A 'lil HooHaa

Messing with the blogging world since 2005

disc golf tournament

Feeling what it’s like to cash at a disc golf tournament

(Note: For those who don’t know, I also run a disc golf blog — Rattling Chains. I have written some first-person posts over there that I think some readers here will enjoy, so I’m going to sprinkle them in every once in a while on a day when I’m coming up blank!)

Cha-ching!

I’m sure many of you tournament players out there have experienced the feeling of having your name called out after an event and being handed either a gift certificate or cold, hard cash when you place or, better yet, win.

What a feeling.

To be fair, I kind of already experienced it. But both times were pretty cheap — and I’ll be the first to admit it.

I won’t be making a living off playing disc golf, but it still felt cool to get this.

When I first started playing, I somehow won the first tournament I was involved in. It was non-sanctioned, and the other person in the division was just as new as I was. Basically, we were battling to see who wouldn’t finish last.

I also somehow won a PDGA-sanctioned event. But I was the only person in the division and the tournament director was kind enough to leave the division intact and not force me to move up and get whipped.

Needless to say, I never really experienced the feeling of cashing.

My normal goal when I play in a tournament is to not embarrass myself. That basically means I try not to melt down and I hope to avoid big-number holes. But if the course is long and for big arms, I usually start dragging by the end of the second round. I get pretty beat up and it makes the game no fun.

And I hate that.

So I really dig doubles tournaments. I normally team up with Darren Dolezel, who is another member of the Rattling Chains staff. Our goal is to usually try and compete, have some fun and see what happens.

In the past, we haven’t done so well. For whatever reason, we just don’t score. Whether it’s because we don’t play well off one another, are tired or just get into trouble, we don’t seem to place well.

A few weeks ago, I thought we had a solid chance to cash. Alas, it didn’t work so well. It was a Mr. DiscGolf doubles tournament at Tyler State Park in Pennsylvania. The course is remarkable, but it can play long — even with the pins in the short position.

Add in a 36-hole singles tournament the day before, colder weather and having to play 50 holes on this day, and it didn’t work out so well. Looking back, I can count at least six or seven stupid mistakes we made. If we erase those, we might have had a good chance at cashing.

Alas, it wasn’t meant to be.

A few weeks later — the Saturday following Thanksgiving — we were at it again. This time at the Turkey Throwdown III at Schenectady Central Park in upstate New York. The setup for this tournament is playing best score from the short tees and the second round was best shot from the long tees.

This setup wasn’t particularly good for us as Darren is a much better player than me, so my goal was to help on a couple of holes in the first round and hope Darren could carry us.

From there, he’d have to again carry us in the second round as he’s the longer thrower. That meant from the long tees, he needed to really give us a shot to score.

The prize for my certificate… now to break it in!

Add those things together and it likely spelled doom, even in the rec division.

Our first round went decent. Our 57 put us in a tie for seventh in the 13-team division. With another team shooting a 49 in the opening round (the only four teams to score better in the 36-team tournament were the three pro teams and the team to eventually win the Am division), we weren’t counting on a win. But with some steady play, maybe we could get into the top part of the grid.

Eventually, though, something has to click.

Right?

We started out strong in the second round and were consistent throughout. We ended with a 61, which put us in good position. Still, I didn’t think we had a chance to cash as I was sure the teams in front of us would have been pretty steady as well.

I was wrong.

Our 61 did enough to put us into fourth place. It’s not the biggest of paydays — a $15 certificate each to the club store. But it’s still cashing. I also can’t lie — knowing you’ll get called up to get this certificate, even cooler.

So, yes, I was a little giddy.

I ended up with one disc for my “bucks” and in the end, I was just happy to have that feeling of truly cashing. It may never happen again. Who knows?

If you’ve never had a chance to cash at a tournament, it’s my hope you get that chance. It truly is a feeling all disc golfers should get at least once in their lifetime.

This first appeared on Rattling Chains on Dec. 11, 2012. 

Feel free to leave a comment, or e-mail P.J. at hoohaablog@gmail.com. Also, please “Like” HooHaa Blog on Facebook!

