"Mini Golf as Career? She Gets Past the Obstacles"

Sarah Lyall files a NY Times front page story on this weekend's U.S. Open Miniature Golf Tournament and some of the characters who will be vying for the $3500 first place check, including 19-year-old Czech sensatino Olivia Prokopova.

The mysterious young women has been dominant of late and Lyall shares some fun stuff about her popularity back home, her entourage and her rigorous training schedule.

Prokopova has been playing miniature golf since she was 3 years old, she said. Because there is so little money in it, she relies on fees from exhibitions and on corporate sponsors. “My mum and my dad must also give me money,” she said.

She sometimes finds it lonely. “Because I play all the time, I haven’t got many friends, but I like the players here — they are like my second family,” she said. “I’ve been coming here since I was 7 years old, and I know everyone.”

She trains so intensely that she has had operations on a wrist and on both knees. She would not reveal her training methods — “It’s our secret, how we practice,” she said — but did allow that she takes 14 vitamin and herbal supplements a day, and that “I have to eat light food before I play, or else I can’t bend down and pick up the ball.”

She was the picture of modesty. “I haven’t got any talent; I just practice every day,” she said. Explaining her approach, she punched some words into Google Translate and then read aloud what appeared on her phone. “Diligence,” she said.

This video piece also accompanies the story: