Local team wins Putt-Putt national doubles title

In the span of just over three years, Richard Miller and Bryan Deal went from local tournament punching bags to national champions in the sport of Putt-Putt.

Miller, 57, of Valdese and his brother-in-law, Deal, 55, of Hudson on Oct. 22 won the amateur doubles tournament which was part of the week-long Professional Putters Association (PPA) 2025 National Championship hosted by the 36-hole Main Beach Putt-Putt facility in Fernandina Beach, Fla.

It was the duo’s first time ever competing at the national level.

And they never played a competitive round in the sport until after a random Aug. 6, 2022, visit to the Putt-Putt in Hickory.

“I was born and raised in Hickory, so back when I was a small kid, my dad would drop me and my sister off or take us to the Hickory Putt-Putt,” Deal said. “I didn’t know what to do with the ball, try to hit it in or whatever.

“But then about three years ago, me, my sister, and my brother-in-law went to Hickory to get something to eat. And she’s like, ‘I wonder if that Putt-Putt’s still open.’ At that time, years ago, they had had it for sale. We didn’t know if they’d ever sold it or not. So, we rode by there and they were open, and the manager invited us back on Thursday evenings for a best-ball tournament. We got into it like that, just local tournaments.”

Miller said at first, the learning curve was evident for both new players.

“We got our hind ends handed to us big time,” he said of their first tournament in Hickory. “The couple we were playing with just absolutely wore us out. And we took it from there, found out about the PPA, joined it, and started playing tournaments.”

Once Miller and Deal started putting in some serious work, the results followed. Miller won the 2023 state championship in Hickory, then in a 2024 Thanksgiving tourney in Hickory, Deal shot a winning 54-hole total of 64, the third-lowest tournament score in the history of the sport.

The two play regularly on the Southern Putting Tour (SPT), which consists of events held in North Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia, and Florida and is one of five PPA regions across the nation.

However, at the start of this year, their home course was taken away as Hickory’s Putt-Putt closed.

The now-shuttered nearby facility opened in 1972 and is one of just two nationwide (alongside Clifton Heights, Pa.) that feature four different courses for 72 total holes.

It was built in the heyday of the sport, not long after the first Putt-Putt facility opened in Fayetteville in 1954 and just prior to the national championship being contested annually, an event that at one time was aired on ESPN.

Its closure nine months ago forced Miller and Deal to explore the area for a new home. They found it at the Adventure Landing Family Entertainment Center in Gastonia, and the duo also regularly plays local weekly tournaments there as well as in Burlington and High Point.

There’s a closer mini golf facility at Bo’s Family Entertainment in Lenoir, but Deal explained that mini golf doesn’t necessarily equal Putt-Putt.

“In mini golf, the carpets are different,” he said. “And Putt-Putt was designed where you can technically ace every hole. Some of the mini golfs you go to, you gotta hit it through the windmill, the dinosaur. Putt-Putt don’t have any of that.”

Despite their practice time being greatly limited, Miller and Deal were determined to chase down the dream last month in Florida.

“We planned all year to go (to nationals),” Deal said. “I probably go down to Gastonia once or twice a week still, but with (Richard) it’s more difficult because he works in construction.

“We can’t put in the practice to be really good, so that’s why (winning nationals) was kinda another feat for us. Going once or twice a week, when for some of these guys, that’s all they do is play and practice, and they will light you up like you never seen.”

Miller said he and Deal “really enjoy the team thing” and said the duo played quite a few doubles events in Hickory.

“(The format) wasn’t nothing new to us,” said Miller, who practices on a hole he constructed in his garage when his schedule dictates that he can’t make the trip to practice anywhere else.

“When we heard they were doing doubles at nationals, we looked forward to that all year.”

In the final leadup to this year’s nationals, Miller provided a sneak peek of what was to come. About two weeks prior, he shot a final-round 20 to win an SPT tournament in Burlington by a whopping 10 shots.

At nationals, the doubles event consisted of an 18-hole best ball round, an 18-hole alternate shot round, and an 18-hole singles round in which both competitors’ scores counted toward a 72-hole team total.

Miller and Deal fired a best-ball 22 on the south course to open the event with a two-shot lead through 18 holes. Their alternate-shot 28 on the north course left them one stroke behind the team of Jay Hadsell and Patrick Viau at the halfway mark.

For the final round, Miller and Deal played separately alongside competitors from other doubles teams. Miller shot a 27, and Deal shot a 24, acing each of the final four holes in carding the lowest individual score of the day among the 16 competing squads, as the local team posted a final score of 43-under par 101 to win the title by three strokes over defending national champions Todd Trent and Chris Hudson.

Miller’s group finished before Deal’s, but neither player knew how the team stood on the leaderboard for most of the final round.

“The individual round, we had no idea what anybody else had shot,” Miller said. “But we were one of the last ones out, and we had one of the players we’re really close with come out and she had seen the score that we needed to beat. And she kinda mentioned to Bryan, ‘Do you wanna know or not?’ And he said, ‘Yeah, give me an idea.’

“So, with about four holes to go, we knew kinda what we needed to hit to win it. And we got hot when we needed to.”

Deal went on to place sixth in singles over the final two days of the national championship event, while Miller was seventh.

“It was an awesome experience,” said Deal. “To only be in the sport for our third year and our first trip to nationals and we actually win the crystal trophy, a national championship, man that was a feeling right there. It was amazing.”

Miller noted that despite the duo’s experience playing the doubles side of the sport, the round-two alternate shot was a new format for them.

“We both had to shoot good to do it,” he said. “Bryan really turned it on late in the final round. I’ve won several events, but I’d say that one probably topped it. That was as high as you can go. We’re ecstatic to be the ones to win it.”

With the victory, Miller and Deal have been invited to play in the 2025 Hancock Matches in Kingsport, Tenn., on Nov. 15.

Both men said there’s no question that they will be back to try to defend their title next year at nationals. The 2026 nationals location will officially be announced early next year, though it will be selected by the Virginia Putting Tour and is rumored to be headed for Roanoke, Va.

“I don’t care if they have it in Alaska, I’m going,” Miller said, with Deal adding: “We’re definitely going to try to defend our title.”

Before then, Miller is leading the charge to re-open the Hickory Putt-Putt. He said he is “in the process of trying to lease the thing out” and “talking to the owner now.”

“It needs a lot of work to it,” Deal added. “I don’t know if it’s exactly a cash cow. And also when you go to Gastonia, they have a batting cage, an arcade, they sell food and drinks. There’s more streams of revenue to help keep it up.

“But it’s a great place to go have fun, and for us, to practice. I’d love to see it back open.”