I took home a win this weekend! Hot damn! It was just an amazing day from the get-go really. I went into the tournament just looking forward to playing a round with my buddy Michael Sung and I knew the players pack you got for registering was described as VERY generous. Indeed it was, Mike Solt and Dynamic Discs put together a pack which included a DD Ranger bag (That’s a $175 bag), a custom stamp DD Thief, a pair of putters, a shirt, socks, a towel, can-koozies…It was nuts!! I felt like a winner when Mike was piling all that stuff in front of me.
After I checked in I got my first real look at the course, incredible! Sunrise in the Appalachians, late September. Very mellow golden light hitting the morning fog which lay over the grassy fairways. Villas Crossing in Tamaqua was once a traditional ball-golf course, and it still is but they added a disc golf course a few years back which uses part of the original course and the wooded sections behind the ball-golf course. You also get a golf cart when you play, you don’t have to rent one but it’s cheap and your legs will thank you – it’s hard enough with the cart! The course is impressive, lots of big open fairways for the big arms to take advantage of, there were some difficult pin placements and opportunities for roll-aways like I’d never seen before. Seriously I watched a guy hit the cage and roll well over 200 ft. downhill – cost him four throws. The wooded sections of the course helped me out as usual, I typically lose ground on the open holes and tend to do well in the woods. For my game I felt like the woods were challenging but I only got in trouble a few times. I know there were some guys on other cards that got lit-up on a couple holes but that’s how it goes sometimes. Villas Crossing had a good variety of terrain and lay out and a really nice signature hole. I think was #16 where you arrive to a huge open vista which overlooks the course and gives you a clear view across the valley. You throw from a steep drop-off to the basket about 350 feet out and 150 feet down. The drop is steep enough that you can’t quite see the out-of-bounds in front of the basket – everyone was just telling me to throw as hard as I could when I tee’d off. Anyway, it was one of those top-of-the-world tee boxes you just love to see.
I had such a good time playing it felt like it was over in a blink. I didn’t have any expectations going into the tournament because I was going to be playing a course I had never seen before. That is something that I hadn’t yet experienced. I think it may have actually helped me focus on my shots one at a time, I wasn’t thinking ahead or keeping score in my mind. I just played my game and it ended with me beating Mike by a couple throws! He’s kicked my butt a couple times so I was stoked to finally get one on him. I won a cool-ass Trophy made by Grains & Chains and a sweet tie-dye custom disc for a ‘closest to the pin’ prize.
