One Grand Disc Golf Tour

09-28-09

Yesterday I got out and looked at a park for which I had great hopes. But, it looks unlikely that we could install a course of any real substance because we wouldn’t be allowed to cut anything. Though they didn’t have any problem cutting trees to make camp sites and parking lots.

I always have shake my head in disbelief when those who talk about protecting and preserving their land have included a multi-purpose field or ball field that was obviously clear-cut, graded and sodded. It’s all about agenda. All I’m saying is MY agenda kills less trees. It might even bring in more money if it were set up properly.

There is another very nice piece of property within the park but it is currently off limits. It may become available in say…10 years. Yeah, I’ll just wait right here.

Another large ‘future’ park was suggested, so I looked around for that. May have found it…not sure.

Today revealed an opportunity found and lost within a few breaths. EA Sports, makers of Tiger Woods PGA Tour video game, has an office a few short miles from my abode. I contacted them in hopes of doing a story on the release of the 2010 version, which includes a Wii disc golf game. No sooner did I send my request via email to them, with a fwd to the Disc Golfer magazine editor in chief, than I got my latest issue of DG’r which boasted a review of several disc golf games for the Wii. My timing remains spot-on!

I spent about 4.5 hours cleaning up the fairways of the front 9 of T2, with fellow club member Bill Burbage, in preparation for the upcoming Orlando Open, Oct 24 & 25. Swinging a machete for a few hours is just about what I needed after finding out that my great story idea had been done.

Tomorrow: more WCDGD promo to parks and other incredibly unexciting chores.

09-24-09

As requested, today we received a couple of fantastic disc golf endorsement letters from the MS state parks system, which we’ll absolutely be using in our promotional efforts.
So, I had to price out some materials for our bid for a course in S. FL.  There is a Home Depot kinda near my buddy’s place but I didn’t really want to go to that one because of the nasty traffic.  I decided to take a longer way to it with a new toll road.  I probably shaved 5 minutes.

Once there, I wrangle a sales guy and he escorts me to the area with the product I’m scoping.  Eventually, I tell the guy about disc golf and that I’m trying to slash our overhead so that we can offer a design / install for less because parks don’t have any money.

He says, “yeah, I know all about that, I’m on the parks board for Seminole county”…which is the county directly above mine.  I gave him my card and some other dg info and he said he’ll bring it up to the board on the next meeting.  So, I’m going to try to get him some information before the next meeting so he’ll be armed for rhino.

Kabing!!

Some cool and interesting stuff has been happening lately.  I’ve gotten this burst of energy lately, first time in a while since my injuries.

My partner and I finished crunching #s for a bid and I went to the gym for a quick round on the machines.  Doubles was at the same park so I grabbed some quick food and came back and entered.
We deuced our first 7 holes.

Halfway through the round some rec players threw a shot at the pin that went just in front of me and rolled into the water.  Being the good Sam that I am, I pulled it out of the water for him.  Interestingly enough, even though his disc said so… he didn’t look like a “Pam Reneke” and, being the good Sam that I am, I confiscated the disc because Pam is Orlando’s very own 2008 PDGA Pro Masters Champ and her disc was coming home.

We finished after dark with a –13 and lost by one, doh!

As I pulled into my subdivision, a car was stalled out and 3 guys were having trouble pushing it uphill into our road.  I passed them, parked and, being the good Sam that I am, helped them push it up the hill even though the strongest looking guy of all was SITTING behind the wheel, not pushing with the door open.

It was easy the first 50 feet but uphill is uphill.  The driver was more interested in cranking the stereo than listening to the guys herniating themselves behind the car.  One of the other guys felt the need to hang onto his energy drink, which smelled suspiciously like beer when he spilled half of the remainder on my face.  Once at the top of the hill the driver kept steering into the hill instead of to the left side of the very wide entrance to the subdivision and let it roll D-O-W-N.    This is the type of guy who thinks “IQ” means “I Quit”.  It is obvious that the driver had quit thinking several drinks ago.

