We drove back down to Theo Pozzy's house in Portland for another dip in the hot tub before the long trek back to Rockford, Illinois and the Winnie. Dave and Cameron took off the next morning to catch up with some old friends in the area and Theo and I went out to play one of the local courses that we might be using in 2004 for the Pro Worlds. The course was great and would make a fine Worlds course with a couple of small changes. We made the drive back to Illinois with few stops along the way for sightseeing. The Great Lakes Open would be starting shortly and we were excited about competing on some of our home courses.

We got to Todd Ebens' house, poured our stuff back into Dave's Gallant (there was more stuff than we left with and it was a super tight fit), and headed for Kalamazoo. In Kzoo we packed the Winnie back up and headed for Ann Arbor. The Winnie looked great! New brakes all the way around, some paint for the wheels and running boards, a new hand made exhaust, and several other small problems were fixed. Thanks Dad! You're the best. For real... I'm not just saying it.

The Great Lakes Open rocked... as always. I had a crappy first round but fought back into a tie for 6th. Dave had a good tournament and made the final nine round for score and skins. Dave had the time of his life hamming it up for the home crowd and DiscTV. He made all kinds of great shots and moved into 2nd place in the tournament by passing Climo during the finals. He also won a butt-load of skins money. I followed along during the final nine, mixing in with the crowd, and giving Dave advice when I thought he could use it. Avery caddied and it all worked out for a great performance. Cam made a big putt on the final hole to keep Dave from getting even more skins. You'll be able to catch the putt about 5 times in the GLO DiscTV episode.

Also testing the waters on the new tour... well for him anyway... was Brad Hammock. With the lure of the $2000 skins match for top 4 open players he shied away from the masters division and things didn't exactly go his way. He vowed that he would play in the Masters division at the Hambrick next weekend and see how his finances were doing before deciding whether to go to the Mad City Open the following weekend.

While in Ann Arbor our plans of staying at the course got washed out and we scrambled to park outside some friends houses on Friday and Saturday night. We went back to Dave Wessell's house on Saturday night and got a glimpse of the 9 hole course he built on his new property since we were there last summer. It was too dark to play but it looked fun.

From Ann Arbor we trekked out to Columbus, Ohio for the Brent Hambrick Memorial. DiscTV was there to cover this annual tribute to the late Brent Hambrick and to raise money for the Leukemia Society. The tournament also raised money for Ron Russell, who dominated in a wire to wire first place finish. Ron skipped the Mad City Open and drove straight to Huston to get ready for the Pro Worlds.

The Hambrick also marked the first stop for the new Discraft tour vehicle. It's about a 34' motor home that is in really nice shape. The guys (Kevin McCoy, Carlo Pelg, and Ray Johnson) immediately set upon me with a generator problem. Easy fix.... you just have to put more gas in it. :)

It's a sweet ride... Big, working fridge, all kinds of AC, a working generator, good tires, working breaks, and (get this) an icemaker. I'm so jealous. Discraft will also be paying for their gas and doling out a monthly stipend to each player for groceries. Pretty nice deal. Too bad the guys will miss out on a lot of the real struggles that we had to go through to make it on tour. It builds character.... yeah right! I wish them luck, although, with Discraft's generous backing I doubt they'll need it. Gotta razz the new guys!

Brad played in the Masters division as reported but struggled until he shot an incredible last round and shot all the way up into a tie for first place. He and Gordon Holton, who also shot a big last round along side Brad, played off for first and Brad took the title of Masters Champion after a few playoff holes. We sipped from Brad's crystal trophy cup that night.

After the Hambrick we drove a little south to Kings Island amusement park. We usually go to Cedar Point and although we love the place we thought we'd try someplace new this year.

The more people you have on tour the harder it is to get things organized... we rolled into Kings Island at 4pm. This worked out well since tickets are discounted at that time. 'Twas myself, Brian Mace, Mike Young, Brad Hammock, Avery, Dave, Brian McRee, and Dan Tanner. We ran around the park riding the coasters, playing the games, and watching the fireworks at dark. We had a great time. One shadowy figure from our group was seen barfing for about 5 minutes after the second roller coaster.

We all piled into a single hotel room and BS'ed until early morning then drove back to Rockford to party at Todd Eben's house until it was time to head for Madison, Wisconsin for the Mad City Open.

On the drive to Madison (only about 70 miles) we noticed a scraping sound in one of the wheels on the Winnie. I thought it was a brake problem and pulled over to investigate. I turned out that the lug nuts had come loose on the left rear tire(s) and the rims had been wobbling around chewing up the mounting bolts (studs) and rounding out the bolt holes in the rims. We tightened things down but several of the bolts had broken and only 3 nuts were left holding the wheels on. This was no good and not something I could fix quickly. After calling dozens of repair nearby repair shops I finally found one place that would look at the Winnie. The Dolphin crew followed us a mile up the road where we left the Winnie to get repaired and rode with the North Carolina boys up to Madison. Once we got to Madison we transferred back into Cam Rauenhorst's Tioga for the tournament.

It was pretty warm in Madison too. Madison has a set of three tournament courses that are rivaled only by Kansas City. Bold statement I know, but these are some great courses. In particular Token Creek is incredible. Brian Schweberger called Token Creek his new favorite course enroute to winning the Open division over Barry Schultz in a one hole playoff. I hung out in the lead group for the last two rounds but ended up in 6th place as Cam Todd hurdled past me by shooting the new course record (-9 which was also shot by Doug Chilcote) and Aaron Wield bested me by stroke with a solid -6 in the last round. Rounding out the top bunch was Tim Gill and Kevin McCoy who shot up the charts with a -7 in the final round. I think world-class par on this course was only -2. I did have an ace during the second round on a 359-foot hole but there was no ace pool. Myself and six other acers shot a CTP during the awards ceremony for (reportedly) a free satellite system. I was pretty excited and won. Turns out though that you have to buy the satellite and sign up for an 18 month subscription. After that they would take $12 per month off the bill and this would be (sorta) like getting the satellite and receiver for free. I decided not to collect.

One of the best things about the Mad City Open is that there is an excellent campground right at the Token Creek Park. Everyone stayed there. There must've been 30 disc golfers camping there. Great fun.

After the tournament we drove down to Chicago to spend a day filming with DiscTV. We shot a fun little segment on getting ready for worlds and did a Top10 list. Look for it on the next show... it's a little funnier and light hearted that the usual 'just the facts' stuff.

Oh.... what happened to the Winnie? Thought you might ask. Well we drove back down to the repair place and they were having trouble finding two new rims. It was clear that our problem would just repeat itself on the wrecked rims so we pulled more supplies out of the Winnies gullet and left her at the garage. Hopefully Tom (our mechanic) will be able to track down the needed parts. I talked to him about disc golf and explained our financial situation. He seemed amused at what we did for a living but interested at the same time. Hopefully he won't charge us too much if he can get her fixed. We had planned on traveling to Worlds with Rauenhorst anyway... to save on gas... and because his Tioga is sooooo much more reliable... and has AC... so we just piled more stuff into the Tioga and headed for Texas and ProWorlds 2002.

20 hours later we arrived at Larry Kruse's home in West Houston. That was last night. We caught up with Larry (who we had stayed with during the flooded Texas State Disc Golf Championships last year) and hit the sack. Right now the boys are out practicing... I'm catching up on emails and writing this... tonight is a PDGA board teleconference call... a few days and the Pro Worlds will start. Wish us luck... the Winnie needs a new pair of rims.

-Todd and Crew

Got a question for Todd and the Winnicrew? Send it here. Be sure to include "2002 Tour" in the subject header.