A quick hitter

Men’s champion Nate Doss has his photo taken by girlfriend and fellow disc golf professional Val Jenkins after Doss took the ceremonial plunge for winning the Vibram Open.

Just a quick one today. I’ll be back tomorrow with more.

I spent most of today processing photos and crafting a story for a magazine about the Vibram Open, a major disc golf tournament I volunteered at this past weekend.

It was pretty cool seeing a lot of the top professionals in action. Quite wild. I took a lot of photos while there.

You can see them all in a set on Flickr.

***

Another note for something I am working on with the blog — contests!

This weekend I got a bunch of things donated to give away for some contests. I have some other items I have put away for contests as well. Now I need to start having contests.

That’s where you can some in!

Can you let me know some ideas you might have for contests I can hold on the blog? I don’t want them all to be hard, but I also don’t want people to leave a silly comment or re-tweet the contest. While the goal is, of course, to grab some new readers, the reality is I want to hold a few cool contests, too.

Ideas are appreciated. Drop a comment or an e-mail!

Feel free to leave a comment, or e-mail P.J. at hoohaablog [at] gmail.com. Also, please “Like” HooHaa Blog on Facebook by clicking the button on the right side of the page!

Notes from my noodle: August 22 edition

I like disc golf.

Seriously, it’s a good time and good exercise. Case in point? By my pedometer’s count, I walked 5.1 miles playing 36 holes in a tournament Sunday afternoon. Anyone who thinks that’s not exercise needs to really define the word. It’s said that 30 minutes of walking per day helps your health. I did that and then some.

But this isn’t about the argument of whether or not disc golf constitutes exercise. This is about how a fun game can turn sour in a hurry.

See, when you are in tournaments, you don’t have control over a lot of things — weather, playing partners etc. You have to go with the flow. Still, the hope is to keep the game fun and entertaining. Without those last two pieces, a tournament — and the game — become dragging and not something I want to do.

So this tournament I played in Sunday…

It’s on a course I really like. I’ve shot well here and though I knew I stood no chance of winning my division, I set a goal of not finishing dead last in the division and the tournament. Anything else would be gravy.

The first round I got paired with three people in a different division. That’s fine, but it was tough because they were playing from the blue (longer) tees and I was playing from the white (shorter) tees. That basically meant that no matter how well I shot, I wasn’t going to get to be first on the tee if I got the lowest score because I was on a different tee.

I didn’t have an issue playing with the guys I was paired with. They were all cool to deal with and good players. But, for someone like me, that’s a little intimidating. They know a lot more. They do a lot more. The score a lot better. It’s tough when paired with people like this because newer players (such as myself) can watch and get lost in it all.

And it can’t be any better for those guys as they shoot 15-20 strokes better than me.

The hardest part was when we walked up to the white tees and sometimes they’d continue on before I’d say something. I don’t blame them either — they are playing from those tees, watching their shots, knowing what they have to do etc.

But for me, it made it harder because I didn’t want to slow them down or “hurt” their game. So I rushed at times, got stupid at others. All because I was worried about other things. The reality was that I wasn’t going to place in my division. Those guys could win theirs. It stunk, to be honest. I felt bad and I played worse. (To be fair, the thunderstorm that rolled through and soaked us didn’t help my misery, either).

I shot an 83 on a course that I hadn’t been out of the 70s on in quite a while.

The second round was a different story. I played with people from my division. People playing from the white tees. We played as quick as we could, had fun and all scored near the same. It was enjoyable. We joked, we chatted and didn’t worry. I wasn’t worried about screwing somebody’s game up. I was loose and enjoyed the round.

End result? A 72.

I truly understand that tournaments are hard to organize, run and do. I’ve done them in many sports. I’ve run leagues and tournaments and all sorts of things. So I can empathize. People who didn’t pre-register can also put a wrench in the spokes. And many tournaments I’ve played in do the same thing in the opening round — mix up players in different divisions. But it seems unfair to put a recreational/novice player with those who are really good. At least put two people playing from the whites in with a couple from the blues. That would make it a little less nerve-racking — for both sets of people.

