So I arrived in Raleigh, North Carolina around 11:30 pm on Wednesday night after a 7 hour layover in Chicago due to some severe thunderstorms in the area. I was greeted and picked up at the airport by our good friend and tournament director for this weekend, Kirk Yoo. We stay at Kirk’s house every time we come to town for the tournament. He has an amazing house with lots of room to accommodate at least a couple dozen disc golfers and not to mention an $18,000 home entertainment system.

The first round of the tournament started out at Buckhorn, which is a super-tight, wooded course with various water holes on the middle holes. It is a course where there are lots of birdie opportunities, but also mixed with the possibility of taking some serious digits on an errant tree kick if you are just an inch or two off. It is all about throwing your tee shots down the middle of the fairway and hoping to at least get a putt for birdie on many of the holes. It is one of the tightest courses that we play all year on tour.

I started out the tournament playing with Brad Hammock and Robert Leonard (MTL). Robert had contributed a sponsorship donation toward the tournament and had requested to play in my group the first round, it was truly an honor to be selected and play with him in my group. I had started the tournament with a difficult first round, with various bad shots and bad luck ending up with a 57, 1 under the course par and my lowest rated round this season. Brian McCree shot a 50, followed by Feldberg with a 51. So I was 7 strokes off the lead after the first round and questioning my attendance at this particular tournament realizing that I do not know the course very well and knowing that there was also another supertour event in Houston, Texas the very same weekend. I prefer playing bigger, longer courses with multiple two shot holes and the chance to go out and throw some bombs. I never seem to play well at the Crosstown due to the multiple tight wooded holes, it does not play to my strengths as a distance thrower.

I started the second round on the 6th card, realizing that there was no place to move but up, I was on a mission. I played the course the very opposite of the first round, I was driving the fairway and making lots of putts. I finished the round with a 50, 7 strokes better, moving from 18th to 8th. Brad Hammock shot a 48, tieing the tournament course record, as he took the lead of the tournament by 1 stroke over McCree and 2 strokes over Feldberg and Justin Jernigan.

Going into Sunday, I was still 6 strokes off of the lead, sitting on the third card with Walt Haney and Robert Leonard tied up at 1 under par or 8 under the course par. This time I wanted to make a move at Zebulon, being the most open of the two courses and lots of opportunity to score low. I struggled at the beginning missing a few birdie holes and played strong on the back coming around to hole 2. I ended up shooting my personal best tournament round of 47 and the hot score for the 3rd round moving me up from 8th to a 5-way tie for 5th.

In the 4th and final round, the top eight players were within 3 strokes of each other meaning that win was up grabs to anyone who could post a hot score. I got grouped up with “Raleigh’s Finest”, Brain McCree, Brian Schweberger and Walt Haney. I could not have asked for a better group of golfers to play with knowing that they knew this Zebulon course better then almost anybody, it was a true pleasure. I got off to a great start, with 7 birdies on the first 12 holes and finishing with a few birdies on 15 and 17. I knew that the scores were going to be close and I had chance to close it out with a 22-foot birdie putt on hole 1 to finish. I was making sure to not leave the putt low and drive to the center, I must have lost focus as I sent the putt over the top of the basket, making the par putt coming back. Our second card destroyed the course with Schweberger and McCree both shooting 7 under. Walt and I finished with the hot scores of the 4th round both with 9 down, remaining tied after regulation. I knew for some reason that that last putt was for the win. Soon after, Brad Hammock comes off the first card with 6 down, forcing a 3-way playoff for the tournament title.

We all stepped to hole 1 knowing that it was going to come down to birdies on the first couple of holes as we proceeded to enter a sudden death playoff. Walt and I ended up parking the first hole as Brad released the disc low, ending up in water hazard stream that crosses 35 feet in front of the basket eliminating him from contention. Walt threw first on hole 2 landing about 20 feet uphill from the pin, I ended up throwing an early inside route and landed about 25 feet out. I was then faced with a routine down hill putt to remain in the match and put it dead center. Walt, being known for being one of the top putters on tour, stepped to his slightly downhill 20 footer. I began to think ahead of myself and I started to evaluate the upcoming playoff holes as I had already counted on him hitting his putt. He lined it up, rose up and left the putt high hitting off the top of the basket. The playoff ended there, as I pulled off one of my greatest comebacks being 7 strokes back after the first round and 6 strokes back after the second round, bringing it back for the win. Thanks again to Kirk and Jennifer Yoo for the great hospitality and accommodations.

Next Stop : The Hall of Fame Classic – Augusta, Georgia – NT

4/5/07