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ChipsaHoey765

Newbie
Joined
Jul 30, 2018
Messages
15
Location
Eastern Indiana
Hey guys,
Just interested to hear your first tournament experience. From what was different than you expected, things you learned, what discs you threw, mistakes you made, triumphs you had. I would love to hear your stories!
 
Good thread. Fun to read, and fun to talk about...

Mine was the Windy Water Open in 2005. https://www.pdga.com/tour/event/5194
You can find me down in 9th place in the Rec division (then the lowest).

It looks like my ratings for my 67/69, had I been a PDGA member, would have been a 758/734 split. At the time I didn't know anything about ratings, but the course at Ohio Northern University was literally the only course I had ever played at that time (the next day I would play my first ever weekly doubles scramble at the same course) - I was literally 1 month in. Overall I'd been shooting 58-59 every time out as a casual player, so I was really disappointed. After finishing the event, seeing I was in 9th and coming from a background in a sport that only gave out medals for top 3 - I immediately assumed I hadn't got any sort of prize and went out and played a casual round (shot 62). Didn't find out how disc golf did payouts until around a month later. Andy, the TD, still owes me that DX disc. ;) (I've sporadically given him **** about it over the years)

A few other memories...
First round was mixed cards. Played with a real ass, won't say who - he still golfs frequently. At one point the Intermediate guy who was on our card, Chris Rob Wehner who was playing really well in his division, snapped at him "Why are you **** talking my shots, I'm not even in your division?!" I was throwing only 3 discs at the time, a Z Reaper, Glow #2 Driver, and a Z Putt'R, guy was making fun of my use of the #2 Driver instead of the Z Reaper (which I only used overhand, and I couldn't straighten out on a backhand). Just silly ****. Overall I remember that round really positively nowadays because over the years Chris Rob became one of my favorite people to throw with, and being able to say I met him during my first tournament round ever is really cool.

Second round held a really cool memory too - I'd never witnessed an ace before. On hole 13 from the shorts Justin Gossman, who I believe still posts here (???) hit either his first ace OR his first money ace, can't remember exactly. He threw a big looping thumber that crashed home. I played a number of events with him over the course of that summer while I was playing in the rec division, another really cool person!

At that tournament I also had my first interactions with Chris Hoyle, who won the Open division - I've got almost 15 years of memories of road trips with him, I golf all the time now with his son who just graduated high school last month. The same goes for Tim Grabowski, who DNF'd that tournament because he took a giant chunk out of his toe retrieving a disc from a pond 1st round (sharp rocks) - since meeting him that day we've been on numerous road trips, and at one point were shooting pool every day for a good few years.

I managed to get my revenge on the course. My results in October of that year in Intermediate were much better... https://www.pdga.com/tour/event/5231 - 896/965 split. I improved a lot that first summer, I lost my vision in my eye and everyone felt sorry for me so I was able to play a lot of disc golf as an unemployed slacker for some months. 100+ hole days happened multiple times per week.
 
I remember that day, and many other rounds with you Woj. I didn't play many PDGA events, in fact PDGA says it was only 3 but I can find my name in at least 5. Funny thing about that ace, was my first one ever and being a college kid, I thought I'd be better off saving my money and not buy into the ace pool. It was hole 13 at the time, 229' I threw a dx beast backhand, missed the basket high and right and the wind stalled it out and flopped into the backside of the basket. Probably the best DG related feeling.
 
CreemCheese said:
I remember that day, and many other rounds with you Woj. I didn't play many PDGA events, in fact PDGA says it was only 3 but I can find my name in at least 5. Funny thing about that ace, was my first one ever and being a college kid, I thought I'd be better off saving my money and not buy into the ace pool. It was hole 13 at the time, 229' I threw a dx beast backhand, missed the basket high and right and the wind stalled it out and flopped into the backside of the basket. Probably the best DG related feeling.
Click to expand...
It was a backhand? Holy cow, how bad is my memory. I completely thought it was an overhand throw! Well on the bright side it was the day of $1 ace pools, and only a 50ish person tourney - so its not like now-a-days with our $5 ace pools and a big ol payout!

I will never ever forget our disc golf marathon day. There was so much rain. Just so much. That was probably the day I fully realized as a disc golf addict.
 
My first tournament was in the summer of 2017. I had been playing since August '15 but had only gotten somewhat serious the previous fall.I had been laid up with an illness off and on all spring, so it felt good just to play.

I played intermediate and found myself on the second round lead card thanks primarily to my ability to consistently par holes and to an ace on a short lefty hyzer hole (I threw only LHBH then). I still get a kick that I aced with an Innova Panther when I throw Zone on that hole now. My card was ecstatic about the ace — even more so than me. That was cool to experience and speaks to the communal nature of DG tournaments.

I crapped the bed in the second round. Me and another guy on the lead card shot the worst R2s from a field of 18-20. The two guys who came in 1st and 2nd are now regularly competitive in Advanced. I'm still a mid-pack Intermediate player.
 
Mine was a doubles event in 2012 at McCurry Park in Fayetteville, GA. My partner was the guy who introduced me to disc golf.

