Success Warrior: The Blog That Embraces ADHD

Disc Review: Prodigy PA-1 and Prodigy PA-3

So,

I had planned on discussing the two putters we used in The Iron Man in more detail but managed to forget to do it in the original post.

Putt how could you forget something like that?

Are you going to start some Super Troopers "meow" thing putt using the word "putt" instead?

I thought I would grab the numbers on the discs and compare them to a couple of other discs.  All the numbers below come from the Infinite Discs website.  In the tournament, we got to use a couple of Prodigy putters, a PA-1 and a PA-3.  I usually putt with a Latitude 64 Sarek so I'm using that for comparison and since most people probably aren't familiar with the Sarek, I included the Gateway Wizard in the comparison.

Model	PA-1	PA-3	Sarek	Wizard
Brand	Prodigy	Prodigy	Latitude 64	Gateway
Speed	3	3	2	3
Glide	3	4	4	5
Turn	0	0	0	0
Fade	2	1	1.5	2
Diameter	21.0 cm	21.1 cm	21.2 cm	21.0 cm
Height	1.9 cm	1.9 cm	2.2 cm	2.1 cm
Rim Depth	1.4 cm	1.4 cm *	1.5 cm	1.8 cm
Rim Width	1.0 cm	1.0 cm *	1.1 cm	1.0 cm
Bead	Hellz Yes	Yes	No	Yes

* These numbers look like they were reversed on the website so I have put in my assumptive correction

The tournament was, for the most part, about putting (aren't they all but this one more so) which meant it was very likely that one disc out of the two putters was going to be the one that was predominantly used.  For me, that turned out to be the PA-3.  The glide matches the Sarek and the fade is probably even closer than the numbers suggest (at least at the beginning of the tournament - soft plastic) since my Sareks have seen a bit of use.  On top of that, the bead on the PA-3 is smaller and rounded compared to the razor blade bead on the PA-1.  The razor blade bead on the PA-1 is twice as high as the bead on the PA-3 and has been sharpened using ancient samurai sword-making techniques.  The purpose of a bead, for those who don't know, is to extend the life of the stability of the disc.  The disc slides on the bead sparing the rim from much of the damage that it would otherwise take.  The purpose of a razor sharp bead is...

To be a complete putt hole to disc golfers?

To give disc review puttzes like you something to whine about?

A guy in the first group that I played with and I were talking about the discs before the tournament started.  We talked about the plastic, the feel, etc.  He said he was going to use the PA-3 for every shot because he hated the feel of the PA-3.  He didn't like the bead.  Amen, brother!  I used the PA-3 for 18 out of 20 of the holes.  There were 2 holes where I didn't want the extra glide and I wanted to make sure the disc would hold a hyzer.  For those 2 holes, the PA-1 worked just like I wanted it to.  If the PA-1 is one of the tournament discs next year, I'm going to spend part of my warm-up time skipping the disc down the parking lot.  

Dude, were you traumatized?

Seriously.

Well, I might be exaggerating a little bit.  The bead might have been sharpened using current, conventional means.  On top of that, it's a dramatic change for someone who usually plays beadless.

Is that a euphemism for ball-less?

Some players have big beads, others don't.

The PA-3 did what I was hoping it would do and worked really well for my "ninja putt" (a topic for another post - people who have seen me do it know what I'm talking about).  It flew straight for flat putts fading at the very end of its flight and worked great for soft anhyzer putts, flattening out and flexing where needed for some of the trickier shots.

That's my take on Prodigy's PA-1 and PA-3.  Have you thrown either of these discs?  What did you think?  You can let me know what you think of the Sarek or Wizard too.  Or any other putter, for that matter.  Although this is a post about the PA-1 and PA-3 so I'm most curious about your experience with those two.

The Iron Man 2018

So,

I played in an event called The Iron Man.  It was 100 holes of par 2 disc golf inside an indoor horse arena. 

Are indoor horses like indoor cats?

Pretty much but the litter box is much bigger.

I want to thank Kolton Read, Team Utah Open, and Prodigy Discs for putting on this fun event. 