Oh well, I needed a good thigh burn tonight. I didn’t do enough reps at the gym anyway.

Tonight: finish writing the bid
Tomorrow: Send the bid along with tons of info and meet with Orange Co pks guy.

09-23-09

So, a few weeks ago, at the FL Rec & Pks Assc convention, I see the director of Orange County parks who worked with our Have Course-Will Travel events 10 years ago, back when he was a regional coordinator in the county. Now…he’s THE guy. I’ve been trying to get a new disc golf project in this county for YEARS, with no luck.
After we speak, he heads on to other parts of the hall. One his fellow parks guys hangs out and talks. I tell him… “Man, I’ve been trying to get his attention for years”.
He says, “Hey, he likes sun flower seeds. You should get some for him”.

Since then we’ve been busting hump to get our printed materials and packages together. So, once I had a generic letter and a personalized letter together, I put them in an envelope, along with all of our printed materials and a custom mini disc.

I went to Sams club and found a box of 24 packets of sunflower seeds, which was right next to a big-ass tub of 76 packets. Big enough that it had a handle. OVER-KILL.yeah!!!

So I attach the packet to the top of the tub and take it into the office. The receptionist looked uneasy.
I explained that the director and I go back 10 years and we’ve never had the chance to work on a project and I heard that he liked sunflower seeds. You could just see the “Holy-crap-do-I-need-to-call-security” look in her eye.

He was “in a meeting” (original huh?) so I left the tub and packet and went to the other course to make a list of projects for the Orlando Open. I get a call from the director and he’s laughing.

He said “I can’t keep these sunflower seeds…it’s considered a bribe.”
I said… “No no, it’s not a bribe or a gift. Call it a blatant suck-up”
“My secretary didn’t know what to think”
“Well, yeah she sees this nut-job with a bucket of sunflower seeds in her office. At least I wasn’t wearing a turban and chanting that I will soon have my 72 virgins”
Now, he’s losing it…“Oh, man… you gotta come get this thing. The irony is that I was at Sam’s TODAY and I saw that bucket and I know just what it cost. I bought the smaller one”
“OK, I’ll get by tomorrow”
“How bout this…. (a full minute’s pause) How bout you come by Friday at noon, we’ll go to lunch and talk about some projects”

Kabing!!!

So, if anyone else is interested… I should have sunflower seeds for the next oooh 2 years. Hell, I don’t eat em. And at least we can DISC-uss the possibility of getting another course in the Orange County system.

I watched an obscure flick last night called “Sordid Lives” which was pretty much the Springer show home-game with much better actors. In doing so, I managed to reunite another disc golfer with the twin from whom they were separated at birth. Congratulations Dave Feldberg on finding your twin brother… Kirk Geiger.

Tomorrow: more promo packets and bids.

09-20-09

At least a dozen people had invited me to join Face-book, so conspiracy theories of CIA involvement and big brother paranoia aside, I succumbed to peer pressure and got “faced”.  Even if “they” are watching, I figure my terrorism tactics are limited to showing up in public without shaving or ragging on someone’s lousy course design.  Now if the joke police are watching, then I will likely have to face the music.

In less than 24 hours, I had over 40 friends and a couple fiends .  I can’t believe how much info is streaming through my page already!!  I’m freakin’ out maaaaaaan!  I’ve posted a bunch of photos and have hundreds more that someone other than myself might find interesting.

I expect FB will be a good way to put out the word for some projects that I’ve been sitting on for quite a while.  T-shirts, posters, photo caption contests etc…

Meanwhile, I’m probably developing bed-sores from sitting on my butt setting up all of this stuff.

I’m also starting to send out packages to contacts I’ve made through the Florida Recreation and Parks Association convention.

