Playing the World's Hardest Mini-Golf Course

NORTH MYRTLE BEACH, S.C. <br/> Aug. 5, 2010 &#151; -- Don't expect to just walk up to this mini-golf course and get a hole-in-one. It can take weeks, if not months to master putting these greens.

And John Anderson Taylor -- "everybody calls me Bo" -- wouldn't have it any other way.

Every few months, just when he thinks people are starting to master the greens at Hawaiian Rumble mini-golf, Taylor goes out and alters the course ever so slightly. Maybe it's a bump here or a divot there.

"I pressure wash the carpet backwards, which makes it stand up and slows the ball down," Anderson said. "Anything I can do to change it up, where they can't get a hole-in-one, that is my job."

Golf is taken seriously here. Very seriously.

Each October, Hawaiian Rumble hosts the Master's of Mini-Golf. Augusta might have the green jacket. But here in North Myrtle Beach they have the green windbreaker.

Taylor is the tournament master, overseeing the 12 rounds of mini-golf played over three days. More than $8,000 in prizes are awarded, including $4,000 for first place. But, Anderson said, the golfers aren't there for the money. They want their photo on the wall of champions and the honor of winning.

"It's that green windbreaker they are after and the prestige of saying that they beat everybody else," he said.

The "sport" is taken here. When asked how long he'd been playing golf, Taylor tersely replied: "I don't play golf. I putt."

If world leaders were ever to create a capital of mini-golf, it probably would be the Myrtle Beach area. Scattered along a four-lane highway filled with pancake houses, discount swimsuit stores and all-you-can-eat seafood buffets are roughly 50 mini-golf courses. Apparently the first dozen or so courses weren't enough.

There are pirate-themed courses, and jungle safari ones. Every few miles, another dinosaur can be seen poking its head out of the palm trees.