A Trip Up the Matterhorn
In the early 2010s, Autumn Sutherland reached out to Pat & Mandy from The Putting Penguin to talk minigolf in Connecticut and her ideas for the Switzerland based miniature golf course, pulling from her time spent living there. During that time they talked about tournaments and decided when the time was right, she’d reach out to start holding them at the course. In 2017 that call came and the Matterhorn International Pro-Am was born. We wanted to have two divisions modeled after some other tournaments we had been in to encourage players of all types to participate and not be intimidated by some of the top putters. The international part of the name reflected playing in “Switzerland” as well as some of the rules we implemented being more in line with the international game - like using different balls on different holes if you wanted.
For the first 4 years, we tried a schedule where the pros played 5 rounds and the amateurs played 3 rounds. It worked pretty well as we had 19 pros and 15 amateurs that first year but we found that 5 rounds really extended the time of the tournament. We saw that also impacted our pro numbers the next few years as people couldn’t commit to the longer time and they were struggling keeping up with the best scores after 5 rounds.
In 2021 we made a few decisions to drive more participation and to help clear the course quicker for those important late summer paying customers. It was important for us to be respectful of the course ownership and her need to make money as well when possible here in New England. We cut back the pro rounds to just 3 so it would end concurrently with the amateur tournament and has a corresponding reduction in the entry fee and ultimate payouts. To add some more enticement to playing pro we also instituted a skins match afterward where 4 randomly selected pros would have a chance to win more money in a per-hole contest.
The pro and amateur field for the 2022 tournament
This looked like it has worked the past few years with 2022 having our largest field of pro-players at 24. With some major AMA points on the line and the potential to determine the winner of the AMA year, lots of members from the Northeast signed up to try to dethrone the reigning champ and AMA co-founder Pat Sheridan. After the first two rounds, the race seemed to be down to Matt Liles, who was having a great year in both AMA and non-AMA tournaments having a 75 and Caleb Smith, who won the amateur title in 2021 having a 77. Past winner Mark “the Highlighter” Novicki was in with a 79 and a 4 stroke swing is very possible on this course.
The final round was back-and-forth between Caleb and Matt with leads being extended, cut and then finally settling into Matt taking over on the 16th hole with an ace where Caleb took an unfortunate out-of-bounds 4. Matt finished up the round with a 115 total to get his second overall win of the year and first of an AMA tournament. Pat and Highlighter finished with a tie for 3rd, which was broken by a playoff that ended at the 6th hole with Pat taking the bronze. On the amateur side there were 12 putters with Darren Smith, Caleb’s dad, coming out on top with a 122.
We expect the 2023 event to be held in September with details finalized in late 2022. Full results of the 2022 event can be found here and history of the tournament can be found here.
