7:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-a-major-league-golf-pro-play-putt-putt/549586/3 "2010-08-08T07:35:53Z")
Almost by definition, golf pro’s are better putters than average people. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Second\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2010, 7:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-a-major-league-golf-pro-play-putt-putt/549586/4 "2010-08-08T07:53:46Z")
Putting is easier (for me) than fairway work by a long margin, but the pros are even better than mini-golf hustlers like yours truly. I’d expect a pro to make multiple holes in one in a round of pee-wee, and get most holes in no more than two shots. ---
**Author:** ![madmonk28](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madmonk28/32/20811_2.png) [@madmonk28](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madmonk28)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2010, 8:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-a-major-league-golf-pro-play-putt-putt/549586/5 "2010-08-08T08:36:41Z")
There was a wonderful and weird story in the Washington Post about professional miniature golf players who claim they could beat Tiger Woods in Putt-Putt. Requires registration [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/20/AR2006062000866.html](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/20/AR2006062000866.html) > [@](#): > > When talking with people outside the professional putting community, Matt is careful not to overstate the significance or rigor of a sport designed so that a maladroit third-grader may occasionally manage a hole-in-one. But Matt does make the case that good pro mini-golfers have honed an expertise with bank shots and faux turf that, on a mini-golf course at least, would humble even the titans of the PGA. “If I got on a course with Tiger Woods, and he didn’t practice, I’d beat him,” said Matt, who then admitted that this rehearsed line was part of a deliberate media strategy among the pros. “A few of the [pros] said, ‘Look, every time we do an interview, we’ve got to say we’d beat Tiger Woods, to help promote the sport.’” > > Danny made the same claim to a journalist, and the PGA took note. Woods could not be tempted to compete, but golfer Ben Crane teed off against Danny in a televised mini-golf competition in Dallas in 2005. Crane beat Danny by one stroke. “In the next round,” Danny quickly added, “I beat him by five.” It is a great story, complete with scandal and groupies. ---
**Author:** ![Al\_Bundy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e79b87/32.png) [@Al\_Bundy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Al_Bundy)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2010, 12:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-a-major-league-golf-pro-play-putt-putt/549586/6 "2010-08-08T12:42:17Z")
Certainly they could, although Tiger might not putt too well today. The skills of athletes are quite transferable. Hockey players are often good golfers. Basketball players are not always great baseball players though (MJ). But the thing about putt-putt is there could be a locally developed whiz-bang at PP that could not play regular golf well. He/she would be like a pin ball wizard or the 45 year old guy that can sink 100 free throws in a row. PS. Anybody wish to play Tiger for money this week? ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2010, 1:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-a-major-league-golf-pro-play-putt-putt/549586/7 "2010-08-08T13:04:02Z")
I would agree that they would rarely get above 2 on a hole. But, were we assuming they would get several practise games at that particular course? Because they would need that in order to get more than a couple holes in one in their game. Either that, or allow them a caddy experienced with the local course. Even then, it would depend on the material the sides of the course are made out of. In order of my favorite to least favorite: Concrete offers the most consistent and logical bounce, with very little energy dissipation. Wood is consistent, but takes some getting used to because it does dissipate some energy, and therefore the angle the ball bounces off at can differ from what you would expect. Metal dissipates even more than the above two, and so the angle the ball bounces off is flattened. Plus, it behaves differently at different ball speeds. Brick is less consistent than the above three because it does not represent a smooth curve but rather lots of micro-flat-surfaces. But it conserves bounce energy almost as much as concrete. Plus, and I might be seeing things here, when you hit it fairly hard, it _seems_ to not “jump” up off the surface on the bounce as much as it does with concrete. But I don’t like it as much as the above three because you can’t really predict the angle of the bounce. Stones are right out. They obviously have similar bounce characteristic to brick and concrete but the angle of the bounce is like rolling a random scatter direction. Now, they’re not bad for an occasional _obstacle_, but if you’re going to make the sides out of uncut stones and not provide a straight shot to the hole, it’s not even challenging but rather completely randomly hard. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2010, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-a-major-league-golf-pro-play-putt-putt/549586/8 "2010-08-08T14:57:24Z")
