Thursday, August 11, 2011

Monday Funday

I decided I wanted to take it pretty easy on Monday and try not to over do it and wear myself out for the opening day of competition. In the morning I went over to the park where the field events were taking place and wandered around until I found the check in for the mini golf course. I had my mini driver with me but that was it, so I bought a second weighted mini that was even more over stable. The nine hole course was set up so each player had to go through twice and total it up for eighteen holes. I went out for a quick practice round and played along with a pretty large group for a while then jumped ahead to play a few holes by myself before heading to hole one to get started. On the way back I saw the Seattle Crew starting their round, Big Dawg, Bjorn, Aaron and a couple more folks I'm probably forgetting. I hung around for a few minutes waiting for a couple players to show up to form a group. I ended up playing with Brian Costa (17414) and Manuel Fernandez (18407), both from the San Jose area. The course was alright with a few tricky shots and some longish holes. The coolest hole played from a hill above an island green that had a few pine trees you had to hyzer around. In the first round I got to the island (barely) and ran my putt about 6 or 7 meters past the basket (whoops!). I hit the long putt back for a sweet par 3 which felt great! Another hole played over a small pavillion and I took an unneccessary OB there which put a dent in my score. I ended up shooting an unspectacular 10 over 64, three strokes out of last cash and six strokes off the winner. I did manage to beat out Valarie Jenkins (the women's winner) by a stroke though. Both Bjorn & Kirk McAllister shot 2 over 56's and managed to cash in their division which was won by Steve Rico with a one under 53.

After the mini round I walked over to where the EDGE Skillshot and distance competitions were going on. I followed some of the Oregon guys around (Nate, Colin, Kirk and BVD) and tried to figure out the complex scoring system. Nate ended up winning the open division and the Whitler took second in the old guys division with a score quite a bit higher than Nate's! All the results can be found on the 2011 PDGA Worlds website.

I sat in the Innova tent for a while and chatted with two of their guys about the process for hotstamping and other disc related questions I had. After a bit of this I noticed that some of the big arms were showing up to put their five best throws out there in the distance competition. Of course Avery put a few shots way, way out there (166+ meters) and then it was time to watch Christian Sandstrom from Sweden. He absolutely CRUSHED some shots into a head/cross wind out to 190 meters to win the event, so impressive! I took a few pictures which I'll get up on the flickr page when I get home. Another impressive distance thrower was Jim Myers. He came up near the end and threw 5 brand new 160g Rpro Bosses out to 141.7 meters, each shot almost a mirror image of the last. Hyzer flips with ultra-long, straight glides. He definitely came prepared.

In the early evening it was time for the mandatory players meeting at Santa Cruz High School. I met Gordy outside the venue where we hung out for a while and socialized for a while. It was fun to see all the big disc golf "stars" showing up and of course seeing all the NW golfers too. Gordie and Jamie Crafts were there (volunteering at the tourney), Keith & Adam from Chainbangerz, Rob Jones Gun, Tom & Theresa, Mike Werth, Aaron Holley, Bjorn and so on and so on.... The meeting itself was not particularly illuminating. Gordy and I sat together in the second row of seats behind Steady Ed's widow and three of there children (+ spouses). There was some special recognition of Ed which the family came to be a part of. There were awards for men's and women's player of the year, points leaders, sportsman/woman of the year and TD of the year etc... A few folks gave short speeches and thanked their sponsors as you would expect. We learned that the 2m rule was to be in effect all week at all the courses and then it was time to head home and get some sleep and dream about the competition that would start in a few short hours!

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