I don’t know if my play had any effect on the three better players. But I know it did on me because of several factors. It wasn’t the company — I enjoyed the three others. In fact, I think a casual round with the three of them would be fun and educational, in regard to disc golfing. But in a tournament? It was tough.

In the end, it was OK. My 11-stroke differential between rounds earned me a $25 gift card to a sports store for best improvement. So add that to the disc I got for playing and two rounds of competition for my $20 fee, and I can’t complain. But, it’s food for thought.

For those of you who might read the blog and are disc golfers — give me your thoughts and experiences in the comments below. I’d love to hear what you think about these things.

***

As you may know, I’m in the midst of a small personal project on the blog with my research of obscure baseball players.

I’ve picked out a half-dozen or so that I am going to start digging into and getting information on. I’m going to head up to Cooperstown and the National Baseball Hall of Fame to visit its library and find what I can on these players.

I’m hoping I can connect some dots as for some of these players, all I have is what I can find on baseball-reference.com. Hopefully, there will be a few things I can add to the numbers from this trip to the Hall.

***

It’s time for me to come up with a better way of storing memory cards after switching them out of my camera.

I went to the county fair Saturday and took a small memory card full of photos, many of which were really cute photos of a friend’s daughter. When I got home and was ready to move them from the card to my external hard drive, I couldn’t find the card.

Panic set in.

I looked through all of my pockets and everything else. The camera bag, my memory card pouch — everything. And nothing found.

I had put the card in my pocket when switching out and I had no idea what happened. My only thought was that I dropped it at the fair (in one of two places) or in the street at my friend’s house when getting in my car.

He went out and checked at his house. Nothing.

I went searching again and found a bag I had in my pocket. The card somehow ended up in there. My panic ended. That made me realize that I need to come up with a memory card holder to be able to switch out when needed. I don’t ever want to go through that again!

Any of you photographers have any suggestions for a good pocket-sized memory card holder?

***

Speaking of disc golf, as I did earlier in this post, I received an interesting package in the mail.

It was my renewal for my PDGA (Professional Disc Golf Association) membership. What’s odd about that is that I didn’t renew because my membership doesn’t end until Dec. 31, 2011. And if I was going to renew, I would do it after Oct. 1, when it would give credit for next year. Even with that, it wouldn’t make sense. I hadn’t planned on renewing until the end of the year, when it needed to be done.

Last year, when I signed up, I did it after Oct. 1, so it was for the end of 2010 and all of 2011. When I did that, I got all of the perks and membership stuff. It also included the 2010 member card, which showed my membership expiring on Dec. 31, 2011.

Then the package came today.

I didn’t know what had happened. So, I called them.

Turns out that when I signed up in October, I got all of the 2010 items and then would eventually get the 2011 items. Apparently today is that eventually. At least it all makes sense now!

***

I have some things in the works for future blog posts. I have e-mailed Bill Walker — Skywalker in hiking circles — and will be talking to him soon for a post or two on the blog about his adventures in thru-hiking. I have already previewed one of his books on the site and will be reading his second one, soon.

That also gave me an idea.

I have followed several people through their trail journals this year in regard to hiking the Appalachian Trail. Some finished, some didn’t. I am going to reach out to several of them in the hopes of interviewing them for a post on the blog. I’d like to get both sides, too, so it shows why some people need to leave the trail, how hard it is to finish it or not etc.

I’m going to try and correlate them so I can do all of them over a two-week period (including the Walker stories), maybe going every other day or so — that way not going too overboard with the hiking stories! But I think in the end, it will show a compelling picture of what people have to go through on the hikes. It’s my hopes that I’ll be able to get a few photos from each, too, to be able to help all of you paint a picture of what they go through when they do hikes like this.

Feel free to leave a comment, or e-mail P.J. at hoohaablog [at] gmail.com.

Luck o’ the discs

Daylight savings time isn’t the best day/night in the world. Though I like the end result — longer days with the ability to do more things — I usually don’t like the day where the clocks are set forward.

Especially this year.

