Guess what? I actually left a tournament out from my last update! It was the MDGO Finals in Ludington, Michigan. I must've forgotten it because it didn't rain.

We stayed with Mr. Jeff Schwass at his big farmhouse in Ludington. He threw a big party with a few bands and a bunch of partying maniacs. Ludington is always a fun time. Dave did well! He qualified for the skins by the skin of his teeth and then won 'em all; about $800 is skin money. I missed the skins match due to my duties as official keg tapper. Pat Vitale had a good tournament but missed the first two holes in the semi-finals due to some bad information. He took it like a champ though and played well at the next tournament too.

Okay, after Texas States the rental crew moved on. Fifteen hours later we arrived in Clearwater Florida, home of Ken Climo. We crashed at Ken's for two nights and I picked up a sweeeet small bead GLOW Aviar (brick hard). You'll see me putting with it for the rest of the year I'm sure. I'm still using my Rhynos for long putts though. While at Kenny's we did laundry and updated the champ on how things were going.

Another six hour drive brought us to Miami for Keith Johnson's Miami SuperTour. Let me just start by saying everyone got a towel in their players package. Yep, you guessed it... more rain and flooding. I think I'm about to go crazy.

This time there wasn't the "all over flooding" that we had in Texas. This time there was only about 50% flooding. The new twist was that much of the flooded areas were between one and three feet deep.... and it was casual water, meaning it was in-bounds. It was weird. I'd be in a half inch of water by the lake and be out of bounds (penalty) then two holes later I'd be in three feet of water, in-bounds (no penalty). Oh well, you can't control Mother Nature as Keith found out. He did a great job keeping the tournament running even with all the weather problems. Keith Johnson could even be seen during the entire third round standing in a lake of water that was waist high and spotting and marking discs for the players. For those of you who travel to Miami next year for Am Worlds, you can expect Keith and his staff to give you 110% of effort during the event.

I passed the Shule Monkey off to Avery after he finished tenth, Dave T8th after an awful fourth round. I was 7th which netted me $200.... half of that goes to next week's entry fee. Man.... I can't live on this kind of money! Luckily I didn't have too. Bruce Ricke put us up again this year at his sprawling estate with its own beach and tree house (look for a second floor on the tree house next year). Bruce was a heck of an entertainer not to mention a heck of a golfer. Last year he won the Masters division, and this year he had a healthy lead after day one. He would have even been in the lead group of the Open division. Sadly, on day two the abundance of OB caught up with him as he carded an 11 on his first hole. I'm not sure how many circles went with the 11, but I'm sure there were a few. Glenn Whitlock (the Whittler) continued to whittle away Bruce's lead until it was Glenn receiving the trophy. During all the OBs and mass confusion, it turned out that former World Champion and super cool dude Jeff Watson also passed Bruce up and came it second. Bruce was third.

From Miami we immediately took off and stayed one night in Gainesville with our pal from Orbital Enhancements. Then it was another nine hours up I-95 to Mad Dog McRee's house and back to the Winnie. During the drive someone (I won't mention any names, but his parents are long standing PDGA members) ran over a deer carcass and ripped a big chunk of car off the underside of our rental. It seems there was a plastic grill that sat under the spare tire area of the car. It's only function was to hold up a few wires and hoses. We dragged it for about 60 miles. I noticed it the next day. There were also many chunks of fur and what we'll call 'deer jerky' stuck to the underside of the car. I had Avery take it over to a coin car wash and he said that red water and 'jerky bites' came pouring out and down the drain. After much consideration I removed what was left of the plastic grill, took out all the hardware bolts, and fastened the wires and hoses to the chassis with some cable ties. It looked good. You couldn't even tell there was anything missing.... neither could the guy at the car rental place. He just commented on how I put 3900 miles on the car and never noticed a thing. Whew!!!!!!!!

Next up: the Augusta Classic followed by the USDGC's. With over 120 players already signed up it looks like the winner could get $10,000 !!!!!!! Think of all the gas a crew could buy with that kind of loot! Till next time. -Todd and Crew

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