My first sanctioned disc golf tournament
There I am, registered for the Sumac Attack tournament on the PDGA
website. The course is at the Monroe, Ohio community park.
The course is tight with lots of elevation. This drive goes
down the hill more than the picture indicates.
I played in the Senior Masters division. My morning round
was played with two older (but not as old as me) players
including Hans, a hungarian chess master.
I had three goals -- (1) to get tournament experience and
learn the ropes, (2) to get an official PDGA ranking, and
(3) to learn what division I belong in for tournaments.
My division would be "Senior Grand Master" but there are
not enough players my age for most tournaments to have
a group in that division.
There was a prize for closest to the pin on each hole. By the
afternoon round the orange, closest to the pin markers were
pretty much right at the base of each hole.
Tabulating the morning scores between rounds. There was
a one-hour break for lunch. The entire tournament took about
eight hours.
Because there were not an even number of Senior Masters,
I was assigned to play with two Advanced Masters for the
afternoon round. I played with one of the youngest players,
Nathan, who got a hole-in-one on this hole. It was also his
birthday. I took the picture to email to him.
This picture and the following ones give a feel for the course...
Hard to keep the disc in the fairway since the terrain goes
down to the left and discs naturally want to curve left for
typical, right-handed players.
There is the occasional open hole, usually a fairly easy par.
My final, personal goals were to shoot in the 80's and
hopefully not finish last. Near the end, after 7 hours of play
I lost my concentration on one hole. I threw a backhand
shot on a hole that I knew required a forehand. It ended up
deep in this kind of tangle of brush. I got a 7 on a hole that
I had gotten par 3's during practice and the morning round.
I finished last by one stroke. Darn. But I did average in
the 80's for both rounds -- 89.5.
A short hole with a creek winding along the fairway and
around the back of the basket. I parred this hole repeatedly
last week when I drove here to practice, but during the
tournament, you guessed it, I threw it in the creek.
I had a great time, played a second (non-sanctioned)
tournament the next day, and I'm signed up for another
sanctioned tournament in mid-September.