It took 6 hours to play all 100 holes.  Trey said that just lasting to the end would probably give someone a good chance at winning.  There were a lot of stairs but physically it wasn't really all that bad and they were short holes so there wasn't all that much walking, relatively speaking compared to a regular 18 hole course.  I ended the day with 25,000 steps on my pedometer which is about 9,000 steps more than an average day.  Many of those steps were up or down stairs so I won't say it wasn't fatiguing.  In our conversation, I told him the winners would probably be the people who could maintain focus for 6 hours of non-stop putting.

Good thing you don't have ADHD or anything.

Yeah, that's lucky.

People started dropping out of the tournament after the second round (5 rounds of 20 holes).  By the fifth round, the arena seemed empty.  Many of those who were left were still trying their best although it was obvious people were getting tired as discs bounced off the fronts of baskets.  Others who were still playing had either given up on the chance of winning or had just gotten bored and were doing wild or goofy shots.  They were still having fun and that was the main purpose of the event.  Short baskets in an unusual setting with music blaring over the speakers.  Very much NOT your typical disc golf.  Oh yeah, and you had to play using 2 new putters that came as part of the registration.  We were given two Prodigy putters, a PA-1 and a PA-3 in a softish plastic, neither of which I had ever thrown before.

After 6 hours, I think you can put them in your "thrown" category.

Thrown under circumstances your other putters have never seen.

So true.  We shot down tunnels, up onto a bridge, in and out of horse pens (and horse manure), and all over the bleachers which created some very interesting skips and bounces (and dings in the discs).  Up onto the bridge probably had the greatest pucker power out of all the shots.  You had to get your disc to land on a 5 foot wide bridge, throwing from about 30 foot away from the bridge on the level below the bridge.  If you threw it too soft, you hit the front guard rail and if you threw it too hard, you went over the back guard rail.  It was a very precise shot and my guess is that it had the highest shot average.  I missed the bridge on my first shot during the first round but made it up on the bridge the other four times, twice hitting the basket.  It was really hard to get the disc over the lead guard rail and somehow not bounce the disc off the top of the basket but I did see someone ace it so it was possible.  It just had to be a very precise shot.  Really, every shot had to be so precise because the goal was to get as many aces as possible and that is where the challenge was.   That and maintaining that precision for 6 hours, of course.

I got one ace in the first round, one in the second, and three in the third.  During the fourth and fifth rounds, I bounced a lot of discs off of baskets but everything seemed to be an inch or two low of going in.  Players were much quieter in those rounds too as everyone started to run out of steam.  My best ace was a blind tee shot where you throw the disc from the concession hallway through a tunnel on the second level trying to hit a basket in the middle of the arena.  

It sounds like this will be an annual event and I plan on being there again next time.  I do have a couple of suggestions for next year:

• Don't give out the "I Survived The Iron Man" badges until players turn in a full score card.  There were a lot of people who did not survive.
• On the hole where you shoot through a tunnel to a basket sitting on the balcony between two chairs: Either move the basket away from the edge a foot or two or put down some obstacle on the ground between the tee and the basket that keeps people from sliding their disc to the base of the basket.  This is a risk/reward basket where the risk outweighed the reward by so much that everyone just slid the disc up to the basket, took their 2, and tried for aces on the other baskets.

After 6 hours of hiking up and down steps and trying to ace every single shot (except the balcony shot), here were the results by division:

Women:

1. Teresa Winn - 216
2. Karen Runyan Anderson - 220

Open:

1. Kesler Martin - 195
2. Jake LaPutka - 197

Advanced:

1. Alan Rowley (aka SuccessWarrior for those of you who don't know who writes this blog) - 202
2. Kevin Cook - 205

Intermediate:

1. Cody Flanders - 210
2. Jeremy Kopp - 214

2017 Pureline Championship

So,

My last tournament of 2017 was the Pureline Championship played at Sherwood Hills.  If this had been the first tournament I played in 2017, it still might have been the last one I played.  It was so bad that after the tournament, I might have donated my discs to someone more deserving like the guy who plays frisbee catch with his dog.

