We drove for about 30 hours from Round Rock, TX to here. Usually I would wait till I got some sleep to write this week’s piece, but I figured writing while sleepy might prove interesting and provide a bit more realism...

I left off in Texas.

Mark and Avery arrived without a hitch. Avery actually ended up staying at Mark’s hotel room instead of with us due to some cold and nasty weather (including a tornado that I got a picture of Dave standing in front of). Hmm... I'm ending a sentence with a preposition... screw it. The tornado did minimal damage -- like one house had a section of roof torn away -- and provided us with a nice hail storm.

On Friday Al and Sue played mixed doubles in the morning and beat Scott Stokely and Juliana Bower by five strokes to take the title. I know Juliana reads DiscLife.com once in awhile so I want you to know Julie.... I'm not rubbing it in or anything... I just think that it was pretty amazing. If Scott is reading this, then I'm rubbing it in.

After mixed doubles Al and Sue took the rest of the day off and Todd partnered up with Mark Ellis -- the Lizard Lawyer who is over-generous to a fault -- for a round of worst shot (actually played as tough shot) doubles. Mark and I played our way to 2nd place in the 19 team field. We were defeated by Scott Stokely and Ron Russell by a stroke. Laugh it up Scott.

For National Doubles (proper) there were 70+/- Men’s Open teams, 6 Open Women teams, and several Masters teams. It was all sort of a blur. Al and I played well for the first day and sat in 3rd place, two strokes out of 1st behind Russell/Stokely and one stroke behind locals Jim Davis and Ken Hambelton, who have won the title in a previous year. The rookie team of Feldberg/Jenkins had some problems but were holding in there. Sue and Leslie Herndon were solidly in 2nd but trailing at a distance behind Bower/Kirkham.

Second day, first round was alternating shot. The wind was blowing at a steady 30 mph clip. It was rough. Al and I landed in lots of bushes and had a difficult time putting. We shot +11, Russell/Stokely shot +6, Davis/Hambelton shot +3. Out of the second group LaRon Harris and Kevin Babbit shot an even par and blasted into 1st place. Dave and Avery shot a +12 and found themselves missing the cut to the final round. It was tough out there. Many teams made big jumps or big drops.

Al and Todd held on to shoot well in the 4th round and move into a tie for 4th with Craig Leyva and Craig Gangloff. Davis/Hambelton edged out Harris/Babbit by a stoke to win the tournament. Russell/Stokely ended up in 3rd and Arron Weild / Mark 'Moose' Lubeck put together good rounds for 4th.

Sue and Leslie ended up in 2nd place behind a mountain of strokes and Juliana/Kirkham. Mark Ellis and Carlton Howard teamed up to take 4th place in Masters.

After doubles we had a group dinner with a bunch of golfers and spent the night at the tournament hotel parking lot. Next day we headed down to the Circle-R disc golf course and the Circular Productions headquarters. John Houck showed us around and let us loose on the lower course. Pretty nice place. I understand it gets better when there is water in the waterfall and in the creeks. It's been a bit dry in Austin they tell me.

We skeedaddled from Texas and drove forever until we reached Merriwether Park in Hogansville, GA. It is a private, pay-to-play course. We didn't get to meet the owner since we showed up with just enough time to get a round in before dark. After the front nine, an excited young guy came running up to us on the 10th tee and asked if we were “The Winnicrew Tour?” Close enough. I said “yep” and he told us that he reads the web site all the time. We all introduced ourselves. His name is Jimmy Akutsu -- hi Jimmy -- from Athens, GA. He has no home course and traveled a couple hours to play Merriwether... he was totally excited to meet us.

I motioned at the tee pad and he happily joined us for the back nine. Jimmy plays pretty well too!! Today I got an email from him stating that he might show up here in Raleigh to play in the tournament this weekend.

Anyway, we left after setting Jimmy up with a t-shirt, mini, and autographed TeeBird, and finished the long drive to here. We found a campground for the weekend but it's only open Thurs - Sun, so we got a hotel room for tonight. That's where I'm sitting as I type this.

My coach and buddy Mike Raley will be flying down from Michigan for the tournament. The weather prediction is grim. We suspect that the clouds are following us.

- Todd

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