Sunday Review

Gordy K. and I decided to take a closer look at the Pinto Lake course on Sunday morning. Pinto is the newest course being utilized for worlds and is located near Watsonville, about halfway between Santa Cruz and Monterey. Denise dropped me off at the course next to Gordy's rented Kia Soul but he wasn't there so I figured he got there early and went out to explore a little before our 10:00am meeting time. Parked next to Gordy's car was Wyoming player Peter Shive who was packing up getting ready to leave. He turned 70 yrs old this year and is competing in the Legends division. Peter is also running for the pdga board of directors (the election results have since been announced and he was elected) and since I am the WA state pdga coordinator he was curious about some of my views regarding the pdga and the coordinator job. One of the great things about being at worlds is having the opportunity to meet face to face with so many of the folks that contribute to our sport. If you're interested, there's an engaging thread on the pdga discussion board about Peter's views and the direction he would like to see the pdga move in.

I also ran into Tum Tum, WA's TC Bare in the parking lot at Pinto and had a friendly chat before Gordy showed up and we headed off to hole one to start a practice round. The twenty-seven hole layout at Pinto Lake measures out at 11,606' and has a par of 89. About half the holes that are part of the regular 18 hole layout play through a wooded area with lots of elevation changes. Then there are the holes "up on top" that play across, around and through a huge meadow. These puppies are long and lined with OB rope. The icing on the cake is a 1288' par five monster that I would say is not the signature hole on the course but is probably the most memorable! To flesh out the 27 hole format nine holes were added around some sports fields near the park entrance. Although not particularly interesting, the holes seems fair and the layout is adequate. The temp baskets for the nine "letter" holes weren't in place yet on Sunday but Gordy and I did find the tees and the pin placements marked in paint on the grass so were able to throw around six of the holes and walk the other three.

While we were out playing the course we crossed paths with some of the Oregon crew including Brody Miller, Sean Phillips and Kirk McAlister. Needless to say we kept glimpsing 500'+ throws in the rear view mirror. We also saw Mando's own Tom Bontempo out playing the course with his grandson Derek. Tom's comfy trailor is set up in the parking lot at Pinto and he's going to have a pro shop set up there all week. We also met a guy named Edan (#31776) from Homer Alaska and he joined us for a bunch of holes as we closed out the round. Edan has a few videos up on youTube featuring his course called "moose pretzel".

After finishing up at Pinto Lake Gordy gave me a ride back into Santa Cruz and we zipped up to the armory building near DeLaveaga to check ourselves into the tourney and pick up our player packs. Included in the player pack were a flashflight disc with a worlds stamp, a Champion Roc (kinda gummy) with a worlds stamp, some cream to prevent reactions to the prevelant poison oak, a coupon for a free T-shirt from the DGA and a pair of KEEN's latest disc golf shoe called the DeLaveaga. Comfy and cool looking red and black numbers. After the check-in we met up with Denise and headed downtown for dinner at a burger joint and then strolled through the boardwalk and then out to the end of the Santa Cruz pier. There are some tourist shops and restaurants out there, people fishing and lots of sealions on the pilings down below barking and fighting for the prime resting spots. All in all a fun way to wrap up the day.