And I was really looking forward to this tournament.  I almost played it the year before but thought it might be a bit much for my second ever tournament.  Apparently, it was a bit much for my 18th ever tournament/event.  I invited my dad to come join in the fun because it's close to his home turf and even though it's a longer course, we could rent golf carts to cruise around in.  So, my dad got to watch me play my worst round ever.  It didn't start that way.

The first hole was a short uphill shot.  You had to shoot out of a small gap and avoid one guardian tree but neither of those things are exceptionally hard on this hole.  I was first to throw and put my disc five feet from the basket.  Drop in birdie.  Booyah!  That's how you start a tournament.

I thought you started tournaments by chucking the first shot in a pond.

Maybe he would have if this course had a pond.

Then the wind started blowing and my disc golf world was blown apart.  I mean, it really started blowing.  A player on a different card told us about a shot that ended up being blown behind the thrower, netting negative distance.  Nothing I did seem to work.  I either didn't compensate enough for the wind with my disc blowing or rolling to the right or compensated too much and watched my disc fly an amazing distance to the left.  It was incredibly frustrating.

I had one shining moment during the two rounds after the wind started blowing.  I was getting ready to putt from the tree line, where the wind had blown my disc.  I was about 40 feet out from the basket.  I got into my stance and got ready to throw and about 10 feet to my left, a dust devil whirled into life.  I looked at it like, "Are you freaking serious?"  It reminded me of the putting meme except that it wasn't good weather for everyone else when they were putting.  They just didn't have to deal with a tornado.  I mean, how do you read the wind on something like that.  I mentally shrugged because my game couldn't possibly get any worse.  Missing this putt was not going to cost me the tournament.  I focused back on the basket and gave my putter a toss.  Since I led off by saying this was my one shining moment, you already know that it went in.  Even though I was probably in last place at this point, I raised my arms in victory.  This day really sucked (or rather, it really blew) overall but I will always remember that putt.

In the end, I didn't come in last place.  

Tell 'em why.

Yes, do.

One of the other players in my division didn't finish the second round.

Maybe he gave his discs to the guy with the dog after the first round.

Or he finished the second round in Oz.

So I came in second to last, 8th out of 9 players, in Advanced Masters (MA40 in 2018 terminology).

And that was the final note in my 2017 season.  The last memory of the season that would haunt me through the winter.  Guess what some of my off season training focused on?

Now, the 2018 season is getting close.  Tomorrow is kind of an opening event for the year for me.  I didn't plan on playing in any tournaments/events until March but this one is indoors so I'm in.  I played one event in the snow and vowed to never do that again.  In fact, I vowed to never play in the extreme cold, regardless of snow.  We haven't really had any snow or extreme cold this year but I still don't plan on participating in outdoor events until March.  This one, The Iron Man, is 100 holes of disc golf over 6 hours.  I'll let you know how it goes.

 

16th Annual Solitude Open

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.

PureLine Utah Event #6 in Taylorsville

So,

Valley Regional in Taylorsville is not my home course but it's close, not in proximity but in the number of times I've played it.  It's about a mile from my office so I play it a couple of times each week.  Knowing which disc you're going to throw, which line you're going to choose, and having thrown it about 100 times over the last year (twice a week for a year) adds an extra level of confidence when you walk up to the tee.  They did add a twist by throwing in some out of bounds (OB) rules that I had never played.  It changed how I played a couple of the holes and cost me a stroke or two but nothing too major.

This was another slow and steady tournament for me.  I did have a few good putts, hitting one from about 60 feet to snag a birdie after messing up a drive on a hole that I almost always birdie.  Other than that, there weren't a lot of highlights but there also weren't many mistakes.

One mistake I made, taking an extra stroke, was for failing to mentally adapt to a new situation.  Playing the course a lot is definitely helpful but you still have to be able to adapt to situations of the day.  These can be things like new OB rules, wind, rain and slippery run up areas, among other things.  Other things like walking up to a hole that has 3 lines through the trees to the basket and finding:

• the OB rules of the day makes the far left line difficult because the disc might not make it far enough to the right to get back in bounds
• the bungie tight-rope that a couple set up in the left line, while unlikely that your disc will hit it, looks like police barrier tape that isn't supposed to be crossed
• the couple that set up the tight-rope aren't actually using it but are making out on a blanket in the middle of the right line

I tried to play it safe, trying not hit anybody or anything, and ended up playing it too safe and not making it to the inbounds area of the hole.

