Miniature Golf Provides Links With Greatness

Hushed fans crowded around the final hole, straining to see whether the golfer would break the course record that had stood for nearly a decade. Mark Levine calmly stepped up to the ball and made the 2-foot putt. Fans hugged him and gave him high fives. He had shot a 35.

On Levine’s course, the greens are bright blue and the noise of traffic on the San Diego and Ventura freeways often upstages the spectators’ clapping. The crowds are small--maybe two or three friends--the purses are minuscule, and the tournament lasts a whole month, but the pressure can be just as great as at the U.S. Open.

Or so say the players in the Dean De Graff Invitational miniature golf tournament.

Tournament devotee Howard Robinson, a friend of organizer De Graff’s since the second grade, said he plays real golf “for exercise and miniature golf for cutthroat fun.”

Tournament Finals

Nearly every year since 1976, these San Fernando Valley friends have played dozens of matches on the Valley’s miniature golf courses to determine which top-10 players would travel to an immaculate course in Las Vegas to play each other in their own version of tournament finals. This year, they were held Friday and Saturday. Mark Levine finished second behind his brother Stuart, who won the tournament for the second straight year.

Never mind that these players are surrounded by scaled-down castles and threadbare carpet, they still approach their sport with an athlete’s intensity. One plans his whole summer around the tournament, another practices an hour a day before and during the event, and another watches videotapes of previous matches and studies the nap of the greens, or blues.

De Graff’s love of miniature golf even outweighs his great affection for other sports. He missed the Los Angeles Dodgers’ Jerry Reuss pitching a no-hitter against the San Francisco Giants in 1980 because he was at a miniature golf match.

Yet these men and women are subjected to ridicule that no Professional Golfers Assn. member must ever face.

Take David Leib, for instance.

Eyebrows Lift

The San Diego State University finance major described the odd stares he gets when he walks through the video arcades that line entrances of many modern miniature golf courses.

“It was kind of embarrassing at first, when you’re walking through the video arcade and you’re bringing your own putter,” he said.

Miniature golf fairways are about 30 feet long, making use of woods and irons impractical. Novice miniature golfers use the putters that come with every game ticket, but Leib said pros prefer the weight and feel of their own.

Leib and the other tournament participants may take the competition seriously, but some of their acquaintances have yet to be persuaded.

“My girlfriend came down to visit three weeks ago, and she couldn’t believe it,” Leib said. “She thought it was the most moronic thing to do.”

Leib’s college roommates also thought it ridiculous when he returned to school excited about a summer spent playing his favorite sport. But now another roommate, Glenn Leib, not a relative, plays also and has become fanatic about the game.

The De Graff Invitational actually started as a Monopoly marathon in 1975.

“I was hurt in an industrial accident and couldn’t go out to see friends,” De Graff said, so he brought his friends to him by holding a Monopoly competition.

Once healed, De Graff said a board game seemed boring.

“We wanted to do something outside,” he said.

The tournament begins with two divisions of 10 players each. Each match is 17 holes, because the 18th hole is a ball-retriever, and the players do not want to give up their personal balls. Points are earned for winning matches, for holes-in-one and for finishing a game in fewer than 45 strokes.

De Graff keeps track of the game’s rules in a handwritten rule book. Yet he admits some rules are made to be broken, or at least bent:

He routinely looks the other way while players trample the indoor-outdoor carpet that rims the holes, to make the balls slide in more easily. Last year, Robinson stretched a rule that allows players to clean off the green with their hands before putting.

Son Was Caddy

“I brought my 10-year-old son as a caddy,” Robinson said. “He came with a Dustbuster and flashlight, so I could have a clean and well-lit course.”

Robinson, who is a computer programmer and a magician, admitted that the ploy did not measurably improve his game, but he said it did seem to give him a psychological edge over the others.

The rules allow players a practice roll on each hole, as long as no one is waiting behind them to play. Robinson said most players take advantage of that opportunity, even though they know the holes by heart.

“They really do change from year to year,” he said. “They might change the greens, and they might repair the holes.”

De Graff played during the first two years of the invitational but retired after he won in 1977 because, he said, “once you win something you organize, you feel uneasy.”

Instead, De Graff--who sells clothing wholesale--traded his golf club for statistics sheets. He is both the commissioner of the tournament and its only official.

His statistical resources about the tournaments are legendary. On a recent night, Robinson made a hole in one. As the player danced around in glee, De Graff calmly read off the number of holes in one ever made on that hole (one); Robinson’s best scores on that hole, and the number of times Robinson has won the hole during the 10 tournaments.

De Graff also is judge and jury for disputes. And there are lots.

Arbiter of the Bizarre

Take the night in mid-July at a course in North Hollywood, on the Old-Woman-in-the-Shoe hole.

Robinson took the first shot.

The ball rolled up the ramp and stopped dead at a concrete wall. Robinson argued that he should get to try again, because the bridge had been moved by the last player. His competitors said it was tough luck but that he should lose a stroke to extricate the ball.

De Graff’s ruling: “It was a repairable hazard” that was left unrepaired. Play the shot over.

Then there was the time that two drunken miniature golf players tried to play through--but not before they insulted the tournament players for moving too slowly. One of the tournament players challenged the two to a $20 one-hole, winner-take-all playoff.

Larry Rehhaut, the steadiest player in the tournament, was the designated hitter. He finished in two shots, while the drunken player and his friends gave up after three strokes, paid the $20 and left.

Many of the tournament players practice, but that may not be crucial, David Leib says.

Leib trained an hour a day, every day, during the monthlong tournament in 1987 and made it to the Vegas finals. This year he played just five times on a shabby course on the west side of the Valley and still made it to the finals.

“It is more important to know the courses,” Leib says.

Videotape Study

Most intense of all the players is Glenn Leib. He is the one who regularly views videotapes of old matches, practices on a portable 10-foot putting green set up in his home, and attends every match, even when he’s not playing.

When he does play, he talks to no one. When his sister, Lisa, who is also in the tournament, congratulated her brother after a good shot, he shrugged her off.

Such concentration has paid off for Glenn Leib: He won the tournament two years ago, finished second last year and went to Vegas again this year.

“My knees are all screwed up, and I can’t play at lots of other sports,” Glenn Leib said. “Miniature golf fulfills a competitive need.”

At the emotional end of the miniature golf spectrum is David Leib’s brother, Mark Leib, a non-stop talker during the matches.

“The best thing you can do is bring a Walkman and put Pink Floyd on the headphones when you play against Mark,” Robinson said.

If there is one drawback to playing tournament miniature golf, players say, it is that they cannot just go out and hit a few balls through the majestic castle for kicks.

“You can’t play it casually,” said David Leib. “You can never just go out and play for fun with friends. You take it too seriously.”