Okay... where'd I leave off?

Oh yeah... we were about to play 'Big Fun' in Columbus, Ohio.

Front 9 - Long and mostly open. A couple of Par 4's mixed in. Lots of road O.B. Back 9 - Incredibly wooded. Very 'Cold Brook' (for those who know Cold Brook in Kalamazoo, Michigan). Some holes on back 9 have no fairway. Hole #18 took a lot of effort to par. I shot a 4,5,3,3, on hole 18. I believe Al shot 4,4,3,4.

First round: Al -3, Darren -5, Todd -3.

Lead Group was Brad Schick, Darren Harper, Ben Botte, Kevin Stewart, and I slipped into the lead group on the merit of my last name starting with a 'B'.

Second round was rough... couldn't get a putt to stick. Shot a +4 (yeck), Stewart had a rough time too and shot +1. The rest were under par, but not great.

Third round I found that I had moved all the way to the last flight. (4 flights total for open, 18 total players). I managed a -2 in the third round. New lead group for third round was Bob Herbert who popped a -9 second round (best of tournament), Darren who was still hanging in there, Al who had moved up, Ron Russell, and Brian Schick.

Fourth Round: I was still in the last group, but had a 10 stroke lead on the next guy behind me. Al and Darren were in the lead group with Schick, Russell, and Herbert. I managed a -6 for the last round. Darren had a rough round. Al shot okay and ended up one stroke out of first. Here are the finals....

• Bob Herbert -16 (won playoff)
• Ron Russell -16
• Al Schack -15
• John Sias -15
• Brad Schick -15
• Kevin Stewart -11
• Darren Harper -10

Next guys out of cash were:

• Todd Branch -7
• Ben Botte -7

That night we went and had dinner at Damons with Ron Russell and discussed plans leading up to WACO. We played the trivia game at Damons, our team name was DRAT (Darren, Ron, Al, Todd). We won one of 3 trivia games. The other two games were a Star Wars theme where you had to know the books inside and out. We decided that we would head for the XB Tier Pro/Am doubles in Brandenburg, KY. Ron decided to go elsewhere.

We drove to Brandenburg that night and set up camp at Otter Creek. Nothing eventful. We played Mead-Olin Park the next day. Long course through lots of woods. Much hill climbing. Nice course. We went back to campgrounds and threw some discs off a cliff into the Ohio River. Got some good pictures. Next we played the otter creek course right at the campgrounds. Short, woodsy, some trick shots. I aced #18 on first throw at it (+$10!). We retired to the campsite and cooked pork chops over a campfire.

Next day we set up the basket at the campgrounds and practiced wooded upshots and putting.... did laundry, basically took day off. Darren and Al played golf on the Playstation. I continued reading my book "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress," by Heinlen.

Wednesday we slept in. Went and found a post office to send off our Mother’s Day cards and my sister’s birthday card. We called David Feldberg in Michigan and he lined up himself and two other partners to drive down Friday and join us for the Pro/Am doubles on Saturday. Next we met with David Greenwell over at Otter Creek. We threw around Innova's new T-Bird driver and another unmemorable disc. The T-Bird was nice. KC-Plastic, shaped like the new Eagle but a little more overstable. We all liked that one.

Al and I shot some doubles against David and Darren. David has been playing Otter Creek for about 21 years and has a magic shot for about every hole. Dave and Darren beat us in the first round -15/-14 and Al and I won second round -15/-14.

We got some burgers at the DQ and went back to the campground. Shortly after setting up camp, the park ranger came around and announced a tornado warning, instructing everyone to move to the bathrooms. Warning passed without event. We went back to the camper and endured a nice thunder storm with some close lightning. Al and Darren kept up on the Playstation golf while I finished my book.

I'll have to thank Mike Raley for buying me that book... it was a good one.

Now it's Thursday morning, May 6th. Dave had told us about a new course called 'E-town," a lovely nine-holer across town. We plan to go check it out after breakfast and showers.

Winnebago is doing fine. Front window leaks a little in hard rain. Otherwise okay.

More coming soon.

-Todd