This year, I'll practice specifically for that possibility so that I'm not taken by surprise again.  I need to find a couple of volunteers to come set up a tight-rope line and make out while I play.

Again, minimizing mistakes (other than the tight-rope fiasco of 2017) was good enough to allow me to take first place in Advanced Masters.

Cache Valley Classic

So,

I was close to first place for most of this tournament.  Going into the last two baskets, I was only one behind the leader.  Knowing that I needed to make up that one stroke in the next two holes, I decided to push things a bit and I blew it.  On both holes.

Pressure mounts and you choke.

And to think, your nickname used to be Iceman.  It's the way he flies, ice cold, no mistakes...yada, yada, yada.

I know, right?

On the second to the last hole, I needed to get a bit of extra distance on my initial drive to make my upshot easier.  If I could get close to the basket on my second shot, I had a chance of gaining a stroke or at the very least, putting a bit of extra pressure on the leader.  I did throw my drive farther this time than I did in the first round.  

Yay!

Wait for it...

Out of bounds.

Oh...

There it is.

I turned the disc over a little too much or didn't compensate for the turnover by aiming farther to the left where they was a bailout area so massive that you literally couldn't miss it.  That is, you would not be able to throw your disc so far to the left that it went out of bounds.  You could only accomplish that by throwing it to the right, which I proved.  The leader threw his second shot out of bounds because the fairway pinched tight near the basket.  This kept me one behind going into the last hole.

Dun, dun, dunnnn!

Or, as OBT does it: a doo run, run, run!

On the last hole, I decided to try an outside route to a guarded basket.  If I pulled it off, it would put me quite a bit closer than the route my competitors were taking.  Once again, I turned the disc over and it went out of bounds to the right.  Once again, if I would have not turned it over so much or compensated by aiming more to the left or using a more stable disc, I would have stayed in bounds and forced a sudden death play off to determine the winner.  If wisdom is gained by doing things wrong and learning from the mistakes, I left this tournament a wiser person.  Ironically, I lost this disc into a pond in a later tournament because it didn't turn over enough (prompting another trip to Infinite Discs - like I need any excuses for that).

I ended up tied for 2nd in Advanced Grandmaster (MA50 now that we're in 2018).

When Did You Start Playing Disc Golf?

So,

I got this question quite a bit last year.  Maybe because it was my first year of playing in tournaments.  The answer I usually gave was "Forever".  For some of the people who asked, this might as well have been true since I've been playing longer than they've been alive but...

I haven't really been playing seriously for more than 2 years.  Maybe I should say 2 years ago.  I don't play as good as someone who has been playing "forever" would play.  I probably do okay for someone who has been playing for 2 years.  I could answer with "it's complicated" but really, 2 years is not far off the mark considering the amount of disc golf I've played over the years.  Let me explain.

I started playing in the 80's, sort of.  I had never heard of disc golf but I would take an Ultimate Frisbee and play object golf.  That's where you try to hit things like sign posts and fire hydrants.  We didn't have any courses set up.  We just went to a park and took turns picking the next target.  I didn't do this very often but I really enjoyed it.

Some time in the 90's, I visited Ricky T in Oklahoma and he told me they made disc golf baskets and discs.  How cool is that?  We both bought a driver, a midrange, and a putter and went to play (throwing the discs like Ultimate Frisbees).  The driver pretty much scraped all the skin off the sides of the fingers on my right hand but we had a great time.  I came home from the trip and put the discs in my closet to save for sometime in the future.

When I visited Ricky T in Minnesota years later, we went back to object golf with Ultimate Frisbees at a beautiful park not far from his apartment.  It was a beautiful day and we spent hours playing around a lake, going until we were hungry and tired.  I don't know if I still owned the discs from Oklahoma but I didn't bring them with me if I did.  So we improvised.  It was more about catching up on what had happened over the years while taking advantage of the beautiful weather and location.