There’s a dg project that is about to get underway near here, which is a direct result of the Have Course-Will Travel events we did over 10 years ago.  They called me to help with the design but, of course had nothing in the budget for design.  Of course, they do plan to pay a contractor who likely has barely even heard of the game to install the course.

As a 2 time World Champion, current Grand Masters US Champion and someone who has played over 1,000 courses, I have seen this EXACT scenario literally hundreds of times.  Each time the city or county went into the project trepidatiously and did not take measures to design and build a course properly.  As a result, their trepidations became a self-fulfilling prophecy, the course turned out to be substandard and did not draw players.  Despite the fact that an average of 3 courses per week are being installed, the game is deemed “unpopular”.   Meanwhile, courses elsewhere flourish.

At least they did try to call me to help for free.  But I’ve been doing gratis work for 15 years in an effort to learn what is necessary to earn the respect of those who are in the position to pay for comprehensive services.  Obviously, I have more work to do.  But one has to draw the line somewhere.

The new Have Course-Will Travel rent-a-course program in now up and running with a course in High Springs, FL at Camp Kulaqua.  World Champion Disc Golf Design has invested an ENORMOUS amount of time, energy and yes… money into making this program available, in order to easy the burden of getting a course in the ground on a trial basis.  The folks at Kulaqua are planning on following through with a permanent course at the end of the 6 month trial period!

Tomorrow: probably more packages going out and a bid for another Florida dg project.

09-15-09

5AM wake up call. (now THAT’S an obscene phone call) Out the door before 5:30. Plenty of LA traffic but I beat the rush hour. I barely even nearly died.
I smuggled a bottle of O.J. through security…That’s right ladies, I’m a baaad-boy.

About 1.5 hours early for flight, I stopped into the terminal’s “BK” for the traditional “gut-bomb” breakfast. 2 bites into it, who appears before me but Dan “Stork” Roddick on his way to the DC area! We broke fast together amid stories of late-70’s, early-80’s road trips, tourneys and the phenomenon that is the Frisbee family. I love being a vector for cool coincidences.

Once on the plane, our flight crew lauded the passengers, saying it was the first time in several years, their final pre-flight walk-through revealed that NO ONE was on their cel phones. Yay team! Yup, that one’s going on the resume!

All in all, the L.A. trip was far better than I had anticipated. My 51st B-day was certainly one of the most fun in MANY years. There were a couple of things I would like to have squeezed in but the only REAL disappointment is that I have to go home now.

Tomorrow: Hit the ground running playing catch-up in about 9 different areas.

09-14-09

A typical SoCal day.

It was a typical Southern California day. After shaking off last nights bout with Samuel Adams, I drove east and north to Rancho Cucamonga to visit my sponsor, Innova Champion discs at their main office.

Danny McGinnis has been with Innova for 14 years. He and I did the first leg of the Wham-o sponsored Nat’l School Assemblies tour in 1983 doing Frisbee shows. We caught up a bit before I continued wandering around the warehouse.

I hadn’t planned on snagging any new Innova schwag, it was more about just stopping by to check it out and say “hi”. Of course that lasted until I got near some boxes of plastic and found some lighter Star Bosses. And, Team Capitan Sam Ferrans loaded me up with the latest Innova apparel.

From Innova, I busted out an hour’s drive west through the Hollywood hills to meet my newest bestest buddy and my new sHERO, who took me back to the Playboy mansion for a day-tour. We met the guy who pretty much runs the place (not Hef) and he walked us around areas most people don’t see. Needless to say, I had been distracted and somewhat gaga on my previous visit.  I’d give you their names but after all…D-I-S-C is the 1st 4 letters in “discretion”.

The PBM tour focused on their collection of rare birds and monkeys as well as the gardens. We visited the game room, tennis courts, some of the back storage areas and even the bunny bungalow across the street.
But we didn’t go into the house…this time. And of course, it was fun to hear all the stories of celebs making fools of themselves while on the grounds. What could be better than celebrity gossip?

