Cool experiences with Pro players

[gcr_russell]

Before this week I had never gotten any experience with any Pro players before. As a result of going to the Memorial I got a lot of neat experiences that I wouldve only hoped for before.

I stayed at a diverse house, with several Advanced players, Masters, Grandmasters, Open Women, and Open players.
Philo Brathwaite, Nate Sexton, and Dion Arlyn were the Open guys staying at the house.

I got a little putting advice from Sheila Kirkham (Masters Women) who was a blast and went to work trying to apply it. Philo Brathwaite then spent a lot of time with my putting. That night and the next Feldberg came over and worked with me the first night on my technique. The next night a couPle other Ams and I played putting games with Feldberg for 30 minutes, with me behind Feldberg in our version of Horse. I knocked out the other player even putting after Dave before he knocked me out.
Tuesday another couple friends and I were practicing Fountain Hills before noticing Avery Jenkins and Nate Doss a couple holes behind us. At hole 10 or 11 we waited up 5 minutes for them to catch up and asked if we could join in. We got to play the rest of the round with them, throwing multiple drives and putts trying to decide how we would play the holes. Avery even let me throw his proto PD2s a couple times to see how they flew. Overall it was all a really cool experience that I hope I will have much more often in the future.

Does anyone else have cool Pro experiences they'd like to share?

 

[ZBoazMobster]

I met Will, Emac, and Liz at ZBoaz a few months ago. Cool people. Disc signed.
EMac started chatting with me, started to tell me who they were... I was like: I know who you all are =).

 

[cali]

The only tour pro's I've ever met are Brad Schick and Steve Wisecup. They are both very friendly, approachable people both on and off the course.

 

[Martin Dewgarita]

Sounds awesome!

I don't have much personal experience with pros. A month ago or so I got an offer to play with McCabe (Jeremy of DD said come back on Monday and I'd bet McCabe would play a round with you), my desire was to get out of the snow though, and wasn't too excited to hang around Emporia for 4 days in the snow, so it stood at just an offer (maybe I should have taken him up on it, I could use some pointers), not very impressive...

John Drummond (MN pro, started playing open in 94) worked at a YMCA camp that I went to in '99. Well before I had heard of disc golf, or knew that anybody was a professional frisbee thrower, we called him "Mister Frisbee Man" I had forgotten entirely about that until last year, 11 years later when I followed him on the final card at the Northstar Throwdown in St. Cloud. Got to sit down and have a nice conversation with him at the ceremony.

 

[GT Chris]

Back in high school I interviewed a few top pros (Ken Climo, Valarie Jenkins, Matt Orum and Garrett Gurthie) for a documentary short film.

I drew GG as my partner for weekly doubles at my home course once. We won :thmbup:.

At Collegiate Nats last year, most of the players got to hang out with Ken Climo, Barry Schultz, Nate Doss, Dave Feldberg and others for a couple days. Barry was spotting a couple of the holes and complimented my drive on Hippo #16.

Then a few months back I played Flyboy with Phil Arthur and watched him shoot a -9 on the front nine holes before we had to call it quits for lack of daylight.

 

[JDFizzle32]

i was at the collegiate nationals so i saw all of them
and schusterick lives down the road from me

 

[Star Shark]

I've met a bunch of pros at Sylmar, Oak Grove and La Mirada. Several show up for the Summertime Open, Wintertime Open and the Golden State Classic <RIP>. Pro's I've met include the locals, Steve and Bamba Rico, Philo Brathwaite and Paul McBeth as well as the other names out there, Josh Anthon, Carrie Berlogar, Nikko Locastro, Markus Kallstrom, Ken Climo, Dave Feldberg, Nate Doss, Valarie Jenkins, Avery Jenkins and Kyle Crabtree. They all seemed to be very cool people in the brief convos I had with them. Our sport is rather blessed to have such great people in it.

