Teeing Off on Putt18!
Back in 2020, Tom and Pat were invited to try out a new putting mat while the early days of pandemic lockdowns were upon us. This Putt18 mat was out of Australia and added a targeted-based scoring system to your traditional putting mat that allowed you to “play” 18 holes. Along with the mat came a new virtual league that connected players form the UK, US, New Zealand and Australia in live-streamed putting competitions given everyone had the same set of “holes” to play. Nearly 3 years, and several leagues and one-off competitions later, the AMA decided to introduce a Putt18 tournament as one of the first “virtual” tournaments in our 2023 season. One of the great things about this format is that it allowed for the AMA to not only easily reach across country boundaries but also provided a handicapped-accessible way to earn AMA points this year.
At best in our first virtual event were 5 bonus AMA points to be added to IRL (in real life) scores and everyone who participated was guaranteed at least one bonus point. With the tournament kicking off right before Season 9 of the Putt18 World Pro League, we saw 20 putters tee it up - 3 from the UK and 17 from the United States. It ranged from experienced vets to folks who were putting competitively on the mat in front of a live camera for the first time. The tournament ran from Friday, January 13th through Saturday, January 21st, and each competitor had to play four rounds on the mat.
In the end, it wasn’t much of a surprise who took the top spot but the rest of the podium may have been to some. David Gomm from the UK showed why he is one of the best Putt18 putters out there by putting up a solid 266 (22 under) early in the week and setting a standard to chase.
Dave Gomm shows a solid scoring cluster in his 4th round
Another early putter in the competition was Seve Kukielka and as a newcomer to the mat put up a solid 278 (10 under) in his first competition on the mat, which would end up enough for third place by 9 strokes. This probably doesn’t surprise people who know Seve on the real-life mini-greens given his recent success at major tournaments around the UK and the world. He recently had a strong finish at the Popstroke event in Orlando. The same goes for another mat newcomer, Justin Seymour who is also coming off back surgery in the Fall and learning how to putt with a new longer putter. None of that stopped him as he slipped by Seve to take 2nd place by two strokes.
You can find the full final scores on our event page. If you are an AMA member you can also join our Facebook group and see some of the full rounds of participants. We expect to hold one more Putt18 tournament later in the year for another chance to earn some virtual tournament bonus points.