In 2009, I bought a couple of discs and talked my brother into playing with me.  For the next few years, we played twice a year at a disc golf course near his home.  It was a 3 hour trip for me and I would have to basically go without sleep for a day because of my work schedule.  Due to those factors, we would only play a couple of times a year, trying to get 3 rounds in so it felt worth it.  The first year, I was still throwing everything with a fan grip.  I would tape my fingers to keep the skin from being scraped off.  The second year, my brother taught me what a power grip was.  I hated it and refused to used it...until he was consistently outdriving me.  He's taller than me and 10 years younger but that didn't matter, I couldn't allow that so I needed to force myself to adopt this "weird" grip.  The next year, I used a 2-finger power grip.  The year after that, I used a 3-finger power grip for most of the year, adopting the full 4-finger power grip at the end of the year.

From 1993 to 2013, my sport was martial arts.  Even if I would have had an opportunity to play disc golf, I wouldn't have had much time for it.  That changed when my wife and I both changed careers, moved, and started a completely new chapter in our lives.  For a couple of years, we were moving every few months trying to find our spot and I stopped practicing martial arts.  When we finally settled, I started looking at getting back into martial arts but couldn't find (or figure out) what I wanted.  There was a small disc golf course in the city where we ended up.  So, in 2015, I started playing disc golf a couple of times a week for something to do.  When I changed jobs again, I found out there was a disc golf course about a mile from the office that I could play during my lunch break.

In the winter of 2015, I decided to learn more about the discs that are used in the game and Infinite Discs became my best friend.  Over the next year, I ordered various discs and tried a wide variety of discs.  I tested a bunch of discs from Vibram, Latitude 64, Prodigy, MVP, and others.  I would throw them and compare them to each other.  I would rotate them in and out of my bag to try them all on courses.

During 2016, I played at least 2 rounds a day almost every day.  On my weekends, I would play 3 or 4 rounds or more (did you know that 9 rounds at the old Cache Valley Fairgrounds 18 basket course was 47,000 steps?).  I remember commenting in this blog that I probably played more disc golf in 2016 than in the previous 30 years added together.  Now that I've put my history to words, I would say that's definitely true.  I probably played more in one month in 2016 than the rest of my life up to that point.  As a result of all that playing and experimentation, I actually started to improve a bit.

In September 2016, I was playing one of several rounds at the Cache Valley Fairgrounds and Turbo Ted (who I didn't know at the time) invited me to play in an upcoming tournament.  I contemplated it for a few days and finally decided that I should give it a try.  I signed up with the PDGA (#89711) and signed up for the tournament.  The rest is history.  Quite literally.  My results for almost all the tournaments that I played since that first one are in past posts of this blog (and I'll finish up the last couple soon).

I'm getting anxious for my 2018 season to start.  I enjoy the extra excitement that a tournament adds compared to casual play and miss seeing all the usual suspects that I played with time and again last year.  Guys and gals that come together to compete in a spirit of true camaraderie.  It's a weird sport where you want to win while, at the same, you want to see your competitors play the best game they've ever played.  There are too many of them to mention by name here but at the top of the list is my doubles partner, Curt, who I haven't seen since the last tournament we played in.  I'll also give a shout out to Damon, who I am hoping to beat at least once this year.  

So, what do you think?  When did I start playing disc golf?

Teepads for Ted Doubles

So,

In the morning, we played the MVP Circuit Challenge at Von Baer Park in Providence.  After a very short break, there was a doubles tournament at the same park.  The purpose of the tournament, if you weren't able to guess from the title, was to raise funds so that permanent tees could be installed on the course.  Footing is a major challenge for this course and having nice flat tee pads for the initial drive would be nice.  Infinite Discs was trying to raise $1,800 to fund the materials for the tee pads.  Last I heard, we had made it to $1,300 so that's pretty decent considering the small number of players that participated.  

