Only 450 miles and we were in Gainesville, Florida. A pretty short drive considering our usual extended journeys between tournaments. The Winnie made it but is having some power troubles. Poor acceleration and not much 'oomph' for climbing hills. I'm hoping that it isn't anything serious. Hopefully a change of sparkplugs will remedy the situation. It could also be the catalytic converter or the transmission. Hopefully it isn't the latter.

We pulled in and were immediately set upon by the Gurthie family. These kids are great. They're total sponges for information and technique. They all range in age from 10 to 16 years old and throw every shot in the book.... with both hands. Their dad, Howard, brings them to the course almost every day after school and they love to play. Mark my words.... every one of them will be top pro's some day. I took some video tape of little-G (Garrett) deucing a 340 foot hole. He's about 4 foot tall and 11 years old.... 300 foot drive and a 40 foot putt.

We stayed 40 feet from the course for five days. Beautiful weather was plentiful for the weekend. The TD and staff cooked BBQ pork and chicken all through Friday and Saturday nights for free lunches on the tournament days. Yummmmyy!

As predicted, the shule-monkey charm I had to carry (see last installment) was quite the good luck charm. I shot well enough for third place. Avery came in at seventh and Dave was tied for 14th. The absence of Disczilla.com as a major sponsor caused the payout to be quite a bit below last year's level. Climo got $888 for winning and I got $465 for 3rd. Ben Gurthie tied for last cash. A couple other Gurthies made some cash by caddying. So far the 'shule-monkey' charm holder has shot 71 strokes under par over 10 tournament singles rounds. That's 7.1 strokes under par per round. Not bad. I think Dave will be looking forward to carrying it for the Birmingham Tax Tourney next weekend in Alabama.

Today I am at the course doing some laundry at the TD's house. Dave and Avery took off with Ron Russell and the Gurthies to Titusville to play the ball/disc golf course again. They just can't get enough of it.

Al and Sue didn't pre-register quite early enough for the Gainesville event so stayed in the North Carolina area. They had to do some repairs to their pull behind camper anyway. They were also looking into buying a Winnie from the local RV dealer. Hopefully we'll see them again in Birmingham.

Juliana Korver didn't show for the weekend. Lesli Herndon won the Open Women's division. Cam Todd was one stroke behind me in 4th place.

Well.... it looks like we'll spend at least another day here in the sunny warm weather before finding out if the Winnie will make it to Birmingham without any troubles. Keep your fingers crossed... I will.

-Todd and Crew

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