Here we are in the thick of the SuperTour season. It's time for the 'big ones' and Worlds is right around the corner. Everyone is pretty geeked up for the Pro Worlds. There is a big list of people who have a shot at winning... I'd say more potentials than any previous year.

The Great Lakes Open was back after a one year break during which Team Michigan combined its resources and hosted the 2000 Pro/Am Worlds. GLO sustained its reputation as one of the top tour stops in 2001. This year there was a new course named The Jackal, which was set up at a ski resort and an unfinished ball golf course at Mt. Brighton just north of Ann Arbor. The course was raw and featured baskets sitting atop steep little hills and perilously close to OB. Numerous water and sand trap OBs ensured that players who didn't place their shot very close to baskets had some knee-knocking putts to face. This course kicked my butt. After the first round I found myself to already be a distant nine strokes off the lead. Cameron Todd, Scott Martin, and Al Shack shot -6, -4, and -3 respectively. Dave and Avery were near even.

For the second round we moved back to Hudson Mills and played on the original Blue course. Scott destroyed the course and had a huge lead. Al dropped a bit. Cam hung in. Dave and Avery remained strong. I had a fair round and was sitting in a just better than cashing position. My old pal and former teacher Mike Raley shot a strong round on the Blues and moved onto the lead card.

We stayed with my friend Dave Wessell who had just bought a new house. It was a great place to stay. Dave burned some CDs for us on his computer for listening on the road. Thanks Dave... we love the music.

Sunday's format was a round on the Black (Monster) course followed by a final nine for the top four Open Players. The Monster was looking meaner than ever with some overgrown fairways out on the letter holes, but its bark was worse than its bite when some players slew the Monster. Al Schack busted out with a -13, tying Steve Rico's record which was considered untouchable and propelling him into the finals. I shot a personal best -12 which left me tied with Dave, Avery, and Barry Schultz in 5th place (one stroke out of the finals). Dave shot a -9 and Avery shot near double digits too but the Winnicrew just couldn't get that one stroke we needed.

The finals featured some impressive play. Cam Todd won most of the skins by parking the final hole. Scott Martin won the tournament handily. Al Shack and Mike Raley tied for 3rd place. Way to go Mike! You can check the GLO finals off your 'to-do" list.

Big money, and great courses. Oh, and of course Mark Ellis got to give away all sorts of cash and prizes in the Ring of Fire CTPs he ran prior to the awards ceremony.

After GLO it was a short drive down to the Brent Hambrick Memorial in Columbus, Ohio.

This year at the BHMO the Schick family decided to drop the extra course on the other side of the Hoover dam and play the original course plus six extra holes like we did at the 1st annual BHMO. It was hot... very hot. A few people, including myself, were having cramping troubles. I drank all the water I could get my hands on but it seems that once you've started cramping, it's already too late. Dave played well throughout the tournament but had one bad hole during the last round that kept him out of the finals. Avery played well enough to beat me. That made the Monkey mine for the upcoming Mad City Open.

Al Schack pulled off the wire-to-wire victory for a hefty chunk of change. Gordon Holton put us up for a couple days before some Michigan pals pulled into town and shared their rooms with us.

We flattened another tire on the way to Columbus for the tournament. It's getting difficult to find anyone who sells tires for the Winnie but our new pal Art hooked us up with three new tires. I put one on the Winnie, one on the spare and strapped the third one to the roof for later... turned out that rim on the spare is bent and that tire lost its air later that day. Dave and I replaced that tire later that night.... did I mention how hot it was out? I think that this is the first year that they sold ALL of the ice cream at tournament central.

After the tournament we made our annual trip to Cedar Point amusement park in Sandusky, Ohio. We spent some money and had a great day riding big time roller coasters and playing boardwalk games.

We ran two Maceman/Winnicrew doubles on the way to Madison, Wisconsin for the Mad City Open. Along the way we stayed with our friends Brian Cummings and Todd Ebens.

One new course at Mad City this year and it was a beauty! Situated at Token Creek Park (where disc golfers filled about 10 campsites) this new course was top notch to be sure. Offending trees were cleared, the land was tilled, stumps removed, top soil brought in, and grass seed planted. There were large decorative stones used to build up land for tees and some pin positions. Oh, and nice cement tee areas!! It's one of the finest new courses I've seen.

Highstand and Elver are good parks too. Young Avery Jenkins took the tournament from wire to wire winning by three and posting the Winnicrew's first SuperTour Victory of the year. Way to go Jenkins! On this same weekend Avery's sister Valerie was in Tennessee winning the Junior girls (15 and under) Amateur World Championship. A good weekend for the Jenkins family.

2nd place was Al Schack, 3rd went to Barry Schultz, 4th place was a Finnish fellow by the name of Teemu. Juliana won the Women's division followed by Barrett White, Anni Kreml (who took 12 penalty strokes for arriving late for the first round), and Lesli Herndon.

For the final 9 this year there was a mixed pairs doubles skins match. Juliana and Teemu were paired together and were well on their way to taking all of the skins until the last skin, which was being decided in a CTP tie breaker. Barry hit solid center chains on hole 17 for the final shot of the entire tournament and took the final skin.

I played fairly well but only managed an 11th place finish. Dave was 16th and gets the Shule Monkey for Pro Worlds.

On Monday after Mad City I picked up Linda at the bus station in Madison and we spent the day having a new stereo system installed in the Winnie. It had been agreed upon that if/when Avery won a SuperTour he would pay to have a new stereo installed. He came through with a fine system. Now we don't have to change radio stations every 50 miles!

We headed up to the Twin Cities and stayed for two days at an Embassy Suites that Linda's mother had arranged.... thanks Mary Ann! We checked out the Mall of America (cool) and watched the new Planet of the Apes movie (not so cool). From there we met up with our disc golfing pals and hooked up a room at the Extended Stay America for the rest of our time at worlds.

So far we've checked out all of the courses except one and they are tough. Seems that world class par for the tournament in going to be about +6. This means that if a player is rated at 1000 they should shoot world class par on the nose. I guess I'm supposed to shoot a +3... I'm going to try to get under par.

Looks like I'll be trying to write every evening so stay tuned to see what's going on here at Worlds.

-Todd and Crew

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