The Discmania Deep in the Game Tour streaked down the East Coast throughout New York City, Philadelphia, Washington D.C. and Charlotte. Simon and I hosted a Deep in the Game Disc Golf Instructional Clinic in Philadelphia, PA at the Sedgley Woods Disc Golf Course which is said to be one of the Top 10 Disc Golf Courses installed in the world established in 1977. It’s always great to get back the rare beginnings of our sport and see what a Frisbee Golf Course used to look like because it hasn’t changed much since then, a great experience.
We left that night in order to get to Washington D.C. for a day full of sightseeing and showing Simon the Nation’s Capital. It’s always interesting to show Simon what sights and scenes our great country has to offer as I’ve seen many of the places that we’ve been this season many of times, it never gets old for me and I truly still enjoy traveling more than ever. On our way through Maryland, West Virginia and Virginia heading south, we eclipsed the 20,000 mile mark for the season through 42 States!
We made it down to Rock Hill, South Carolina for the United States Disc Golf Championships just in time to get some solid practice rounds on the days leading up to the event. It’s definitely a tournament that you want to be highly prepared for going in as the Winthrop Gold Course is always evolving every year to increase the difficulty. It’s a prestigious event that has been slowly losing its appeal over the years and it seems that less players are attending this tournament. I remember playing my first USDGC back in the early 2000’s when 230+ players were in attendance.
There were several changes to the course this year including a few teepad and basket relocations in hopes to make the course play much harder and limit the scoring potential. I got the honor of playing the first round with the current 3-time and reigning Disc Golf World Champion, Paul McBeth. These changes were not made very apparent by McBeth making only a few minor mistakes to shoot the new course record of 53 (-14) as he dismantled he track shot by shot. It was awesome to witness, as it was one of those quiet course record rounds if there’s such a thing!
As for Simon and I we didn’t play phenomenal throughout the 4 rounds of golf, we both had our ups and downs with what it seems very conservative play on the very difficult course. Just to make things interesting, Jussi Meresmaa, CEO of Discmania, and Simon had a contest throughout the week of the USDGC. It was about to see who would beat who, with a lot of players selecting Simon for the obvious reason of being a Touring Pro that plays almost everyday. But what needs to be said, is that Jussi hasn’t finished outside the Top-10 in the past 4 years. It was a great battle through the first 3-rounds and what made it better was they faced off against each other in the final round in the same group.
All in all, they remained close in score as they tied during the round giving Team Jussi a 1-stroke victory over Simon and 9th Place for another Top-10 finish at the USDGC. I was insistent on catching and passing both of them but only shot 1-down for the round to finish 1-stroke back of Simon. Overall it was another fun USDGC but looking forward to redesign and restructuring of the event for next year as it has to continue to improve to remain as one of the best Disc Golf Tournaments in the World.
We left South Carolina en route to the beautiful white sand beaches of Destin, Florida for a few days to unwind and allow the body to rest in preparation for our long drive back to the West Coast. We also revisited Mobile, Alabama on our way back. Stay tuned for a Tour Recap Blog soon!