From there I headed south and west again to Santa Monica beach to meet John “Dreamer” Weyand (or just “Z” producer of the “Secrets of Pro Disc Freestyle” DVD) at Fraser park for a little freestyle jam. Being a landlocked Orlando guy combined with having spent most of May and June in bed, my freestyle was more than a little rusty. but despite my embarrassing play, it never fails to be fun.

Let us not forget the special joy of immersing oneself into rush hour LA traffic on the ride back to the hotel to pack up for an 8:30 flight…unless I come to my senses before then and figure out a reason to extend my stay. Reasons I’ve got…though probably not rational ones.

Tomorrow: “I’m leavin’ on a jet plane. Don’t know when I’ll be back again…”

09-13-09

I started out my 51st Birthday by getting a ride request from Annie Kreml and Chieko Kakimoto. We dropped by Mickey D’s for a “gut-bomb” breakfast and headed out to the course.

Maybe it was in spite of the fact that my belly was rumbling from the poor choice of sustenance or maybe it was because of the distraction, but my round started off well, with a birdie 3 on 1 and 2 on 2. A “par” 4 on #3, which I believe should be a par 5, a huge hyzer 2nd shot on #4’s 680’ fairway to crash the chains and bounce out. I leveled out for the rest of the front 9, but bettered the rest of the group by 3 strokes.

The back 9 went well with only 3 holes (which just happened to be in a row) that I didn’t birdie or at least shoot to my best potential. The Wraiths that Innova gave me for winning last year’s GM division at the PDGAW were the primary ingredient contributing to my eventual win at the US Masters with a final round of -7/62.

After receiving my trophy there was a large crashing of breaking glass and I had to look down to make sure that I didn’t just break another glass trophy at an 09 PDGA Major. Fortunately, it was someone else’s beer. Whew!

Went out and had a few beers of my own and dinner with a new friend that has been around frisbee forever but our paths didn’t really cross much. My loss.

Tomorrow: Tour of Innova West (hopefully) and a beach jam in Santa Monica. And a possible cool surprise.

09-12-09

9:24 tee time. Again, the drives felt excellent but the short game was a bit scattered. (Again, sans caffeine)

The front was similar to yesterdays with the exception of #4, where the front of the tee is half on concrete and half on pavement with a minor step down right about where the back foot is planted. Again, I wanked a crucial placement shot because I was trying to not sprain an ankle on the drive. I went OB and it cost me two strokes. The rest of the front went relatively well.

My game woke up on the back 9. I got birdie 3s on 10, 11, 12, 13 (with a 35’ downhill horse-shoe putt) a solid par 5 on the tough #14, a “tinker” off the pole on the double mando par 3 #15, a perfect drive that stood up and rolled away on #16 for my only penalty on the back, and a solid birdie 3 on #17. 18 was the only “mistake” on the back 9, which I put a bit left of the double mando and the wind beat my upshot down leaving me too far for today’s putting.

Hunt Hyde, whose silver hair is the only indicator that he could possibly be 58, stealthily kept pace with solid hyzer drives with under-stable plastic and solid putting. He quietly shot a 31 to my 30 on the back and bettered my 64 for the round by one, leaving him in 2nd place to me by one.
There is a one-stroke difference for the next 4 places. It’s anybody’s game, but I will go into the final day leading the Gms.

As for the Master’s division…not a friggin clue. They were still on the course when I left.

My new phone arrived at the hotel. YAAAAAY!
But I have no phone #s, so don’t expect a call for a while.

Tomorrow: 51

09-11-09

10:24 tee time. The drives felt excellent but the short game was a bit scattered. (Perhaps since I was sans cough-o-cuppy) I held it together OK on the front but got hungry on the back and started turning into Rain man. In fact, I WAS an excellent driver even though I would putt putt along at the end of each hole.
I sort of blew up on the back primarily because I was sugar crashing.

