Wow, what a weekend! I headed up to Winter Park, CO for the 7th Annual Snow Mountain Challenge. The TD, Tom Carrillo, was kind enough to put several golfers, including myself, up for the weekend.

Our first round was at the Snow Mountain YMCA course. While challenging and fun, it is a shadow of it’s previous glory. As with many other areas in the Rockies, the forests have fallen victim to the devastating pine beetle. I had a great group and although I had a great time, my poor play quickly found me at the bottom of the pack.

After a quick lunch, we reconvened at the base of Winter Park resort for a players meeting and then boarded the chairlift to the top to begin round two. The course features several great downhill bombs with a mix of tricky turnovers and treacherous tunnel shots. Again, I had a great time, but didn’t play my best. I was plagued by poor putting and a general lack of energy. A good friend of mine had a pretty awful round too, receiving many a nasty tree kick and unfortunate roll away. He’s not at all accustomed to being in the lower ranks, so I did my best to cheer him up and keep him going. Sometimes the most fun shots happen when you have nothing to lose!

Well I only had to wait another twenty holes to find out just how true that is. I played pretty solid golf, making a lot of the routine putts I left on the ground during the first two rounds. We made our way to the last hole of the tournament, a 325-foot shot through a narrow double mando to a basket placed precariously on a steep hillside. I had missed a key birdie on the hole previous and found myself last in the tee order. I knew I needed something that would hold a fast anhyzer line to get through the mando and then fall back left to the hill, so I picked a lighter weight Monarch out of my bag. I put a pretty good snap on it and watched in satisfaction as it ripped right through the branch-infested mandatory window and disappeared off to the right. As we waited for the inevitable stable left finish of the flight, my friend Tom said he thought that it might be on line for an ace run. Just then I saw my Monarch reappear in the mountain sunlight, just in time to blow the chains apart and eventually spin to a stop in the basket. I had aced the last hole of the tournament!

I ran like an idiot across the mountainside to retrieve my lucky prize. As I emerged from the woods, I was greeted by the smiling applause of several groups that had witnessed the latter part of the flight. What a way to finish a tournament! So the round ended well, but not quite enough to get me outta the basement. I didn’t make it into the cash, but I did put a safe distance between me and dead last! Still, this will definitely go down as one of my favorite tournament moments yet!

Stay tuned for next week as Jurky and I venture to McCook, Nebraska to take on the Kelley Park Disc Golf Course at the TruLine Customs Open.

It’s a sad state of affairs when you can look back at a round that was several strokes over par and say, ‘hey, at least it was better than last time.’  I had a pretty cool group and we all came into the round with a similar mindset.  I wanted to play better than I had at this course on Thursday and was far enough down in the standings that I really had nothing to lose.

Right off the bat, I was trimming strokes, getting 4′s on holes I had previously carded 7′s on.  I definitely played a lot smarter this time.  Thinking about my landing zone and how much skip-and-roll shots were getting.  With the tight fairways, focusing on accuracy over distance was key.  I had a few unlucky OB skips and a griplock drive or two, but nothing near as bad as Thursday.

The only hole I completely melted down was (as depicted here) hole 12.  This one gave me no trouble at all on Thursday, so I wasn’t expecting much change.  This is a relatively simple 365 foot low-to-high over water.  You tee off from under a tree near the water’s edge, over a gunnite dam onto a little lawn area up top.  Not simple, but certainly nothing that should be a round-killer.  After watching the first two guys on my card land safely up top, and a spectator encouraging me to make it three in a row, I launch a nice stupid one right into the side of the dam… damn!  I re-teed from the waterline, getting up top with a safe Teebird hyzer, no problem, I can live with a four.

Walked up to the shot, it was a little outside the circle, but I was due for a good putt…. airball…! Yuck.. ok so i figure a 5 isn’t the end of the world as I nonchalantly toss my “drop-in”.  Thbbbbt! The chains defiantly spit it out left.  Wheee… I just three-putted for a freaking six! That, my friends is why my elementary school teachers used to check the box next to “has difficulty paying attention” on my report cards.

Lesson learned though, every shot counts! Wether it be 5 feet or 500 hundred feet. Just because it’s routine doesn’t mean you don’t have to focus.  That really soured the rest of my round.  I finished in the mid-sixties, which was above my goal but way better than Thursday.

All in all, I have to say I was pretty disappointed in my play this week. I had a great time and it was awesome to be so far from my desk for so long.. but I have a lot of work to do if I want to have a successful season.  For those of you that have been following along, thank you for your continued support.  I certainly hope to have better news to report next time :)

Next up:
St. Patty’s Day Meltdown – March 20-21st – Fort Collins, CO

Back to the Fountain and a chance to redeem myself a little. I just feel more comfortable at this course, the layout is more open and the danger is more obvious. The majority of holes have an obvious straight or hyzer route, so I’m not having to pull off any big turnover shots.

So I came in today aiming for a 50, I replayed a lot of the bad holes in my head and tried to work out some new strategies to clean them up a little. Unfortunately, I started out by drowning my first drive again. I had a good drive and solid upshot on two, but chickened out on the death putt for birdie 3 chaining out right. Putting was my nemesis today, but I know that is a direct result of my lack of practice. If I intend to compete in this sport, I need to commit the practice time. At this point, any putt inside the circle, even with a little wind, should be relatively automatic.

I’ve noticed, as have many of my friends that I play with, that my putts usually have just enough to get there. In short, I putt to the basket instead of through it. I’ve spent some time analyzing the causes and effects of that. My meek putting style never leaves me with a challenging comeback putt, but more often than not, it also means that my initial putt didn’t have a chance. I’m going to have to build my putting confidence and learn to be more aggressive.

I did, however, can a long jumper on one of the elevated baskets. My upshots were pretty short again today, which left me in less-than-ideal position for the majority of my putts. I also need to start planning my upshots better such that I can be more free to run them. Things like making sure I don’t leave myself with OB directly behind the basket, or tricky sidehill shots with a high likelihood of roll-away.

I would have to say the highlight of my day came on hole 17, which had a tall palm tree marked as a mando on the left side of the fairway. Another palm of identical height and distance off the tee stood about 3 feet right of it creating a tiny window. I ended up releasing my drive about a second early in my swing and launched it on a stiff hyzer going right at the mando tree. Since missing the mando meant a re-tee, I was relieved when it decided to flatten out at the last second and split the gap between the trees. A small gallery that was watching the 3-hole junction at that end of the course oooohed and ahhhed a bit and I got a small round of applause (and laughter). A little old lady standing near the tee smiled at me and said ‘I bet you can’t do that again…’. Definitely a good laugh. I ended up getting a lucky par on that hole, which could have easily wrecked an otherwise OK round.

Still, I scored fairly well and stayed out of the OB for the most part. I improved on most of the holes I faltered on during Wednesday’s round, but shorted myself on others. Overall, I probably played too conservatively considering how far down in the standings I was after Thursday’s catastrophe.

Either way, I really enjoy playing at the Fountain and am looking forward to next year. I hope I’ll be able to swing a little more time off so that I can get some practice in ahead of time.

Definitely not looking forward to tomorrow. Not only is it another round at the dreaded Vista, but it means this tourney adventure is coming to an end and it’s back to work :(