Today I played the Dann Schultz Memorial Disc Golf Tournament in Cedar Falls. With a high of 45 degrees or so, it was a beautiful day to get out and huck some plastic around. It was also nice to see some old friends from the Iowa City DG scene and some newer friends from Black Hawk Metro Disc Golf League.
I felt pretty good about my first competitive outing of the year. My goal in the tournament was to make the champion flight. I guess I should explain what a flight tournament is. In a flight tournament, everyone shows up and plays one round. Based on their score in that round, they are divided into flights, or groups, dividing the field based on "ability" rather than on which division people enter themselves into. I use quotes around "ability" because there is always the possibility that someone will purposely throw (no pun intended) the first round so they can win the second against the easier competition. In this particular tourney, however, you had the option of contributing to the cash prize pool or not ($10 entry fee with proceeds going to charity, $10 cash pool, $2 ace fund). Like I said, only the champion flight gets cash prizes, everyone else just gets trophies to the top 3 finishers. My goal was to be in the top flight. I decided before I went that I would not put any money into the cash prize pool (and thus be ineligible for winning money) because I wanted to be in the top flight, and if I was, I would be at the bottom of the top flight and not make any money anyway. If I didn't make the top flight, I wouldn't be eligible for money either. In any case, when I got there, they were keeping a tally of how much was in the cash pool. It was up to $390 when I got there, so it was tempting to throw in $10 for a shot at winning my entry fee back. With $390+ going to the top flight, I figured they would pay out many of the top flight players (and they did - 13 cashed). I didn't put any money in. It's just gambling.
I'm really glad I didn't. I missed the cutoff for the top flight by 1 stroke. I ended up in 7th place in the middle flight, but I beat a few in the top flight, which was nice.
Aside from missing my goal of being in the top flight, I felt pretty good about my play. I played really clean. Not a single bogey in either round, and shot 6 under par both rounds. It is a short course, my best scores there are -12 playing casual and -10 in league play. If I had shot -10, I would have been in the upper middle of the top flight.
Play was rough. There was about a foot of snow on the course (deeper or shallower in places), and as the temperature went up, it turned into slush and then ice with water on top, with up to 6 inches some places on the course. Not exactly good footing for a sport where footing is really important. Oh, well. I had a good time.
