All-Players Meeting, Featuring the Racing Sausages of Miller Park

Sheila and I have an 8 am tee time, so I haven't got the time to publish more than one of the many good pictures I took during that meeting last night. More will come on Tuesday afternoon.

Below, Sheila is cuddling with Italian Sausage, a member of the Klement's Racing Sausages of Miller Park, who entertained the 600+ crowd of competitors, friends, and family members. (That's our friend and my competitor, Pete May, from Augusta, GA, to Sheila's left, dressed [as usual] very
colorfully.)
Okay, maybe time for one more.

Here, Kelsey Brakel receives the granite obelisk for being the Junior Women's 2006 PDGA Points Leader from (left) PDGA Tour Manager David Gentry (GA) with Worlds TD Terry Miller (WI) looking on. In the far background is Sun King Discs' Mike Barnett (FL).

Going to the All-Players Meeting

As Sheila and I headed out to the 7 pm players meeting last night, we were startled to see Kevin Williamson (right, Jackson, MI) and Mark Kruse (Toledo, OH) waiting for us when the elevator doors opened.

Scary as they looked, we rode down with them anyway. And good thing that we did. During the conversation we learned that we were one hour off (time different) and were heading out to the meeting quite early.

Instead, we hung out in the indoor pool area while Kevin and Mark soaked in the hot tub. It was a great conversation about Ohio and Michigan disc golf, tournaments, politics, and the like. Below, Kevin and Mark joining Sheila and in laughing uproariously (always wanted to use t hat word) at the end of a story Mark had just finished telling.
I really can't tell you the story, but the punchline was "And then Kevin just jumped right in through the oil slick."

Mixed Doubles

Sheila and I played alternate shot doubles on Dretzka New in the morning and had a bit of bogey trouble, scoring 5 of them to perfectly match our 5 birdies, for an even par round of 54. In that round, we were joined by the team of Elliot Fu and Kira Brakel, who shot a 51, and Jeff Smart and Nikki Brodlo (Milwaukee area locals) who shot a 59.

That's another, hopefully prescient, coincidence in that in 2000 when I won the Grand Master title, Elliot Fu was the doubles partner of Barret White and played on the same card with Sheila and I during that first round of mixed doubles.

It turns out that we had tied with our friends Dawn and Arthur Pengelly at even par for the morning, so they were our playing partners in the afternoon. After a bogey on the first hole of the afternoon - Hole 6, which many consider the toughest hole - Sheila and I were on a roll and at -4 after about the first 7 holes. Unfortunately, I totally fatigued with about 7 holes to go and miss-threw several drives. We scraped out pars but didn't get some birdies we needed as a result.

The Pengellys and the Calhouns tied for the day at -5 (103 strokes) and I think that put us in a 3-way tie with Elliot Fu and Kira Brakel, for 10th place out of 31 teams. Not as well as I had hoped, but Sheila and I have a combined age of 119+, which makes us by far the oldest team out there.

It sure was fun. At lunch I got to spend some time talking with J. Gary Dropcho about his teaching job in Pittsburgh, and how that area is fast getting a nice collection of world-class courses.

And, you're right to ask, "Where are the pictures?" I let my camera battery die overnight, darn it. It's charging right now so that I can take some pix at the all-players meeting tonight.

Tomorrow, Sheila (in the Advanced Masters Women) and I (in the Senior Grand Masters) compete within our singles fields at 8 am on Dretzka New.

Junior Doubles Won by Michiganders

Ziggt Bierekoven and Jamie Mosier appear to have won the junior boys doubles (<19) with a -20 for the day on the Dretzka Courses. The juniors played the Original Course alternate shot in the morning and the New Course best shot in the afternoon.

Ziggy came and joined the card Sheila and I were on - with Dawn and Arther Pengelly, with whom we had tied in the morning - for our last 6-7 holes. I was reminded that the last time I won a singles world title, Am Grand Masters in 2000, my son Ben and his friend Ken Moot, won the doubles competition. A hopefully prescient coincidence.