As I explained in the previous post, Von Baer is a 9 hole course.  Like the singles tournament, it was made into an 18 hole course by playing one time around on the short tees and the next time around on the long tees.  Most of the short tees aren't short, they're really short.  My doubles partner, Curt, and I got birdies on 7 of them.  We should have had 8 but on one of the shortest holes, if not the shortest, he threw it a bit long and I threw it a bit short.  There's quite a drop off.  In fact, the pic to the right shows the hole we should have gotten.  You can't see the basket in the pic or from the tee.  It's down the hill and to the left of the telephone pole, behind the trees that can be seen just over the guy's right shoulder.  If you over throw the basket by 30 feet, you're very likely to end up down by the parking lot.  I over compensated and threw it way short.  Curt was bolder and his disc barely hung on to the edge of the hill leading down to the parking lot.  It made for awkward footing for the putt.  Awkward footing is the theme of Von Baer Park.

We also didn't birdie #7.  It's probably the longest of the short tees, when you take the hill into account that you have to get your disc to the top of.  Both times, I stumbled on my run up and pulled my disc to the right.  It wasn't drastic but it was annoying.  They really should put in some nice, flat, permanent tees here.

On the long tees, we parred everything except for getting one birdie on #4.  If you hit your line on your drive, a birdie is fairly easy to get.  I missed my line by about 6 inches and kicked left into some trees.  If it was singles, I would have most likely gotten par because it would have taken me a shot just to get back out to the fairway with very little advancement toward the basket.  Luckily, Curt hit his line and we got our birdie. 

We were close enough for a birdie on #6 except that we were behind some trees and the footing was...awkward.  I tried kneeling to go low under a couple of trees that made an upside down V.  I kept sliding past my lie as I tried to get positioned.  I finally managed to stay balanced but I couldn't really get any kind of throw going with such an awkward stance.  Curt tried leaning way out to the right but his arm hit a branch on his throw, stealing all the power from the shot.

Our second shot on #7 was on the side of a hill with about a 45 degree slope of long, dead grass.  It means that just standing still is a challenge.  Standing still and trying to generate power for a throw is even more challenging.  The equal and opposite reaction means that some of the power may end up pushing you down the hill and that power loss will mean a short shot.  Not only that, but even on shorter shots, I like to take one step into my throw.  I will stand still when I get within about 50 feet of the basket but outside of that, it just feels natural for me to take one step to throw the disc.  That is not an option when you have to pound your heels into the hill just to get enough footing to stand still for the throw.

Hole # 9 is much the same except worse.  Imagine standing on the side of a hill in a gravel pit and trying to throw your disc 100 feet to the basket.  I slipped and my disc fell way short.  Curt made it to the top of the hill to save our par.  One of our opponents went sliding down the hill on his ass for about 50 feet.  He wasn't throwing but was trying to get to his disc.  

Because of the shotgun start, hole #8 was the last hole for our card.  We were winning our card by 1 stroke.  Their first throw went down a cliff and would not be used unless the second guy somehow did worse.  His shot was scary in how close it came to the edge of the cliff but it stayed up on top.  Both Curt and I threw what looked like perfect throws.  There were the perfect line to birdie the hole but when we walked up to the discs, we found that we had both thrown them short.  We both tried to hit the basket with extra long putts but both missed by inches.  Their first throw hit the basket, not in, but hit the outside of the basket.  The second guy took some extra time lining up his putt and nailed it in the heart, tying up the score.

Curt and I ended up tied for 3rd with those guys.  As much as this course messes with how I throw, we had a lot of fun and made some great progress financially to getting permanent tees installed.

2017 MVP Circuit Challenge

So,

The 2017 MVP Circuit Challenge was not the usual type of tournament.  It was one of those tournaments meant to introduce players to new discs and included challenges in addition to the disc golf tournament.  It took place at Von Baer Park in Providence, which is quite a challenging 9 hole course (which I will explain in the next post).  To make it 18 holes, we played the course twice, once from the short tees and once from the long tees.  For non-recreational, adult males, there was only one division to play in.  There were only 21 players in the division which worked out well because a 9 hole course would end up being pretty crowded with more players.  As it was, with the way the course is laid out, you sometimes had to wait for players to tee off on the hole ahead of you before you could throw because the fairways were so close or served both holes.

