Seattle, WA / Portland, OR
Ft. Steilacoom Open A-tier / Beaver State Fling National Tour
"Last stops on the West Coast"
Before I give my input on the course design question and pose a second question let me catch you up.
We left NorCal and headed to Mt. Shasta for the night. The clouds were thick providing no view of her majesty, so we headed on and decided to stop at Whistler's Bend Park in Glide, Oregon to play and camp for the night. Whistler's is still one of my favorites. It is so epic you think you are in Ireland. We woke up the next day and headed to Portland and stayed with our buddy Steve Yang for a night and then continued north to Seattle.
The event went well and I finished tied for second losing by just one stroke. I shot a 988 rated second round. I just struggled but on a positive note I played a solid final nine. A shout out to the Kilmer's for putting us up and Rick, Garrett, and Synthya for carrying my bag.
The event ended very dramatically. Wysocki had a two stroke lead and missed the mando. It was a re-tee, he played too safe and threw OB. Sexton laid up for a par and won by a stroke.
On Monday fun day we headed to Seattle with our host. We went to the Pike Place Market, Space Needle, Glass Museum, Rose Gardens, and a nice dinner on the water. Seattle is a great town, maybe one we would want to live by one day.
Tuesday we drove down to Portland for the Fling. I practiced the courses and got ready. My arm started to act up and was actually tingling in my fingertips when I threw. I played my heart out all weekend and just couldn't get it going. I shot the same score almost every round and finished in 8th place. Paul McBeth won in a three hole playoff. He smashed back to back eagles in the final round to come from 8th and tied for first. I was feeling a little tired all weekend and will be looking forward to having a weekend off so I can feel fresh for the Vibram Open.
Now to comment on my previous question about course design.
I wish I had the answer, but I don't. My opinion is that we must find a way to penalize the thrower more who misses by 30 percent on there line than the player who misses by 5 percent. In ball golf the more you miss the harder your lie will be for your next shot. Thus the closer you are to perfection the better you lie will be and then your score has a chance of being lower.
It seems to me that this is not the case in disc golf all that often. Missing by 30 feet may be the same penalty as missing by 80 feet or worse in some cases missing by 80 feet yields a lower score than missing by 30 feet. I have some ideas that I will implement on my course someday. I just want to get people to start thinking about making the penalty fit the crime. Again, I am appreciative to all course designers and this is no attempt to attack any one person or course.
This Week's Question:
So the course is designed, the sponsors are in, the players are there. How do we manage the crowd we want to invite? Parking? Viewership? Information? Are we ahead of ourselves?