Monday's Schedule

Mixed Doubles competition this morning. Sheila and I will play on the Dretzka (new) at 9 am and then the Dretzka (original) course at 1. The all-players meeting is at 7 pm. Good luck, everyone.

EDGE Skill Shot Competition

Well . . . I won this baby in 2004, in Des Moines, but I sure didn't win it today. It was fun, though, Ben barely beat me - by 11 points out of 700 some. We started out getting an explanation of the procedure and rules from Wyatt (shown below; to whom we went back with questions several more times). If you haven't done this competition yet, give it a shot. It's as grueling as playing 18 holes and probably much better for your skill development.

On the way to start, we were overwhelmed by a bunch of dominant males in red, then realized that it was okay, because Worlds TD Terry Miller was in control.

Halfway through, we met up with Dawn Pengelly, from Kalamazoo, Michigan formerly of Quebec.
She and Sheila get to compete against each other quite regularly. Dawn and her husband, Arthur, who is from New Zealand, were house guests at the BRATS course for the DGLO in June. (Athur's home course was closed during the filming of the Lord of the Rings movies: Whenever you saw Gandalf riding his horse along a road on the way to Hobbitown, you were viewing a scene taking place between Holes 4 and 5 on Arthur's home course.)

Then we ran across former PDGA board member John (Chappy) Chapman (Kansas) and his friend [uh-oh, I forgot his name, someone email me]. That's current PDGA board Pete May (Augusta, GA), second from left, who figures to be a dominant competitor in the Senior Grand Masters division, starting on Tuesday. (How about that spiffy cart with the umbrella - I bought it Friday at a yard sale for $15.)

Finally, after stopping at a grocery for fresh fruits and veggies, we pulled back into the Sheraton Four Points where the PGA is gone and the PDGA is now dominant. (Those folks don't even know we exist yet, at the PGA that is, yet we now have 2,000+ courses in the US, moving up on their much more slowly growing 7,000+!

Sheila has titled this last image: "Tired and Cranky Terry." I am tired, probably cranky, too. But I sure look forward to two 18-hole mixed doubles rounds with Sheila as my partner tomorrow. Our games complement each other nicely and all we lack is a drive longer than 325' - which shouldn't matter at the two Dretzka courses!

If I had known about the Ernest Hemingway look-alike contest - http://www.sloppyjoes.com/news.htm#hemingway07 - I might have been smiling more. We may well go down for that next year.

Dineen - Actual Play, Not Just Rumors

Okay, it's not as bad as Ben described. There are a lot of holes just outside of my driving range (holes over 350') but quite a few are downhill and there are probably about 8 or 9 potential birdie holes. I shot a -1 and Ben shot a -7. (There are that many holes inside his range and outside of mine, darn it.)

In the hotel, as we were leaving, I met Steve Timm and his wife Nancy, from New Orleans. Steve joined Sheila, Ben, and I at Dineen, since his hotel room was not quite ready and he could not check in. (That's me on the left, below, with Steve, in the Sheraton Four Points lobby.) Steve is running for the PDGA board and you have the rest of July to vote for him, if you have not yet voted.

Several holes into Dineen, we caught up with the Brakel family (below, lined up on the hill, approaching a pin downhill).
A few holes later, Joe and Steve Kozlowski, from Wyoming, caught up with us. We invited them to join us and we finished out as a 6-some, but the folks behind us were also, so we weren't in anyone's way. Below is Ben, Joe, Steve Timm, Steve Kozlowski, and Sheila, on Hole 18.)
Joe Kozlowski has got his learner's permit for driving and the tension mounted on Hole 18, as their competition deal is - whoever wins gets to drive (the car). Steve overthrew the hole on the drive and also overthrew his approach back (I had the only birdie.) and had to make a long come-back putt from under a tree to tie Joe.

They then played a safari hole to a practice basket and each got a 3; the last we saw them, they were headed over to Hole 1 to play it out until they could figure out who got to drive back to the hotel!

We're fixing sandwiches now and getting ready to head over to Dretzka for the EDGE Skill Shot competition. Ciao.