Tournament Recap

On Sunday, as Jenn has already mentioned, I played in a disc golf tournament a couple hours north of us at Flip City Disc Golf Park in Shelby, MI. This course is ranked on DG Course Review as the top course in the country. It has 24 holes on private land owned and maintained by one man, "Flip City Bill" since 1980. A lot of the holes play across a small valley that runs through the property, and every hole presents a unique challenge. There's great variety and lots of elevation change. It really is a great place to play!

One of my favorite holes was #7, where you tee from an elevated location across a steep valley to a basket elevated on a ridge 300 feet away. Trees and shrubs line both sides of the fairway, and the bottom of the valley has a number of tall trees on the left that block a direct route, as well as some small but thick apple trees that will block your upshot if your drive misses the smallish gap on the right and your disc ends up at the bottom of the valley. Once you get up the steep hill and near the basket, putting can be dangerous as the ground slopes away in both directions, and a missed putt could end up rolling back to the bottom of the valley. It's a beautiful hole with great risk/reward.

My first round on Sunday started fine. I was playing solid par golf for the first 12-15 holes, and eventually moved to the top of my card (meaning my score was better than the other players I was grouped with). That was really my goal for the round. Just win my card. After a few bogies and one double bogey, I held on to win my card by two throws with a 77, or 5 over par.

The second round, my goal again was to win my card, but this time I also wanted to make up the 3 strokes that I was down from the top round of the morning. I started out well, with a par then two birdies. My putting was better, and in spite of a string of bogies later in the round, I made a few more birdies and ended up winning my card with a 74 (2 over par). That score was good enough to win me 4th place out of 38 players in my division and a few discs as prizes. You can see the full tournament results on the PDGA website here.

All in all, I felt a lot better about my play than I had the previous weekend where I played significantly below my ability. Plus, I had a lot of fun.

Now it's back to work. Jenn starts her new job this week. I'll be preparing for my entrance exams and doing some tasks such as assembling our Ikea furniture and getting our car fixed. On Wednesday, the seminary orientation begins. Then classes start next week.