Mark Horn knows this course, played it well and had some nice bonuses to boot. Hole #6 is a sharp dog-leg to the left to a downhill hyzer finish to the pin. I had a perfectly placed drive and chose to go against my first instinct (new TL) and threw a Star Destroyer instead, which hyzered too soon, hit a tree and left me with a tricky upshot, which I promptly wanked, leaving me a long uphill putt which I missed.

Mark Horn had a decent drive…and holed out from about 375’! 3 stroke swing in one hole.

Hole 11 has a nasty down-sloping tee. My concentration was more about where I was putting my foot than where to put the disc. I came off late and hit a tree OB. A 250-ish foot upshot from the drop zone went long of the island green for another penalty. The putt had OB directly behind it and I left it short for a 6. Disc-gusting.

Mark had a decent drive and put it on the green for an easy 3. 3 more strokes in one hole.

If we deleted those two holes, I would have beaten him by two on the round but scorekeepers frown on such omissions, so he had me by 4. 3 other GMs also bettered my –1/ 68, so I will lead off the 2nd card tomorrow.

I had lunch and a couple of beers with Erin Hart, whom I didn’t really get to know in the very early days of Frisbee but she has been around since the early 80’s. I think the only reason I was able to keep up with her is that she has a broken foot. Interesting story behind it but no sense introducing interesting reading material at this late date. Let’s just say it involved Rock-n-Rollers and Pro Wrestlers that you would probably want to meet.

I wasn’t as sore as Wed or Thurs but I opted to be a good little Frisbee monk. I went home, iced down, took an Epsom bath, did my yoga and zzzz’d out by 11:00. Exciting, huh? Welcome to the wonderful world of Grand Master’s disc golf.

Tomorrow: Got me some werk 2 du!!!

09-10-09

More phone shopping this AM. Finally found one like I had and though it was still a really good deal, it was more than I had paid for my last one. I just hope the dang thing arrives at my hotel before I check out of it!!! Reese of Fly18 spent a lot of time trying to track down various deals for me. Sure did appreciate that!

La Mirada’s gold #14 is a course designer’s conundrum.

On one hand, if you consider the shape of the fairway and the features within bounds, it is a spectacular par 5 that provides some very tough challenges that I would consider fair. As golf holes go, it has several wonderful features:
A funnel off of the tee that suggests backing off and playing for placement.
A second reverse funnel shot that opens up into a grassy area through some large trees, which leads to a more open field and the basket.
The ground slopes away to the left pretty much the entire way to the basket, which gives the hole a “haunted leaning house” effect, where it just doesn’t seem as sloped before a throw as it does just after a release.

On the other hand, what lies just outside the fairway makes the hole one of the worst safety violations since the fairway is bordered by a parking lot on the right side and a busy 4 lane road on the left.

Good throwers are getting it in the road twice before reaching the approach fairway or turning it over and going in the parking lot to the right. If both sides of the fairway were a shallow creek, I would call it one of the top 5 fairways in the world. But with traffic on either side, it’s a very poorly implemented and dangerous hole.

It is hard to know what to say about the designer because it is a great challenging golf hole that absolutely should NEVER be allowed to be put into play. Ultimate blame for the hole could rest in one of two camps… The designer or, the park for taking most of the back 9 away to build a water-park and forcing disc golf into other less desirable areas. Just as I’m doing at T2 right now, it wasn’t my idea to change it, I just have to make it work.

Anyway, a 4 there will likely gain at least 2 strokes on much of the field.

Today I went around the track with Rick LeBeau and a major blast from the past, Ron Vingerelli, who had quit disc sports for about 18 years to raise his daughter. He’s back and rolling discs as if he’d been playing all along.

I stuck around and practiced putting because I feel as if that if my weakest point right now.
Feeling OK about my drives and approaches if my body holds up.
We’ll see….

Tomorrow: US Masters-Day 1