\*\*Ludovic \*\*got it. For a flat straight lie on a PP course, the PGA pros would be very tough for even a PP pro to beat. But for any of the PP-specific skills, like banking or climbing short steep hills, PGA pros wouldn’t have the hundreds of hours of practice the PP pros do. Sothey’d not be very good at it. Better than me? Sure. Better than a PP pro? Almost ertainly not. But, as \*\*Al Bundy \*\*suggests, they’d pick it up real quick. Far faster than a duffer like me or a PP hustler like \*\*Ludovic \*\*or **The Second Stone**. It would be interesting to put a PP pro & a PGA pro on a PP course neither has seen before and watch how their scores change between the first & 5th run through of the course. Conversely, it’d be interesting to put a PP & a PGA pro on a real grass putting green and see what happens and how their relative scores change as the play the same green over & over from various starting spots. ETA: Why are typos invisble in the input box but obvious in the regular thread display? ---
**Author:** ![John\_DiFool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_difool/32/19543_2.png) [@John\_DiFool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_DiFool)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2010, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-a-major-league-golf-pro-play-putt-putt/549586/9 "2010-08-08T15:16:40Z")
Note that the courses the “Putt Putt” (note that the term has been trademarked) guys play on aren’t the usual Mickey Mouse windmills-and-gorillas layouts, but are designed so that skill not luck primarily determines the outcome. They usually have concrete walls, a modicum of obstacles (occ. a sand or water hazard), but nothing goofy or silly which can affect play. As a rank amateur I played a few tourneys about 20-25 years ago, before the owners ditched the Putt Putt brand and reopened a new gaming center closer to the beach, replete with a run-of-the mill gimmicky non-PP course (the walls were all bricks, which as **Ludovic** said above porks most of the skill involved). Edit: opening a new thread in the gameroom about the best miniature golf course you’ve ever played. ---
**Author:** ![R.P.McMurphy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/7993a0/32.png) [@R.P.McMurphy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/R.P.McMurphy)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2010, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-a-major-league-golf-pro-play-putt-putt/549586/10 "2010-08-08T15:50:00Z")
> [@madmonk28](#): > > There was a wonderful and weird story in the Washington Post about professional miniature golf players who claim they could beat Tiger Woods in Putt-Putt. Requires registration [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/20/AR2006062000866.html](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/20/AR2006062000866.html) > > > [@](#): > > > > When talking with people outside the professional putting community, Matt is careful not to overstate the significance or rigor of a sport designed so that a maladroit third-grader may occasionally manage a hole-in-one. But Matt does make the case that good pro mini-golfers have honed an expertise with bank shots and faux turf that, on a mini-golf course at least, would humble even the titans of the PGA. “If I got on a course with Tiger Woods, and he didn’t practice, I’d beat him,” said Matt, who then admitted that this rehearsed line was part of a deliberate media strategy among the pros. “A few of the [pros] said, ‘Look, every time we do an interview, we’ve got to say we’d beat Tiger Woods, to help promote the sport.’” > > > > Danny made the same claim to a journalist, and the PGA took note. Woods could not be tempted to compete, but golfer Ben Crane teed off against Danny in a televised mini-golf competition in Dallas in 2005. Crane beat Danny by one stroke. “In the next round,” Danny quickly added, “I beat him by five.” > > It is a great story, complete with scandal and groupies. That’s like saying that you can beat Shaquille O’Neil in a free-throw shooting contest. Well, your blind grandmother could beat Shaq in a free-throw shooting contest. ---
**Author:** ![Floater](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/dc4da7/32.png) [@Floater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Floater)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2010, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-a-major-league-golf-pro-play-putt-putt/549586/11 "2010-08-11T16:28:51Z")
A golfing friend once told me of an event he had taken part in where a golfer would get the ball to green and a mini-golfer then took over and did the putting. His opinion of the mini-golfers was that they just could not make a decent put on grass. ---
**Author:** ![madmonk28](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madmonk28/32/20811_2.png) [@madmonk28](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madmonk28)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2010, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-a-major-league-golf-pro-play-putt-putt/549586/12 "2010-08-11T17:18:34Z")
That’s the conclusion in the article in the Washington Post. Some of the mini ‘pros’ admitted this. They also can’t play well on European putt-putt surfaces (but one of the biggies on the pro circuit in the states is an 11 y.o. Czech girl, go figure). They just can play putt putt really well.