We left Indiana and headed for Madison, WI for the Mad City Open. We shared a campsite for the week with Jeff Mollyhorn and Brian Mace and practiced Heistand Park for a couple days.

Heistand is a mostly long course. It plays through a grove of large mature trees. A pretty nice course that is fun to play. Next day we practiced Elver course. It plays on hilly terrain through a pine forest. Also a nice course.

During these few days we discussed plans with Brian Mace about Al and I taking over the Maceman doubles for the remainder of the season. Brian will be going on the road with a band and setting up laser shows until December.

Sue Stephens and Dave Feldberg showed up on Friday. Aquaboy is still playing in the Advanced division and taking some flack about it.

Saturday morning the Pros played Heistand. Al shot an incredible -9 while myself, Barry Schultz, Aaron Weild, Jeff Harper, Paul Nytch all shot -4. Dave played Elver and shot +1 placing him solidly in 55th place out 69. Sue shot well enough to be in a three-way tie for second behind Juliana Bower.

Next round was on the new 'Monster' course at Elver. Only the Open and Masters had to play the long positions. The Monster is a new course through a pine forest, with winding 20 foot fairways on 13 of the 18 holes, deadly rough on both sides. The course is very difficult. I shot +2, Al shot -6 (somehow). Barry shot -4. Some others shot -3, -4, and a -5.

After another round on the monster Sunday morning and a -7 for Al this time. The Open division was pretty much finished. Al had a nine stroke lead in Men and Juliana had a huge lead in Women with one round to play.

When all was said and done Al had won Men by 5 strokes. SuperTour victory for Al Schack! First ever. I was finished 7th (Open paid 8 spots). Sue finished 2nd in Women. Dave ended up in 10th in Advanced. Mollyhorn didn't quite cash in Masters (the Monster tore him up too). Brian went to Ludington for MDGO finals.

After the tournament there was a final nine holes for $50/skin. The best two rounds in Open and Masters on the Monster course got to play the skins. The competitors were Al, Jeff Harper, Alex Bingman, and Rod Fritz.

On the first hole Alex (ripe on Canadian Mist) hit a 270 foot blind hyzer shot for the first skin. On hole #2 Alex hit a 100 foot uphill shot in heavy wind for skin #2. The rest of the skins pushed until the last hole. Rod was closest to the pin after two shots and the remaining seven skins went to him. Ah well, no skins for the Open players.

We stayed one more night at the campgrounds and then headed north to Stevens Point where Randy Schukar (aka Platypus) was building a new house and had installed a new nine hole course. We had dinner with Randy and looked though him voluminous stash of plastic. We picked out a few discs and spent the night. Randy and his wife treated us to a chicken and potato dinner. Next day we tried out his new course. Very raw, but it looks like it will turn out nice once the excess brush gets knocked down.

From Randy's we drove up to Lac Du Flambeau for the Wisconsin State Finals. We arrived and Mike and Michelle Cousins are letting us camp at the course for a few days in exchange for helping them with some course work. I spent a few hours replacing screens on a fish cleaning shack. Guess they don't hold up well against frisbees. I put some chicken wire over the screens to keep it from happening again.

So for the past few days we have had four people living in the Winnie. It's pretty tight and crowded. We are trying to find a roof-mounted cargo hauler for the Winnie. We just have too much stuff. Also, moving around in the morning is tough. We all sort of have to wake up and get ready one at a time.

After we play the tournament this weekend, we will drive through Michigan’s Upper Peninsula to Grand Rapids to drop off Sue and run a Maceman doubles. I also have to stop in at Kalamazoo to see a dear old friend (she really gave me the business in an e-mail about staying in touch). After that we will run some doubles in Bowling Green, KY on our way to the Tennessee State Championships, then the Texas State Championships.

Wish us luck. I'll try to be more frequent with the updates.

Northwoods Update
September 12 1999, Lac Du Flambeau, WI

Hello from the northwoods! Man it's nice to be up here again. We showed up on Wednesday and I did a little work on the fish cleaning house for Mike and Michelle in exchange for some camping for the week.

It's been raining for a couple of days now. We haven't been doing much golfing. Mostly just watching movies from the Sandy Point movie library.

Today, Friday, we finally got to go out and play a little bit. We played two rounds and Dave actually aced hole #1 both rounds! Give Dave two aces on the tally sheet. Todd gets one more lost disc. No new groupies for anyone.

PDGA wins: Al now has 3 wins (A,B,C tier), Todd has won 2 B-tiers, Dave has won 1 C-Tier.

Post Northwoods Wrap-Up
September 13 1999, Grand Rapids MI

We're back in Michigan now. I'm sitting at Sue Stephens computer in Grand Rapids. We just opened a few boxes of discs, hats, clothes, and towels from Maceman in Texas. We will be running the rest of the Maceman doubles events for the year.

We stopped in at Traverse City on the way back from Lac du Flambeau and played the Timberlee course. Wow... it sure has some majestic holes and some really tight woods... what a walk too.

Probably wondering how everyone did at the Wisconsin state finals? Well, the rain continued. Boy I hate playing in the rain. We all had a fun time. Mike and Michelle couldn't allow people to camp at Sandy Point so we shared a cabin with Barry Schultz. Barry had three video tapes of South Park episodes that kept everyone laughing. Final scores for the tournament were....

Schultz -38
Kingslien -31
Branch -26
Weild -25
Schack -21

Sue won Open Women and Dave finished 7th in Advanced. We said our good-byes to Mike and Michelle and promised to look them up in Tulsa just before Halloween in Vegas. They spend the winter in Tulsa while the northwoods gets buried in snow.

Congratulations to Mike Raley for winning the MDGO overall title in 1999, and to Bill 'Wild Bill' Clark on winning the Michigan putting championship.

-Todd