So,
Nearing the end of the 2017 season was another mountain course. The type of course where I have no idea which disc to throw for each hole other than the very basic rule of overstable for downhill and understable for uphill. On top of that, I decided it would be fun to play against the pros. I mean, playing against people who are much better than me on a course that I've only played on once in my life and has a play style that is completely alien to me, what could go wrong?
Uh, I just looked at the scores and...
Spoiler alert!
The first day of the tournament, I stayed perfectly even with my competitors. This is, of course, because we didn't play. A lightning storm moved in before we could start playing and our round was canceled. We waited around for quite a while for the storm to stop but this course takes 4 to 5 hours to play so we ran out of potential daylight before the storm ended. I was bummed. It's a 90 minute drive and I had gotten there early to check-in/warm up, stood in the rain/sat in my car for several hours, and then drove home. There was one thing that I was thankful for on this day.
You didn't embarrass yourself by throwing any discs?
You drive cars in the rain much better than you drive discs in the rain?
A couple of weeks earlier, I was talking with my doubles partner, Curt, at some tournament or another. We were talking about various player's packs that he had received over the years. He's played in many, many more tournaments that I have. To give you an idea, his PDGA number is 14811 and mine is 89711. He joined the PDGA in 1999 and I joined in 2016. He literally has a room full of tournament discs and swag. One thing he mentioned was how many umbrellas he had.
In 2017, somehow, magically, we had not played a single tournament in the rain. Over a dozen tournaments played between March and August and not a single drop of rain. The law of averages was stacking up against us and I told him that I had put an umbrella in my Amazon shopping cart a few days earlier preparing for the inevitable. He told me not to buy it because he would just give me one. He asked me what color I wanted. My disc golf cart is red so I picked red. At the next tournament, he handed me a red Prodigy umbrella. So, while I stood in the rain for hours waiting to NOT play disc golf, I stayed dry under a massive disc golf umbrella. Thanks again, Curt!
The next day, the weather was beautiful.
And that's when the trouble began.
Because he had to actually play disc golf?
Yeah, he holds a mean umbrella but how good is he at throwing discs up and down mountains?
Well, looking at the scores...
Spoiler alert!
Touche.
As far as actual game play goes, I'm only going to describe my first throw and let you extrapolate the rest of the tournament from there and by the final scores, of course. The first hole is not that difficult. You have to throw over or around a pond. The pond isn't massive and technically, I can throw far enough to get across it.
Can or did?
Can.
I was actually going to play it safe like the other two guys on my card, Chris and Doug, did. They threw around the edge of the pond. Their discs flew far enough to make it to the other side of the pond anyway but had something gone wrong, they would have fallen short on land. So, that was my plan. Copy the guys who were better than me and had played this course several times before. Unfortunately, I had an early release, which has the combined consequences of going much farther left than intended and not going nearly as far as intended. I might as well have aimed for the pond. Well, it wasn't quite that bad, my disc only missed land by 2 or 3 feet but 2 feet in or in the middle of the pond, it doesn't matter. And it hit in some dense reeds making the disc unfindable (cue another trip to Infinite Discs). The disc that I planned on using for most of my uphill shots was lost on the first hole of the first day.
Yeah, but...
Would it really have made a difference in the end?
Not by much, admittedly, but that's really a sucky way to start a major tournament. Major for me. It wasn't officially a Major tournament. It was an A-Tier tournament. My first (and only so far) A-Tier tournament. And I started it by throwing my first drive into the pond, taking a bogey and losing my favored driver for day. Oh yeah...
I was only going to describe one shot but now that I think of it, I should describe how round 2 started. It's the same hole, about 300 feet over/around a pond. I step onto the tee pad, still feeling the trauma of the previous day. I decide to play it extra safe by throwing it low and level, even farther to the right. There's no way that I can win the tournament at this point so my goal is just to not lose another disc on hole 1. Even playing extra safe, I should get par for the hole. I let the disc fly and it's lower than I had planned. It takes a big skip making a 90 degree turn to the left, straight for the pond. This time, the reeds stop the disc from going into the water. However, the reeds are so tall that I have to lean way out in an awkward position to throw my second throw. On top of that, the bank of the pond is incredibly muddy (remember the hours and hours of torrential rain?). When I throw my next shot, I slip and fall, sending my disc way to the left. It manages to fly across the pond, barely making it to land on the other side. It leaves me in an awkward position farther away from the basket than I would normally be after an upshot (the best part of my game). By trying to play it safe, I still end up with a bogey on the first hole but I didn't lose a disc.
Small blessings.
Very small.
Despite how my days went, I'm really glad that I played with Chris (middle) and Doug (right). They were incredibly friendly and supportive. They explicitly taught me some things like discs have less lift at high altitude (we were at about 9,000 feet) so you should use lighter discs. They taught me a lot more by example. I watched what they did, what they threw, and the lines they picked.
Oddly, one of the most important things I learned, which should have been obvious, is that playing Solitude involves 4 - 5 hours of mountainous hiking and that takes a lot of energy. They took frequent eating breaks and I didn't and I paid the price. Around hole 22 on the first day, I was done. If you know me, you know that I'm not done playing disc golf until some outside pressure tells me I'm done: lunch break is over, I need to pick up my son, it's too dark to see the baskets, etc. On the first day, I was finished 9 holes before the course was finished. I missed several easy 15 foot putts in those last 9 holes because of physical/mental fatigue. Worse, rather than be frustrated about the putts, my thought was, "Are we done yet?"
So, next time, light discs and food. Oh yes, there will be a next time. Chris and Doug asked me if I planned on returning and playing in their division. They might have been worried that I was discouraged since I lost by 19 strokes. They tied for first and had to go on to a sudden death playoff to determine the winner (Chris on the 8th hole after 7 pushes). I wasn't discouraged because I learned from them and because they were so inviting and encouraging. They embody the true spirit of disc golf.
And even though I lost in spectacular fashion, playing with them may have elevated (ha!) my game. My score was 8 better than the winner of the division that I would have normally played. Would I have played that well if I had actually played in that division? I don't know. What I do know is how I played with Chris and Doug and I plan on doing it again and I hope I play a bit better. At the very least, it would be nice to not lose a disc on the very first throw.
In the end, I took 3rd (out of 3) in Open Grandmasters.