Players were restricted to using only MVP Circuit discs for all of the events.  The players pack included:

• Plasma Servo - the Servo is not a new model but it's now being released in Plasma plastic
• Electron Vector - the Vector is also not a new model but it's now being released in Electron plastic
• Neutron Particle - the Particle is a new model

There were additional discs available that players could purchase that they would be allowed to use in all the events.  I picked up this watermelon because it would make a cool addition to my wall.  It's an Axiom Insanity that I wasn't planning on using.  

One bit of luck for me was that I already owned a Servo and a Vector.  I use my Servo in just about every tournament I play.  I don't use my Vector anymore but it throws very much like my Latitude 64 Gobi, which is currently my go-to mid-range.  The Particle is very much like my current putter, the Latitude 64 Sarek.  The Sarek has a bit more glide than the Particle but they are both overmold discs with matching flight ratings in everything but glide.

Each event gave the player an opportunity to score points.  Playing the course gave each player 100 - their score in points.  The additional events were:

• Putting Competition
• Ring of Fire
• Driving Distance
• Straight Driving

Putting competition - There were five different kinds baskets set up that each had 2 places where players had to putt from.  Players got one try from each location and got a point for every putt they made.  I put 6 in which I thought was pretty good.  

Ring of Fire - All players form a circle about 30 feet from a basket in the center.  When told to throw, everyone putts at the same time.  If more than one person makes it in the basket, those players retrieve their discs and do it again.  This procedure is followed until only 1 person makes it.  If more than 1 person makes a putt and no one makes the follow up putt, everyone gets their disc and the whole thing starts over.  Each winner received 5 points and 5 rounds were played.  I didn't win any of the rounds but my doubles partner won twice.  How cool is that?

Driving Distance - Just like it sounds.  Throw a disc as far as you can up a hill.  The person who threw it the farthest got 10 points.  Second place got 9 points, and so on.  I threw my watermelon for this event and got 4th place.

Straight Driving - A basket was set up about 300 feet down an access road that was about 15 feet across.  Trees crowded both sides and arched over the road creating a tunnel.  The person that got the closest to the basket got 10 points.  Next got 9 points and so on.  I threw my watermelon again and took 5th place.  My doubles partner's son actually threw his disc past the basket but was still the closest, taking 1st place.

After all of the events, I ended up tied for 4th place.  My doubles partner took 3rd.

2017 Davis County Open

So,

The Davis County Open was held at the Davis Applied Technology College (DATC).  The DATC course has 15 permanent baskets.  6 temporary baskets were added and out of bounds (OB) lines were painted between fairways for the tournament.  All of the holes were par 3.  The additional baskets were placed in such a way as to add a bit of technical challenge to a course that is essentially a "grip it and rip it" course.  The OB lines encouraged players to try to stay out of other fairways and penalized errant shots that otherwise would be considered okay to play in a casual round.  

Most of the permanent baskets are set out in the open with no obstacles.  To compensate for the lack of technicality and keep the holes somewhat challenging, distance and/or elevation was added to the holes.  Either the distance was increased beyond typical or the tee was placed at the bottom of a hill and the basket was placed somewhere up on the hill, effectively making a 300 foot hole play more like 350 to 400.  One of the holes plays from corner to corner across a field that looks like it's used for baseball practice.  The distance is 511 feet with no obstacles between the tee and the basket.  This type of course presents a couple of challenges for me.

The first and most obvious challenge is that I can't throw a disc 511 feet.  Or 500 feet.  Or 450 feet.  Or 400 feet (on purpose).  My usual drive distance with a controlled, fairly well aimed drive is 300 - 325 feet.  These means that after my drive, my putt for birdie on the longest hole is 211 feet.  Now, I have done that a few times in the past but it's not something you count on.  Even the shorter uphill baskets left me about 75 to 100 feet away from the basket after my drive.  When we have practiced at our local course, I have often told my son that par is not acceptable.  I broke this rule for Cherry Peak but generally, if you are getting par on every hole, you're losing.  When a hole is par 3 based solely on distance, it pretty much makes it un-birdie-able for me.