We got second to last, but I met a guy who would later help me revitalize a worn down course. Also got to meet Matt Dollar and John Matlack who were good examples of how to aspire to throw.

I only had an overhand shot for distance back then and couldn't throw a backhand much over 220, OH about 320 and no FH to speak of yet. My bag was a drawstring bag with a Champ Groove, Pro Wraith, Pro Destroyer, DX Teebird, DX Shark, and a Champ Rhyno.

Still have many of those discs but haven't thrown any of them in years. I think we **** something like +4 and +5, I shoot in between -3 and -8 on that course solo now...

Come a long long way since that first one.
 
I played a BYOP dubs winter tournament for my first one. A guy I know called last minute when his partner bailed. It was probably single digit temps, icy, about a foot of snow most parts of the course. If I recall I threw a QJLS for pretty much every tee shot. The course, whispering falls in PA, is very wooded for the most part, but no sharp doglegs. I think i threw that QJ, and a glow aviar P&A for most shots that day. It was working so why throw anything else?!

We came in first in our division, I had a great time, and learned that some people take tournaments waaaaay too seriously. Even a BYOP dubs ice bowl had people getting bent out of shape. I just tried to have some fun, play off my partner's strengths, and stick a great putt as often as I could. We won and he was still critical of his performance.

The following year we came in second to last. Still had fun though.
 
The more prepared I am for a tournament the more confident I am with my game. Much putting before a tournament is always a plus.
 
My first tourney was a McBeast Challenge with both Paul and Sexton there. I thought it was going to be a lot more serious than it was, it ended up being a flex start, one round, so you had basically an 8 hour window to just get your round in, and you just couldn't play alone so someone witnessed your round. They let some casuals play during the day too, so the whole thing was just...less impressive than I imagined.

There were 2 divisions - Pro and Am, and I shot decent and ended up in a 3-way tie for 3rd in Am. So I'm thinking we start playoff holes, and the first hole is a big open bomber 500' hole next to the club house in front of all the people, and I'm looking forward to turning a FH drive over right into the ground in front of everybody. Nope. Standing at the scoreboard with the 2 other guys, Sexton goes, "lets just stand right here and throw to that basket over there, CTP takes 3rd." It's like 80-100' away. Here's the problem, at this point in my DG career I'm literally a 99% flicker, and the basket from where we are standing, is on a down slope fading away from my flick's hyzer, so it'll stand up and roll when it lands. So backhand is the play, crash it into the hillside and hope it sticks. Something I've done maybe 5 times total that year. Needless to say I didn't take third, but it was at least close to the other 2 guys so I didn't embarrass myself, but walked away with nothing.
 
I'm not sure if I learned anything, but this is always a good story to brag about.
Shot a 978 in my first round, tied for 1st place in MA1 with David Wiggins (he was probably 11 or 12 at the time). Held it together reasonably well to finish in 4th place with a 954 average. And 10 years later, I had improved on that rating by like 15 points.
 
Playing intermediate a few years back, and I shot the worst round in the entire tournament field. Super long, super technical course and I managed to hit the first available tree on every shot. Literally embarrassed after that round . I think it was rated 740 or something.
The next round, I came back and shot the best round in the entire tournament field. It was rated at 1005 .
I managed to third in my division, and also to get grief from everyone in MA2 at the time because I shot a thousand rated round. heh.
 
Played for the first time in March 2007, played first tourney in May 2007. Played intermediate at a course in Whitehall Mi I had never played. I recall throwing a lot of Wraith shots from almost every tee. Played the course again this year and threw a lot of putters and mids off the tee. Shot 806/844 and finished DFL in MA2. Would have been about 7th in MA3. Played with a couple guys whose names I see occasionally. They play MA1 now. I took some years off, got older, and play MA3 or age protected stuff.
 
My very first tournament of any kind was an inter-collegiate tournament back in like 2003. We traveled down to Bowling Green to play against WKU and I had never done anything other than casual/league rounds. The tournament was mostly just an excuse to visit other colleges to party, haha!

I was blown away at how good everyone was, and I had also never played in really high winds before. I remember my bag at the time was something like 4 DX Eagles on a cycle, a couple lightning discs, a 10X Roc, and an XD for putting. I threw predominantly forehand and got absolutely crushed by the wind, and shot something like +18 in the first round. That's when I started to really practice my backhand, and I also ran out and bought a Firebird the next week.

My first PDGA tourney was in 2005, I played Rec and came in 3rd. I was throwing Valkyries, Eagles, Firebirds, Rocs, a Gator, and a couple XD's. I remember feeling so much pressure in the second round playing on the lead card. Shot back-to-back 894 rounds, which felt amazing at the time. I was totally bitten by the tournament bug and started playing events all the time after that.
 
ChrisWoj said:
Good thread. Fun to read, and fun to talk about...

Mine was the Windy Water Open in 2005. https://www.pdga.com/tour/event/5194
You can find me down in 9th place in the Rec division (then the lowest).

