I had tasked Dick with rallying the Maryland troops on his message board in his capacity as State Association Tool for this non sanctioned tourney which is my personal favorite event. Approaching this task with his usual level of lethargy; I was forced to get involved two Fridays ago to deliver an inspirational post to the discers.
Friday Dick calls me at work in a tizzy. The weather forecast for Saturday was for an out of season snow storm to hit Pennsylvania and Maryland with the possibility of 5 to 10 inches by the end of the day. Dick was seeking counsel on if we should postpone the event, reduce it to one round of 27 holes vs. the traditional format of two rounds of 54, or just ball up into the fetal position and suck our thumbs. I suggested he work it out with tourney TD JDot as I was working.
Before leaving work on Friday I check my emails and I have several from JDot covering the same topic. I call him back from the car:
JDot: Hello?
Hawk: What are you wearing right now?
J: Thanks for calling.
(a lengthy discussion follows involving disc matters that I won’t bore you with…Jay eventually decides to go with one round of 27 as it’s too late to move the date..I predict the South will deliver 30 players down from the 50 we would have had with better weather)
J: So anyways I have a gig tonight. I’ll save you a table if you want to come by and check out our group.
H: What’s on the play list?
J: We do a lot of covers. We’ll do several Gin Blossoms songs.
H: I’m hanging up now.
I’m running some errands at the mall an hour later when my phone rings and it’s Tripwire. He proceeds to boast about his recent successful play at some Association event where he shot a 975 round. We discuss his social life, and the fact that he’s chauffering JerryA up to North vs. South the next morning. We hang up.
Saturday morning I head out the door and immediately get smacked on the brim of my NutSac cap with a heavy wet snow flake. Hmmmm… Driving up to Hanover my cell rings. It’s Dick:
Dick: My idiot alert is going off.
Hawk: Isn’t that every day of your life?
D: Dude have you seen the forecast?! They are calling for 6 to 10 inches up in Hanover!
H: No one said war would ever be easy soldier.
D: The only reason I’m going is I told Jay I would help run the thing. I may not even play.
H: That would be a rather gutless move since you recruited discers to play for about a month now.
D: Yeah whatever.
More bantering ensues. We hang up.
I stop and buy a pumpkin pie at a small local grocery store. They don’t seem to have Hank’s root beer from Philadelphia in stock. I inquire about this with the cashier. I receive a blank stare in return from him. I think to myself that I hope he has no plans of breeding.
Back in the car the phone rings again. It’s Dick wanting to know if I’ve spun off the road and need assistance. He’s already at the park, and he’s surprised and dissapointed that there are several cars already in the parking lot. The battle will take place.
I arrive and sign in. We’re meeting in the rotunda which is Codorus’s event hall. Around the walls just below the roof is a collection of stuffed animals and fish:
Hmmm…
The scoreport is filling up and JDot is concerned. We Southerners have outnumbered the local Northerners by 2-1. For awhile the registration looks like the North may have difficulty fielding the required 12 participants. I snicker as our final tally approaches 27 discers. Stiles arrives for the South in his standard uniform:
The North manages to post 13 players so the event is on. Jay huddles with Dick and me to figure out what format to play. We conclude that we should cut the event in half, and just play 27 holes. The original blue course (it’s in the woods and thus out of the wind) and the 9 x-holes. Jay conducts the players meeting:
Trip manages to get into every photo somehow. We take a group photo and head out to our holes. I’m on the celebrity card starting on #1 blue with JDot, Joel from Disc Outfitters, and General Joe the defending champion. It’s 3 Southerners vs. Jay. I was top of the card. Naturally I forgot the scorecard. Just as I’m about to dash back to the rotunda, Jay produces the card and hands it to me. Yankee mind games even before we tee off! Joe is tooling around the antithesis of the NutSac:
We shake hands and tee off. I miss my putt for a deuce on #1. So does Joe and Jay. Joel on the other hand takes his CTP drive and puts the first dagger of the day into the North by sinking his deuce putt:
From there things go from interesting conditions to simply miserable. It’s windy on the field holes. Everything is wet after about three holes. The heavy wet snow continues to fall. The ground is covered so the guys who want to roll can’t. On the plus side you can bomb your putts in because if you miss the putter is staying right where it landed. On #5 Joe’s umbrella explodes in the wind. On #7 I take my first bad four by missing a 12′ putt low. Joel verbally encourages me. By hole #10 all of us are walking around in shoes loaded with water. Our toes are cold. I can barely feel mine. We are all having trouble gripping our discs. Not just because the discs are wet, but our fingers are numb and we have no feeling and can’t close them around the rim. On hole 3x Joe executes a drive where his disc lands on the only dry part of the entire hole!
I guess that’s why he’s a general. On 4x a threesome catches up with us. One of their players has quit playing. He says he was concerned for his safety. Joel has already faceplanted on one drive. We’ve all slipped and nearly fallen. The four of us look at this slacker with open disdain and let the other two brave discers play through. JDot revels in the fact that the quitter is from the South. I look away in shame. On 7x the wet snow is so heavy that the limbs of the trees are hanging down like curtains around the tee. You’ve heard of tunnel holes before, this is a tunnel tee…
Joe tees off on 7x:
Joel teeing of on 7x:
We press on. Joel and I discuss whether or not are toes are getting frost bitten in these conditions. Not feeling our toes has us worried. I can’t feel or move the middle finger on my right hand. I switch to driving with the Coyote vs. the Leopard since I can grip the midrange better than the driver. The four of us stagger out of the x-holes and head back to the blue course to play the final six holes I miss another deuce try on #13. The baskets are coated with ice at this point. We’ve been hearing limbs cracking and breaking off and falling due to the weight of the snow. On #16 there is a loud crack and I run for cover as a large limb crashes down on our right. We look at each other and wonder if we’ll die in this battle. We finish up on #18 where I manage to make a 25′er to save my three. It’s 1:20 p.m. It took four hours to slog through the snow and cold to play 27 relatively short holes. Back in the car I want to get my shoes and socks off to dry my feet and eat lunch. I can’t untie my shoes. I pull them off. After 15 minutes I have feeling back in my toes. I eat. I check my phone and have text messages from Dick:
“We agreed to a truce.”
“In the car”
“This is insane.”
So Dick went the cowards route and quit at 12:03 p.m! Nearly 90 minutes before our card finished the round!! I’m totally disgusted by this act of cowardice on his part. I see Trip brushing snow off his vehicle. I text him about Dick’s gutless shame. He pulls out of the park in the classic Nomads roll out. I suspect he shot poorly. I return to the rotunda to find out that I just missed last ca$h, at 102, in what is the equivalent of an Open division by finishing just above the mid point of the entire field. Trip appears to have come in last at 116 among the brave souls who actually completed the round. Apparently there were six total quitters who couldn’t man up and finish the round. The South easily defeated the North and Joe defended his title and earned his second star as a general:
Note the shameless and gutless dry Dick worming his way into the photo.
Next up is an Association event next Saturday in Hagerstown.
More photos are in the Yahoo! group.
NutSacers never quit,
YDGH