The day fell on the weekend where I had been planning on traveling down to New Jersey to play in a disc golf tournament. With the hours being pushed forward, even though I went to bed around 12:15, it was, in reality, 1:15. When that alarm went off at about 4:50 a.m., I was groggy to say the least.

And it was very dark out.

After a shower and something to drink, I grabbed all that I needed and was on my way to New Brunswick, N.J. Oh yeah, it was still dark out.

It continued to stay dark until I got near Middletown — or about 1:45 into my trip.

I’ve gotten to a point in my driving life where being on the road in the dark isn’t my favorite thing. I don’t mind driving at dark, but it’s not something I always want to do. Especially long distances on highways. So when the light finally broke through, I was quite happy.

I pulled into the parking lot at about 8:45 a.m., making pretty good time.

Now, the weather called for 52-55 degrees and sunny. I had my shorts on under a pair of wind pants hoping and praying that I could play a round or so and feel like it was late spring or early summer. The wind pants never came off.

It was OK out. About 50, but that sun stayed tucked behind a lot of clouds. And the wind was there, too, which made it chillier. It also played havoc on the discs.

Oh yeah, the tournament. That’s the basis of this post, isn’t it?

The reason I had traveled 3-plus hours to play in the March O’ St. Pat’s Madness was because Darren had talked me into it and I also know the tournament director, Bob (a stellar pro, mind you). That and it was PDGA sanctioned, so it’s nice to see if I can get my rating up a bit. We’ll see about that, though.

Anyhoo…

This was two rounds of a lot of fun. There were only four of us in the rec division, so we got paired up in back-to-back rounds and I’m not sure I ever had as good of a time playing this sport as I did Sunday. Darren and Joe battled for the championship (Darren won his first tournament crown by two strokes) as Dennis and I battled for the basement (of which I took by 11 strokes… I was rewarded with a plastic Irish mug as the person who finished DFL in the tournament. What’s DFL you might ask? Dead F… Last!)

Dennis made this group a blast right off the bat. He was dressed as a leprechaun (and had some Apollo Creed-type drawers) and used an Irish accent to really push it over the edge. Quite a blast all day.

Dennis and Darren check the scorecards following the tournament.

The tournament was a good time. It was the first full tournament I played in this year, so after 36 holes and that long of a ride, I was a bit sore. Not a problem as it was worth the trip down. I just would have enjoyed better weather.

I shot a 77 in the opening round of the tournament, followed by a 76 in the second. I was happy to improve, though I would have liked to have shaved more than one stroke off my first-round total.

Darren and Joe had a good battle for the division title. Both played really well and were battling with each other most of the day. It was good though as it didn’t ever get too chippy. It was good sportsmanship throughout and it was a lot of fun.

Here’s a couple of shots from the day:

Joe with an approach shot.

Dennis putts as Darren watches.

If you want to see the rest of the photos I took (not as many as I would have if I had not been playing), go check out my Flickr set.

One other photo I’d like to share is a small group photo. It’s one of people who had a little “Irish” look going on. These were the people who dressed up a little for the day, including Dennis — who supplied the beer hats. I donned one for the first round, but switched to the Guinness derby I am wearing in the photo for the second round. Quite the fun group.

Trying to act all Irish, my lads!

I obviously didn’t take that image as I am in it — but Darren did well enough with my camera!

I also took some videos!

I’ll post one or two here that you guys can watch here, but the rest of them can be viewed on my YouTube channel. My issue? YouTube seems to be cutting off the final two or three seconds of a video so it can show the thing at the end showing you similar videos. Very annoying as a few of these videos are better to the end.

The first one features a sweet putt… behind the back!

This is one of three that I have of Dennis performing after the tournament. Good stuff.

The pros also had one heck of a battle with the winner earning a one-stroke victory over Bob, the tournament director. I’m sure it would have been fun to watch.

I’ll look forward to returning to the course in July for the Jersey Jam. The first day — Saturday — is for amateurs. The second day — Sunday — is for pros. I’ll play Saturday, of course, and then hope to stick around and take some photos and videos of the pros. I imagine it will be fun to watch.

More later!