Hello Winnifans!

This week the tour took a little detour. Well a detour for me anyway. After the MDGO finals and our great time at Flip City, the Winnicrew headed back to my Mom and Dad's house for a day. I unloaded my essentials and waved goodbye as Al, Sue, Hyzer and Storm drove off to Nancy, Kentucky for the Lake Cumberland Open. Does this mean that Todd is off the tour? No, there was just someone I had to go visit. Let me backup and explain.

After playing the Melbourne open back in May, the Winnicrew made our usual stop in St. Louis on the way to the Kansas City Wide Open. While in town, we stopped in at Jefferson Barracks to play the weekly league round. We all love playing at 'JB' and the local players are all very cool.

In my random group was a certain young lady by the name of Linda Smith. Linda has been playing disc golf for several years on and off, but I had never met her before. She's a great player who consistently makes putts from all distances. Linda is also quite stunning. She's petite with long, thick, dark hair and in very good shape. I was truly smitten. I floated through the round and could barely take my eyes off her. I tried to flirt a little bit but sheesh.... she was totally out of my league.

Linda traveled with friends to the KC Wide Open, where she finished in 3rd behind Juliana and Sue in a field of eight Open women. She played wonderfully in a final nine holes for the top four women. I was very happy for her. She also made an appearance at the Peoria ratings-based tournament the following week. I didn't see much of her during the tournament but I hung close during the awards and chatted with her a little bit. I asked if she would be playing at the Worlds this year and although she wasn't sure if she was going, she agreed to be my mixed doubles partner if attending. She gave me her e-mail address so I could keep in touch regarding our partnership at Worlds.

Linda couldn't make the World Championships in Michigan, but we kept in touch by e-mail over the next couple months. I wrote her as often as I could and she wrote me back. We exchanged a lot of information over those several weeks and built a pretty good friendship. I learned that she was also quick-witted and had a sense of humor quite like my own. I wanted to go see her desperately but our schedule wouldn't take us through St. Louis for a while.

So I altered the schedule.

Al and Sue drove off to Lake Cumberland. I hopped into my car and drove to Linda. She had agreed to put me up at her house for a few days during the Creve Coeur Classic. She had a new house/apartment in Columbia, Illinois and described a comfortable couch that I could live on for a short time. I accepted. I forgot about the one hour time change between our cities and showed up at her door before she got home from work. She had told me where to find the spare key so I let myself in. It turns out that Linda is a pretty good decorator too! Her home looked like show place. It's a 100+ year old brick home with hardwood floors. Antiques and flower arrangements were everywhere. It showed a high degree of taste and sophistication. Again I thought to myself that she was the kind of girl that just wouldn't be interested in a guy like me.

She showed me around the charming little town of Columbia. We walked to a little Italian restaurant and had a tasty dinner of stuffed sole. Later we sat at a park bench in front of the city hall, watching the fountain and talking. I was having a wonderful time.

Linda took Thursday and Friday off work, and we golfed at JB Thursday and at Creve Coeur on Friday. I wanted to help her with her game but found that I could offer little advice. Like I said... she plays very well. We took turns making meals (Linda makes great eggs benedict), watched movies, listened to music and did some chores together.

Saturday we played in the tournament. There were no other Pro Women to play against, so Linda played against the Advanced Men. She shot well the first round but a little spurt of rain and some high winds gave her trouble in the second. I shot fairly well but lost by a stroke to Dave McCormack, who had been blowing out the competition at local tournaments lately. It seems that Dave had got his putting game in line. He shot great and beat me using only his Gateway discs and an Aviar putter. Way to go Dave.

My St. Louis friends were all surprised to see me here but didn't pry for information about me and Linda. I was grateful. Linda and I felt a little awkward as she likes to portray herself as 'one of the guys' among her disc golf friends.

A bunch of us had dinner together after the tournament. The Creve Coeur Classic was demoted from a C-tier to an unsanctioned tournament this year, which means that Al and I will now co-own the title for 'most sanctioned tournaments played in one year' I had gotten one-up on Al when he couldn't make the Toronto Island Open earlier this year. Ah well. I'll write about how the rest of the crew fared in Kentucky when I find out.

Right now it's Tuesday morning. Tomorrow morning I'll drive to Toledo, OH to pick up Dave Feldberg and head off to the Eric Yetter Memorial in Erwina, PA. Linda is at work and I have the house to myself. It's very nice. We Winnicrew members don't get to spend much time by ourselves. I just finished up at the laundry and fixed a couple things around Linda's house. Just trying to pay her back a little bit for her hospitality.

So, in less than 24 hours I'll be on my way and won't get to see Linda again for quite some time. In fact I'm not sure when we'll be back through St. Louis. I'm going to miss her terribly. She's an incredible person and holds a special place in my heart. See you soon Smith.

-Todd

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