 

[Wheelz]

It's really cool that most pros are so approachable, it is one of the things that makes DG so attractive. While I am all for the growth of the sport and increased sponsorship dollars, I hope that this is one thing that is always apart of the game. It isn't like ball golf,or any top pro sport for that matter, where the top pros all practice and play at private courses and many times have too big of a head to meet/talk to the avg. player.

 

[drickanderson]

I think it's so awesome that you got to do that! I wouldn't change my life for the world, but there are times that I wish I wasn't so tied down, and could travel more to play.

 

[Tacoma_Tom]

I was playing up at Wrightwood last summer with my friend who introduced me to the game. He is always helping out players, giving them advice and encouragement. We finished the front 9 and we were ready to tee off on hole 10 when he noticed two other players (that I happened to know, but he did not) were practice putting next to the tee box. One of them missed a 10 foot putt, so my buddy asked me if he should go over and give him some encouraging words and advice about his putting. I told him that I was sure that Dave Dunipace would appreciate it, assuming he would pick up on the fact that he was about to try and help Dave with his putting. To make a long story short, Dave spent the next 20 minutes explaining to my friend all about the history of Innova and disc golf without my friend ever realizing he was talking to the founder of Innova.

 

[DSCJNKY]

I guess I've had a lot of experiences playing with pros... but my best experience was:

2009 USDGC warm-up round with my good friend Steve Rico, Josh Anthon, Ray Johnson and another pro (I forget his name). It was a 20 dollar round... I knew I was dead money, but wanted a crack at the ropes under tourney"style" pressure and figured it was a nominal fee to get to play the course.

To make a long story short, I played out of my mind great shooting +1 with 2 triples and 2 boges. I made 7 birdies, including CTP on Hole 1 and 17, and 3 birds in a row (15, 16, 17) to take the tee-pad on 18.

And, what's best is Steve and Josh tied at -10... so, one-tie-all-tie and I didn't lose my money!!!

DSCJNKY

 

[bazillion]

I'd just played a round at Sylmar and was killing some time at the 19th Hole before going home. Got to talking to Steve Rico about which disc would be good and so forth, and I said, "I know exactly why I'm not as good as I should be."

He looked at me with this "oh, yeah?" expression on his face and said, "Why is that?"

I said, "I don't play enough."

He looked at me with this "the n00b finally got it" expression and said, "Right."

I never felt so good about being a n00b

 

[CoachQ]

Schusterick, Feldberg, Jay Reading, and a few others put on a FREE clinic the day before the Memorial. I got personal and one on one putting lessons from Jay Reading and Ross Brandt. They each looked at my putt and broke it down and gave pointers. I also got an analysis of my drive from Feldberg. Really nice guys. At the end of the clinic we had several rounds of "Ring of Fire" where I went on to claim an signed firebird and a USDGC DVD.

I also played dubs once on the same card as Uli. I drew the joker and had to play alone but Uli and his partner started with me. He is a nice guy and was talking throughout the round.

 

[kimnem]

The Memorial Experience is one of my greatest DG memories! I went in 2010 and got pointers from Jay Reading on putts (there is a pic of me with Jay on the PDGA website!), The Jerm on forehand and won a disc that I was able to get a bunch of them to sign. I agree that the accessibility of DG top pros is impressive! I emailed a pro last year and they responded...and offered to play a round with me and help me with my form! Also had some great experiences at A tier tourneys and NTs--if you have one coming up, get out on the course beforehand!

 

[Ziggy]

I stayed at a diverse house, with several Advanced players, Masters, Grandmasters, Open Women, and Open players.
Philo Brathwaite, Nate Sexton, and Dion Arlyn were the Open guys staying at the house.

Did you learn any sign language while at that house? :thmbup:

 

[gcr_russell]

Did you learn any sign language while at that house? :thmbup:

I didn't learn the sign language itself, but got much better at reading Jeffrey's hands and being able to hold a full conversation without talking. Nathan and Jeffrey were two cool guys, and I'd stay with them at any tournament in a heartbeat.