The temporary baskets were a nice addition to the course.  There were still long enough or challenging enough that I only birdied one of them.  It was fun though to have holes that were brand new (my ADHD brain likes new shiny things of course) and holes that didn't rely solely on distance to make them challenging.  A couple used narrow fairways, a couple were island holes, and the last two used trees, buildings, and OB to penalize slightly off target shots.

The other challenges to this type of course are that you really can't practice for the best shot or technically outplay the other players or adjust your play based on the previous round.  If I have a chance, I will usually play a tournament course a few times before the tournament and arrive an hour early to warm up and get in some last minute practice shots.  This gives me a chance to try different discs and different types of shots on each of the holes.  I may throw 3 or 4 different discs from the tee to see which one might play the best.  I met try a hyzer route and a flex route and see which one works best and which one I can most reliably throw.  I do practice driving every week at the soccer field across the street and I have improved this year but that's more of a long term thing.  At the age of 50, I'm not sure how much I'm going to improve.  Not that I'm going to give up trying.  At the very least, I need to keep from backsliding.

On a more technical course, I might be able to kind of, sort of hang with the kids (you know, the 20 somethings that are half my age and a foot taller than me - arm span is a factor in disc golf).  If there aren't that many distance holes, the difference between my score and the score of the winner in the Open division might be single digits.  If I feel like I played well, I will compare my score to other divisions to see how I would have placed in a tougher division.  For this blog post, I compared my score to the Open division winner and here's what it looks like.  My total score was 129 - 2 rounds on a par 63 course - so 3 over par.  The Open division winner, Kesler Martin, had a total score of 109 - 20 less than me and 17 under par.  This isn't to say that he isn't better at putting than me or in other aspects of the game but this course definitely favors the big arm.

Last is kind of minor thing if I've had time to get a few practice rounds in before the tournament but it still applies in tournaments that have more than one round.  If a particular shot didn't work for you in the previous round(s), you can make some kind of adjustment to do better in the current round.  I did this in the second round of this tournament on one of the holes.  For some reason, hole #11 at DATC confounds me.  I think I should be able to get close to birdie range, if not actually get into birdie range because it's a downhill shot.  The downhill part of the holes comes after a dog leg right and it seems like I always hit a tree and end up with an unnecessary challenge just to get par.  In the first round, I tried playing it a little straighter but still cut it too tight.  I hit a tree and fell shorter than I did in all of my practice rounds.  I couldn't even see the basket from my lie.  I ended up with a bogey.  In the second round, I said screw it and didn't drive for distance.  I played a perfectly straight shot just over the crest of the hill, leaving me with a very clean up shot, and a tap in par.  On the long holes, unless you threw it out of bounds the first round or the wind has changed, the choice of adjustments is between throwing a straight shot with your favorite driver or throwing a straight shot with your favorite driver.

Thankfully, there are age protected divisions and I was with a great bunch of players for both rounds and I found the challenge of the course to be a fun one rather than a discouraging one.  There are very few tournaments that include my actual division, Grandmaster (50+ year olds), so I usually play with the 40 somethings but I have found that I can compete with them.  The difference between me and a 45 year old is minuscule, unlike playing against a lanky 25 year old.  

I was tied for 3rd after the first round with 3 over par.  One of those was that downhill dogleg I described earlier.  I lost a couple more on that 511 foot hole.  I threw my drive a little high and it stalled out against the wind, falling 75 feet short of my usual drive.  I tried too hard to make up for it on my second throw and put the disc far to the right but luckily still in bounds.  I made a strong run for the basket to save my par because there is a slight hill behind it to stop the disc if you miss, which I did.  However, I missed the very easy come backer and ended up with a double bogey.  I had a couple of birdies in the round and a couple more bogeys that evened out.

For the second round, I tried to play it just a bit cleaner and made that adjustment on hole #11.  My birdies and bogeys cancelled each other out and I finished the round at par.  One of the big difference between my play and many of the others was that I only went OB once the whole day (and that was because of a dumb mistake).  Playing clean and letting par be acceptable for the day was enough to move me up to take first place for Advanced Masters.