2025: A Year of Continued Growth
If you were just following our news posts, you might think “wow they disappeared for the year” but we’ve been so busy with our full slate of events that the news section of the site took a little bit of a backseat. Scroll on through this whole post to get an idea of what we were doing this year, our big winners, and a quick look forward to 2026. If you are interested in more real-time updates throughout the season, you should follow our Facebook and Instagram pages, as well as subscribe and listen to the Puttcast where we keep up-to-date on recapping the season.
First, the big picture - the AMA saw growth over 2024, which was already our high in terms of tournaments, registrations, rounds, and unique players to play. Overall, we saw about 9% growth in the number of individuals who participated in a competitive minigolf tournament in 2025 versus 2024. Take a look at the graphics below for some simple stats for the year. In addition to these statistics, we had two of our tournaments (Matterhorn International Pro-Am and the Putters League Championship) be part of the World Adventure Golf Tour.
With that full slate of AMA behind us, we can take a look at who reached the pinnacle of the AMA leaderboard. After finishing just a half point shy of the top spot in 2024, Mark “The Highlighter” Novicki crushed his way to the top AMA spot in 2025. His season consisted of 3 wins including 2 in which he set record setting tournament rounds. He makes the fourth different AMA season winner in four years, following Bryan Akers (2024), Aaron Kaminski (2023) and Mick Cullen (2022). Jeremy Inabinet finished in second after winning the Matterhorn event and Justin Seymour proved he is always in the hunt and rounded out the 2025 podium in third.
Full Top 10
#1 Mark “The Highlighter” Novicki | #2 Jeremy Inabinet | #3 Justin Seymour | #4 Jason Raby | #T5 Bryan Akers | #T5 Rick Baird | #7 Justin Gutche | #T8 Tom Loftus | #T8 Greg Newport | #10 Derek Hartmann
As always, you can keep up to date on the rankings on a monthly basis over on our ranking page and can refresh your memory on how we reach those rankings with our points document.
There were also plenty of additional rankings calculated this year, including regional top-10, women’s, and juniors. The regional rankings take into account just those tournaments played in the three 2025 regions: Midwest, Northeast, and South.
Midwest
#1 Jeremy Inabinet | #2 Derek Hartmann | #3 Justin Gutche | #4 Tom Loftus | #5 Mick Cullen | #6 Bryan Akers | #7 Mark Giannini | #8 Nate Blazier | #9 Erik Haselius | #10 Shawn Brown
Northeast
#1 Mark “The Highligher” Novicki | #2 Justin Seymour | #3 Aaron Kaminski | #4 Anna Seymour | #5 Landon Weiss | #6 Stephane “Mr Aces” Dulmaine | #7 Griffin Weiss | #8 Matthew Liles | #9 Kyle Courcy | #10 Jacob Yale
South
#1 Greg Newport | #2 Jason Raby | #3 Rick Baird | #4 Randy Reeves | #5 Gary Hester | #6 Joey Graybeal | #7 Jack Taylor | #8 Bryan Akers | #9 Kenny Jarnigan | #10 David Lanham
Women
#1 - Anna Seymour | #2 Vanette Block | #3 Glenda Ryning
Juniors
#1 - Jack Taylor | #2 Griffin Weiss | #3 Landry Jarnigan
If you are interested in more discussion of the AMA year, including our top and notable players during the year, listen to Episode 101 of the Puttcast below, which is the audio version of our players meeting.
A big congratulations goes to all of our event winners in 2025:
Jason Raby (Tennessee Open & Mossy Creek Masters); Jeremy Inabinet (Matterhorn International Pro-Am); Shawn Brown (Miniest Minigolf Open); Derek Hartmann (MC Mini Masters); Danny Monchamp (Red Putter); Mark “The Highlighter” Novicki (Maine Open, Lighthouse Classic & Farmington Miniature Golf); David Torroni (O-Street Open); Gary Hester (NC Pro-Am); Jody Kimble (Branson Open & Show Me Putters Championship); Danny Tatum (Putters League Championship); Justin Seymour (Prodigium Cup & Dolphin Open); Joey DiPrima (Winter Classic); Josh Benesh (Coziest Open); Matthew Kraus (Big Putts); Bryan Akers (Looniest Open); Ben Briselden (Rosebud Open); Rick Baird (GA Open); Scott Kline (The Shack); Tom Loftus (Illinois State Open); Rainey Statum (Oak Ridge Classic); Jim Engel (Ice Age Classic); Jerod Mutter (Putt 18); Matt Roalstad (Walkabout).
Our AMA members were active in a variety of different international competitions this year as well. A special shoutout goes to the following AMA and non-AMA members who played in these two big WMF events in 2025:
World Adventure Golf Tour Final (May 2025)
Rick Baird | Jeremy Inabinet | Kyle Courcy | Mark “The Highlighter” Novicki | Dave Vayda | Tom Loftus
World Adventure Golf Masters (June 2025)
Chase Ferguson | Graham Sigmon | Vanette Block | Jeremy Inabinet | Rick Baird | Rainey Statum | Tim Tally | Frank Bisesi | Gary Hester | Brian Johnson | Paul Johns | Danny Tatum | Russell Sigmon
Finally, some of our AMA members took part in the National Putting Tour’s “Super Roll of Putting” where various minigolf groups from around the countries got to show off their colors for an event that was aired on ESPN’s ‘The Ocho” during August 2025 and had gotten some re-airings since on various ESPN networks. If you missed it, you can watch it on the NPT YouTube. While we had members representing in a variety of different groups (Show Me Putters, O-Street, etc) these were the ones sporting AMA gear during the event (L to R): Caleb Smith (T-10); David Vayda (T-12); Mandy Ranslow (T-23); Anna Seymour (T-17); Justin Seymour (6th); Matthew Liles (T-23); Pat Sheridan (3rd - middle); Mark “the Highlighter” Novicki (T-12 - floor)
The 2026 season will be here before you know it, kicking off in Massachusetts with the Prodigium Mid-Winter Cup. From there will be rolling into monthly events all the way until the season finale in November at the Putters League Championship, which will again be a stop on the World Adventure Golf Tour.
