Hello again.

Before I regale you with any tales of disctv, I'd like to take a moment to acknowledge the passing of the father of disc golf, 'Steady' Ed Headrick. Ed was a great inventor, giving us the gifts of the modern frisbee, the disc golf target, and the PDGA. Our numbers are one fewer without him, and many many thousands stronger because of him. My sympathies are with his wonderful family, and my thanks are to him for all that he accomplished during his time among us.

I found out Ed had died when a reader like you posted on the NewsWire, announcing the news while spanking me for not having already posted the information. As many of you have determined, DiscLife.com is one guy - me - with the much appreciated help of a few volunteer contributors, most notably 'Lucky' Todd Branch for his excellent Adventures column these past four years. The point I'm trying to make is that, while a number of readers have expressed disappointment that this website hasn't seen its usual flood of updating this summer - including Worlds coverage - try to remember that all the energy that went into the world's best disc golf site for the past six years is now going into television's first disc golf show. Either way it's time well spent, so try to cut me a little slack out there in the chatrooms, folks. I've only got 24 hours in a day, and no laptop to use on the road. The site will be back up to cruising speed as soon as there is money to hire some underpaid, overworked staff. Until then, the 'staff' is busy cranking out 60 minutes of disc golf television to 22 million homes every week.

A dear friend gave me one of those 'page per day' calendars for Christmas. It's a Gary Larson's Far Side, and ripping off the previous day's page to see the current day has become one of my favorite morning rituals this year. Today I'm in my home office for the first time in a while, and that calendar still reads Tuesday, July 30.

Yes, it was a busy, exciting, and fulfilling month of August. I haven't had two days off since July, and any free time is normally spent doing laundry, paying bills… just trying to keep up with the usual day to day stuff. Haven't seen my family since the 4th of July, fortunately they're all super cool and very supportive of my mad passion to promote disc golf to the world.

So August began with Pro Worlds… what a great job by Dave 'Nez' Nesbitt and his crew! Best run Worlds I've ever attended, and they did not decide to run the event until January of this year, as I recall. Way to go Houston, y'all have every reason to be proud. And of course, another impressive win by Ken Climo. The big shocker of Worlds 2002: Iowa's Des Reading takes the Women's crown. She played her heart out to beat vets like Elaine King, Lesli Herndon and Juliana Korver. If you haven't met Des yet, you're in for a treat, she's super cool.

Returning from Worlds, we had just two days to crank out a show before leaving for Europe. Leo was scheduled to pick me and John up from the studio at 6am, and at 5:30 we were still franticly trying to complete the voiceover segments. We failed to finish in time, which is why many of you saw the Shorewood Shootout episode two weeks in a row (our fault, not the stations, so please don't complain to them about reruns). The show we were working on that night - our Mid-Season Player Rankings Special - aired this past weekend. If I looked a little tired during the segment introductions, that's because they were taped at 5am, and both John and I had no sleep in the previous 48 hours. Such is the glamorous life of television.

Needless to say, we slept the entire flight from Chicago to London. Richard Sampson was good enough to let us crash at his flat the first night, before we headed west for the little town of Beaminster, home of the Whitcombe Farm and the Whitcombe Classic disc golf tournament.

Whitcombe is an operating organic sheep farm on 100 acres of rolling green English countryside, and I am officially dubbing it The Most Beautiful Course In The World. Wow, what a place to huck some plastic. TD and farm owner Toby Green told me the organic nature of the farm won't allow for concrete tee pads, otherwise I might have to call it the Best Course along with the Most Beautiful. A truly inspiring place, and I look forward to returning for the European Championships there next year. Special thanks to Toby, Derek Robbins, Rich Sampson, Jester, and Arthur Haverkamp for making our stay all the better. Look for the Whitcombe Classic show in a couple of weeks, we had a very exciting finish too between a couple of Americans…

Then it was off to Sweden for the Stockholm Open. SAS airlines hosed us for about $500 because our gear was 56 kilos over their 100 kilo limit… more than the cost of all three of our tickets. Whatever. Fortunately, that was the only downside to another fantastic experience. Jarva Disc Golf Park was beautiful and extremely well kept thanks to the hard work of Mats Löf, and his brother Jonas runs such a fine tournament that I hope all PDGA TDs will watch this episode… you can learn a lot from Jonas Löf.

It was especially interesting to hear Swedish being spoken all over the course. Did you know that the word 'fore' in Swedish translates to 'sheep'? They use the term over there too, so players are running around on the course yelling 'sheep!' whenever a shot goes astray.

It was another exciting, down-to-the-wire finish that included new World Distance Champ Christian Sandstrom, Jesper Lundmark, Timo Pursio and Shawn Sinclair. The show's best finish of the year by far. Special thanks (tack) here to Jonas and Mats, Tina, Andreas, Hilga, Hans, Polle and Johan for your friendship and warm welcome. We hope to be able to show you the same hospitality here in Chicago… the door is always open to you.

Today is laundry, haircut, cleaning out the science project that my refrigerator has become, a quickie site update, and maybe even a round of 18, although if my mother finds out I was golfing instead of visiting her, there could be trouble. Then it's back to Chitown for more editing, and back to Kalamazoo on Friday to cover the Lumberjack Open.

Nine weeks left on the 2002 road. I can sleep when I'm dead. Sleep well, PDGA #001. You done good, and we're here to carry the torch.

Brian

For more information on disctv, go to the full site. You'll find lots of clips, information where to see the show, and lots more.