So, Dave won his first SuperTour at 'The Big Show' in Irving, Texas.

Two days later we played a B-Tier at Carrolton, home of the Mr. Jims Pizza tournament later this year. Barry won that won by a few strokes over Nolan Grider. Al Schack and I were a stroke back in 3rd. Dave was 5th, Avery was 8th. We practiced in the rain on Wednesday for the Thursday B-tier at Fritz Park. The course was extremely long and on tournament morning it was freezing cold. Many of us decided not to play and risk pulling muscles in the cold weather. Nolan bested the players who braved the chill and competed anyway. Al was second... we didn't play.

During all this time the Winnicrew camped along with the Flying Eye crew. Cam, Mike, and Lesli opened the door to the pop-up for us and drove us about town in the van. We spent a lot of time together and got some cool new ideas for the new season. It was a bit crowded in the pop-up so Dave did some sleeping over in Al and Sue's Winnie too. Thanks to all the tour players who helped us out.

During 'The Big Show' I spent a lot of time helping out Brian Mace by taking care of PDGA renewals and new memberships. It was quite a bit of work and I now see why TDs who have events early in the year request help. I spent all my lunches signing up members. I was a little worried about the memberships reactions to the new fee structure (in particular the raise in the Pro memberships) but never heard a single complaint. Disc golfers are soooo cool.

The 4th event of the "Show" was a SuperTour at Z-Boaz. The weather turned nice again and we had a great weekend. Barry won this event also with Kevin McCoy (damn Okies!) in second, Nolan Grider 3rd, Avery 4th, Cam and I tied for 7th, Dave tied for 9th. (Dave was two strokes behind me due to a scorecard that didn't get turned in on the first day. It was agreed that the two extra strokes wouldn't count for Shule Monkey purposes and we ended up tied. The SM tie-breaker fell to the final round scores, where Dave was one better than me. So I got stuck with the monkey... how about that?!?!?!?

There was a skins match that paired the top four Open men with the top four Open women (in reverse seeding) for $900. The skins were sponsored by Revolution Disc Golf Bags (who is also a Winnicrew sponsor). On the tenth hole Juliana Korver pinned a 330-foot tunnel shot through woods (hole #1, long tee, if you've been to Z-Boaz) and her partner, Avery Jenkins, dropped in the putt for $800 in skins cash. Sweet!!!

The Winnicrew did pretty well at this set of tournaments run by Brian Mace and the MaceMan company (which includes his brother Brandon). Brian didn't have an easy time of it though... by the end he was dead tired and a bit frazzled. "I'll never look at tournaments the same way again," he said. "I never knew how much work it really is." Brian put on a great event and vows that with his newly gained knowledge and experience that next year's event will be even better. We'll be there.

Once all the disc golfing was done it was time to get back to Los Angeles and get back to work. If you remember we drove a rental car to Texas and have been hitching a ride with Flying Eye for two weeks. Now Cam, Worm, and Lesli were heading to Colorado with Emmett and Nadine Larkin for some snowboarding. We jumped into Al and Sue's Winnie and shared the driving and gas all the way back to Innova. We took a different route home and stopped off in Flagstaff for a round of golf at 7000 feet. Snow and ice abounded and we hightailed it back south from there to the warmer weather of Southern California.

At this time there are two Winnebagos parked behind the Innova plant. I think Dunnipace and Selinske might be getting worried about the troop buildup in their backyard. ;)

Next up: A weekend off for the Winnicrew, The Wintertime Open, Gentleman's Club, The Memorial, and the PDGA Summit. Should be fun.... won't you come along? You'll find the Winnicrew at these 2002 PDGA events.

-Todd and crew

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