Tournament at Redstone - 32 years

[mpetre]

Tracy and I wanted to say thank you to everyone involved with the tourney up in Huntsville this past weekend. It was the first opportunity she had gotten to play with other women and she thoroughly enjoyed it. I did better than I expected and we both had the time of our lives.

Thanks to Tom for starting the world's oldest disc golf tournament, thanks to David and Chris for being incredible TDs, thanks to Justin and Jebb for representing Birmingham as two of the nicest guys you'd ever meet on a course anywhere, thanks to Ginger for showing Tracy a few new tricks. The list could go on and on.

There were 61 people in the tournament and I don't think I saw an unkind soul all weekend long. I learned a few things about my own golf game this weekend first of all, my distance stinks, second, my accuracy has a ton of room for improvement, thirdly, with a few nice putts and playing a cautious game one can overcome deficiencies in both distance and accuracy. I shot a first round 77 (17 over the par 60) and felt pretty down on myself despite making a couple of 50+ footers. Second round, I didn't make any of the impressive shots, but I played consistently, safely, and took advantage of the few short holes at the arsenal and shot a 66! (I wound up in 12th place and actually scored sweet plastic. Two rounds like that and I could have taken 3rd or 4th...) Probably one of my best rounds ever (at least without taking any mulligans, counting penalty strokes, etc.) I'm learning that any one of us can be competitive (within our skill level) on any given day with the right attitude and state of mind.

This is a pretty long post, but I wanted to make sure that those that went, those that couldn't go, and hopefully those that put the event on all know how great of a weekend we had.

Thanks to all,
Matt

[BazkitKase]

I wanted to go to that so bad. And now hearing all of the great stories, just makes it worse.

Glad you guys had a good time. Huntsville is one of my favorite places to play, great people and great courses.

[Jebb]

It was a great time, lunch was some of the best BBQ I've ever eaten - courtesy of Paulie's brother who has won many a bbq competition.

I met some guys from Chattanooga who invited anyone and everyone to their Thanksgiving tourney too:

http://www.siemprelaluna.com/smf/index.php?topic=749.0

[tpetre]

I haven't had the chance to play with the "women folk" so this was a great experience for me to get to know other women disc golfers. Thanks to all who made playing in the tournament a great experience! :D

[25322]

Thanks for all the kind words. I am glad you made it up to Huntsville to play. Chris and I are all about building the disc golf scene and just doing it the only way we know how. Seems that hanging good BBQ in front of everyone worked fairly well :) Next time I think I will keep it all for myself (just kidding....maybe :P)

If you want a challenge, take your favorite midrange to the course and play the entire round with it. See just how close your score is to your best score when you use all of your discs. I have shot my personal bests at Athens and Brahan using only a Coyote (yes I was challenged to do it).

My advice to anyone is learn to putt first. That will save you the most strokes on the course at first. Then learn to make better upshots. In learning the upshots your drives will improve by default. Many pros have told me that your drives are what they are, but the approaches and making those putts really cut the strokes from your game. Sure distance helps. I know it's the weakest link in my game right now when I am on long courses but once you hit 350-400 you can compete on almost any course if you putt and approach well.

Anyway I am glad you had a good time. We hope to have you up here again and as always we look forward to playing down there.

-David