Okay, we last left off with me starting to describe the course at the Wild Turkey Shoot, a B-tier tournament in the northwest corner of South Carolina... or were we in the southwest corner of North Carolina? Well, whichever, we were up in the mountains.

It was the start of the Wild Turkey final round. A bit of cold rain and some pretty steady wind. I have a four stroke lead over Brian 'Mad Dog' McCree and six strokes over Brian Schweberger. The real dangerous people (Al Schack, Cam Todd, Carlton Howard, and Kirk Yoo) were far behind. I was feeling pretty confident that I would get my first win of the year.

After the front nine I was sitting -1, not bad, it was the same score I had at the turn when I shot what was still the course record of -1. Brian McCree was sitting at even and not threatening. Brian Schweberger, on the other hand, was at -5 and only two strokes behind me. Now I was nervous. Brian had just shot a great last round at the Dogwood tournament and only missed catching me by one stroke at 4th place. I knew he had it in him to make up the last two strokes in this tournament.

I kept my two stroke lead through 12 and came up on 13. A short downhill with OB 20 feet right of the basket and a stream 15 feet past. Brian threw an overhand that landed about 8 feet from the basket and stuck. I don't have the shoulder for overhand shots so I had to let go with a backhand putter. I put it down the right side of the fairway and let it drift left and down toward the basket. Problems arose when the disc refused to turn left and kept floating. It was heading straight for the water behind the basket.

Things looked grim. Then I remembered that across the water was still in bounds. Only landing in the stream was OB. Strange rule but, hey, I didn't write 'em. Along the right side was a small tree that sat outside the OB line with it's thick branches hanging over the small corner of fairway. My disc was headed straight for it. Even better! The disc would hit the branches and fall in bounds right near the basket! Alas, the branches only slowed the disc down enough so that it didn't make the safe land on the other side of the water, but instead it landed in the water. OB. I took the circle-4 and we were tied with 5 holes to go.

My six stroke lead was erased in just 13 holes. I was pretty upset but tried to remember that I wasn't playing badly. Heck, I was still shooting even par... one stroke off the course record. If Brian were to beat me he would have to shoot -7. Right now he was at -5. I decide that if someone was going to shoot six strokes under the course record to beat me that I would have to be happy at his accomplishment and not consider it any failure of mine.

I gritted my teeth and we both double-bogeyed the next hole (it's possible to get a four on the hole, but nobody in the group did). On hole 17 it was my turn to pull out a trick shot drive. The hole drops down an extremely steep hill for about 400 feet, with the basket situated about halfway down. Fifty percent of the shots thrown at the pin end up all the way at the bottom of the hill.

Brian had to throw a backhand because an overhand will skip forward and roll when it hits the ground. His drive sailed into the trees on the right, landed on edge, and rolled down the hill. I decided to throw a squib drive. I held the disc upside down (thumb on the underside of the rim) and threw a high backhand straight up in the air. The disc went up on edge and back down on edge. When it hit the ground it had alot of backspin and almost no forward momentum. It landed, spun, and stayed about 25 feet left of the basket. Brian threw back up the hill and landed above the basket about 20 feet. Now he was looking at a steep downhill putt that could roll all the way to the bottom if he missed it. I made my putt for two and Brian’s putt for three doinked off the rim and rolled back down and across the hill. He ended up with a double bogey 5 on the hole and I had the tournament in hand. Brian still ended up shooting -3 for the round and owns the course record, but I got my first win of the year by shooting par (in fact I was +3 for the four round tournament).

Okay.... what did I learn? It's good to be able to throw the right shot for the hole. I gotta work on my overhands (short distance ones anyway). Also, you can only play your own game. There's nothing you can do to stop your opponent (within the confines of good sportsmanship) from having a great tournament. All you can do is shoot the best golf you can and see how things work out.

Al ended up tied for 4th with Cam. Sue decided that since there were no other Open Women to play against and since the weather was cold, windy, and rainy, and the terrain was so steep, she would take the weekend off. Dave was in Florida with his girlfriend for the weekend. We would see him the following weekend in Gainesville.

Scott Radley and his Grandfather set a great course here. Too bad it's too far from a major city to see many players. I'll look forward to playing it again this year.

We left right after the awards ceremony and headed off in search of a good steak, finally stopping at a Ryan’s restaurant about 60 miles from the course. Some other disc golfers from the tournament had the same idea and we ran into them at the buffet. They came out to the Winnie in the parking lot after dinner and bought some discs and t-shirts and had us sign some autographs.

We stopped at the Innova plant again and cleared up some bills we had. We also picked up a few more discs. On to Gainesville!!!!!

- Todd

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