Back in my hometown, just a few miles from my Mom and Dad's house for a cool event. The Lumberjack Open in its ninth year, and first as a SuperTour event. I spent the week at my folk's house catching up on long neglected duties from being out on tour. We had just left the World Championships where I finished a respectable 20th with one lousy round on the Monster course... and I do mean lousy. Al shot back up to 26th with a very good semi-final round that included an ace. Sue finished 12th or so to make a bit of cash. Cam was 7th or 8th I believe.

Once in Kalamazoo, Al and Sue stayed at the Cold Brook campground with the other touring pros. Friday featured a C-tier, two-round, bring-your-partner doubles tournament. Al and I won that by a few strokes over Cam and Worm. There were only six teams playing Open, so we were the only cashers. Juliana teamed up with my mixed doubles partner Laura Thomley and beat Sue and Lesli by one stroke. Damn!

We started out at the new Oshtemo course when singles got going on Saturday. The first round from the long tees was pretty tough. I shot a -3, tying the course record and figured I would be in the lead, but Cam and Al both set the new record at -5, and Worm shot a -4 while taking a double bogey on his last hole. Wow... these guys came to play!

The second round was on the same course except we played the short tees. I shot a -10, Cam shot -9, Al shot -7 and Worm shot a -6. We were all still in the lead group going into the 3rd round at Cold Brook park on Sunday.

Sunday saw a little rain in the morning. Al shot one off the course record at -12, I shot a -11, Cam and Worm both shot -6. All that was left was a showcase final nine holes that counted toward the tournament. Al and I were tied going in. Cam was 4 strokes back and Drew Bray shot into 4th with a -11 of his own. Worm ended up in 5th. In the final 9 I managed to shoot well. I got a stroke early on Al..... then another.... Al got one back a hole later...... then I got another stroke two holes after that. I had a two stroke lead with 3 holes to go and almost couldn't stand up from all the nervousness I was feeling. Al and I both deuced the next two holes and parred the final hole to take my first SuperTour win. What a feeling. I thought this win would never come. Al was second, Cam was third. Innova sweep.

As I had stated earlier, TD Larry LaBond always manages to come up with great sponsorship. Top divisional finishers got the coolest trophies I've ever seen. Scorekeepers / spotters were provided for every group. I won $1350 even though there were only 26 Open players in the tournament. We got a free lunch every day and there was a complimentary keg of beer.

Lumberjack Open Trophies: Replicas of the weekend's featured holes were created by Jeremy Daniels.

Dave had a tough tournament and didn't cash. He was pretty bummed. Sue came in second place to Juliana.

Next Al, Sue and I head for the Champions Cup in Newton, PA. We don't know what to expect there. Dave is taking a couple weeks off to have some wisdom teeth pulled and get his ankle looked at. Hopefully he won't hurt anything else while were gone. We'll meet back up with him at the MDGO finals in Ludington, Michigan in a few weeks.

-Todd

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