It looks like my ratings for my 67/69, had I been a PDGA member, would have been a 758/734 split. At the time I didn't know anything about ratings, but the course at Ohio Northern University was literally the only course I had ever played at that time (the next day I would play my first ever weekly doubles scramble at the same course) - I was literally 1 month in. Overall I'd been shooting 58-59 every time out as a casual player, so I was really disappointed. After finishing the event, seeing I was in 9th and coming from a background in a sport that only gave out medals for top 3 - I immediately assumed I hadn't got any sort of prize and went out and played a casual round (shot 62). Didn't find out how disc golf did payouts until around a month later. Andy, the TD, still owes me that DX disc. ;) (I've sporadically given him **** about it over the years)

A few other memories...
First round was mixed cards. Played with a real ass, won't say who - he still golfs frequently. At one point the Intermediate guy who was on our card, Chris Rob Wehner who was playing really well in his division, snapped at him "Why are you **** talking my shots, I'm not even in your division?!" I was throwing only 3 discs at the time, a Z Reaper, Glow #2 Driver, and a Z Putt'R, guy was making fun of my use of the #2 Driver instead of the Z Reaper (which I only used overhand, and I couldn't straighten out on a backhand). Just silly ****. Overall I remember that round really positively nowadays because over the years Chris Rob became one of my favorite people to throw with, and being able to say I met him during my first tournament round ever is really cool.

Second round held a really cool memory too - I'd never witnessed an ace before. On hole 13 from the shorts Justin Gossman, who I believe still posts here (???) hit either his first ace OR his first money ace, can't remember exactly. He threw a big looping thumber that crashed home. I played a number of events with him over the course of that summer while I was playing in the rec division, another really cool person!

At that tournament I also had my first interactions with Chris Hoyle, who won the Open division - I've got almost 15 years of memories of road trips with him, I golf all the time now with his son who just graduated high school last month. The same goes for Tim Grabowski, who DNF'd that tournament because he took a giant chunk out of his toe retrieving a disc from a pond 1st round (sharp rocks) - since meeting him that day we've been on numerous road trips, and at one point were shooting pool every day for a good few years.

I managed to get my revenge on the course. My results in October of that year in Intermediate were much better... https://www.pdga.com/tour/event/5231 - 896/965 split. I improved a lot that first summer, I lost my vision in my eye and everyone felt sorry for me so I was able to play a lot of disc golf as an unemployed slacker for some months. 100+ hole days happened multiple times per week.
Click to expand...

Ottawa Park Disc Golf gypsy....catching rides to and from the course some days IIRC
 
nrihan said:
Ottawa Park Disc Golf gypsy....catching rides to and from the course some days IIRC
Click to expand...
And on the days I didn't catch rides to and from the course, I walked from campus. I played whole rounds for a few years with a disc golf bag and a school backpack 2-4 times around the course. And now I'm a lazy old man with a cart.
 
Ok. Since you asked so nicely. I'm going to type some words. I hope somebody reads it.

I had been traveling for the sake of traveling for years. National parks. Breweries. Rock climbing. Kayaking. Hiking. All kinds of adventures. The story of how I got hooked on disc golf is for another time, the main point of that story though, is that I got hooked on disc golf and I had a whole new focus to my travels. The first few courses I found through random google searches, and then some how I landed on this website called Discgolfcoursereview. I registered and made my first post. I think I found myself in the water cooler, and I said something like "Hi, I'm new here, and I like to travel and play new courses". There was this fellow who called himself MidnightBiker who responded with something like "Hey, if your travels ever lead you to Houston, TX, let me know, I'll show you around".

So I was living on the roof of a parking garage in New Orleans, performing frisbee dog tricks in the street for tips. One day I spent most of the entire day across the street from a mime. I did my dog tricks, he did his trapped in box thing. When foot traffic died down towards the end of the day, the mime came over and introduced himself. We chatted for a while, I learned that he was a hobo, and he was ready to move on to his next destination, he was hoping to get to Houston. I thought to myself that I wouldn't mind going to houston, I might even meet up with that midnightbiker dude. He offered to pay for some gas, and we left the next morning.

Dude drove me crazy, talking conspiracy theories and **** the entire drive. He apparently enjoyed my company, and offered that we hang out for a while, I was like no dude, I'm dropping you off now, where do you want to go, he said mcdonald's, so I took the next exit and dropped him off at mcdonald's and headed to the nearest disc golf course. Jack Brooks.

I parked, and tossed a couple practice putts at hole 18 basket, when a dude says "heads up! I'm playing that basket" So I let him finish his round, and we get to talking - "Yeah, I'm traveling, playing disc golf whenever and wherever I can" Dude says "oh cool! there's this website you might like, it's called disc golf course review" I'm like I just joined the other day! and He says Oh yeah? What's your user name I say Martin Dewgarita, and he's like Ah cool, I saw you on there, I'm MidnightBiker, Let's play a round together!

He showed me that 18 holes and says, hey, there's a tournament here tomorrow, you should come play, it's called worlds biggest disc golf weekend. So I met back up with him the next day and we played in the Rec division together. I took 4th, which was like last cash, worth like $20, The girl running the tournament suggested a focus and a stratus, so that's what I walked away with.
 
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