When two writers challenge a pair of PGA golfers to a game of miniature golf, there’s a certain way things are suppose to go. The pros crush the scribes. The writers thoroughly embarrass themselves then compose a tidy self-deprecating story about the butt-kicking.

This pros-vs.-prose story is nothing like that.

On a chilly afternoon at the Putting Zoo in Puyallup, PGA pros Ryan Moore and Michael Putnam met sportswriter Todd Milles and me for a friendly best-ball match. The match sprung from a curiosity Todd and I had to see how a couple of guys who spend their weekends playing events like the U.S. Open with players like Tiger Woods would do putting through windmills and on rotating greens.

As it turns out, our experiment proved that miniature golf narrows even the largest talent gaps.

Ryan Moore is the 27th-ranked putter on the PGA Tour (Woods is No. 37), and Michael Putnam was an All-American golfer at Pepperdine. Todd and I aren’t skilled enough to be their caddies. Furthermore, both admitted they’ve played more miniature golf than us.

If you had to bet the farm on one of us, you’d have chosen Moore or Putnam, right?

So would we.

And we all would have lost our shirts.

I know, this isn’t exactly beating Michael Jordan at one-on-one. It’s more like beating Sonics guard Luke Ridnour at H-O-R-S-E. Still, as far as miniature golf goes, this is “do you believe in miracles?” stuff. (At least as far as Todd and I are concerned.)

Todd and I took steps to level the playing field. Putnam wanted to use his own putter. But considering his putter probably costs more than my car, we proclaimed everyone must use Putting Zoo-issued putters.

The match started on a straightforward hole I expected the pros to ace. However, they just missed and we each settled for 2s.

On the next two holes Todd made short putts to give us a two-stroke lead.

It looked like the lead would be short-lived on the fourth hole, which starts with a steep hill that climbs from feet level to chest level in about a foot. After three of us hit the ball over the hill, Putnam slapped the ball off the edge of the hill, over a pile of rocks and hit the pin. Luckily, Todd made a long putt to save our lead.

On the fifth hole, my shot slipped past a rotating wooden horseshoe and rolled in for the match’s only hole-in-one. Suddenly we had a three-stroke lead.

I thought for sure this would be where we would choke. Even though we gave back a stroke on the next hole, we’d save the choking for later.

Over the next seven holes, all four of us took turns making goofy shots up super-steep hills, around sharp corners and through gazebos without the score changing.

Finally, Putnam made a long putt on No. 14 that neither Milles nor I could duplicate and our lead was trimmed to one stroke.

It remained that way until the rotating 16th hole. The entire green is on a railed-deck that slowly spins, which causes every putt to break sharply to the right.

If we were going to blow our lead, I figured this is where it would happen.

The pros handled it easily in two strokes. Then it was Todd’s turn.

Todd stepped on the spinning green, but his expression was more like that of guy making his first ocean fishing trip. He took a few weak putts then picked up his ball. Considering I couldn’t look at the green without getting dizzy, I figured we were doomed. I’d played the hole with my kids six months earlier and shot a seven. But this time I got lucky. The ball rolled up to the cup, and I tapped it in to split the hole.

Now the pressure was really on, because the course only has 17 real holes. The bunny-face ball return counts as the 18th.

It was time for a little trash talk. Putnam smiled at us and said “don’t choke.”

The 17th requires timing your shot perfectly to get it past a small rising and falling gate and onto a larger green. Moore and Putnam nestled their shots right up to the hole for easy 2s. Milles and I failed to get our shots past the gate. My shot bounced off the course for a penalty. Milles got his second shot through the gate, but our lead was gone. He had to make a 10-foot putt to tie. He did.

We all missed the hole in the bunny’s nose with our final shots, and Todd declared the match a tie.

“No way,” Putnam said as he turned toward Mike Stanzel, the course’s owner and designer. “Can you bring out a bucket of balls so we can settle this?”

Stanzel’s wife, Terry, brought out a rack filled with brightly colored balls and sat it behind the hole.

It was settled. The winner would be decided by a pressure-packed bunny-nose playoff.

The final hole is only about 4 feet but the ball must jump off the carpet ramp onto a wood surface painted like a bunny face. The shot is so challenging those who make it win a free round.

Two more times we each tried and missed.

At some point during all the missing, Moore looked at Todd and proclaimed, “I love playoffs.”

Putnam missed his shot in the third overtime, and it was my turn.

What happened next was both dramatic and embarrassing. Dramatic because I actually made the shot, Moore missed his and the writers won. Embarrassing because I now have to tell people the most clutch sporting performance of my life took place on the bunny hole at the Putting Zoo.

Craig Hill: 253-597-8497

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