By Marc Queen / DiscLife.com
Previous Update

Thursday

What a start. Roll over, the clock says 4:30 AM, so back to sleep. Roll over again, it says 6:40. Guess what time Jim (my roommate at the dorm) had to play The Monster. Yep, 7:30, and the dorm for those of you who don't know, is roughly 30 minutes away for the average citizen. But for a mad disc golfer reaching speeds in excess of 100 mph, it's a lot quicker. He gets there just before the two minute warning, and they rushed him out to the letter holes (other end of the course) on a golf cart, and he still managed to keep his head. No 7's for being late, thankfully.

As for me, I was lucky enough to be in the overflow pool. The Special K pool, as someone called it. Disc Pimp himself was there and said, "these are the worst disc golfers in the world." But Steve Gray put things into perspective by stating that "the worst disc golfers are the ones who aren't here." Obviously, not everyone can make it for a week-long event, but it's great to be one of 260, and be the worst of the best.

My three-some had a very smooth round. The weather was a little cool for a Michigan summer, with just enough wind to make disc selection a bit more critical. We were on the Campground course, which seemed easy compared to the past couple days. This was my first time putting on the new "soft touch" baskets. They've got a lot of catching ability, but not if you come in low on the side. I had at least three putts that would've been in on other baskets, but it looked like there's a bounce effect when you softly hit the chains like that. That didn't discourage me, though. Shot a 70, which might land me back on the K-pool leader card. The highlight of the day was my 200+ foot putt for a deuce on the field-crossing 510 footer. Maybe I'll win a disc for the longest putt for deuce at Worlds. =)

Worlds is a very well-run event. But there were many players not happy with the distribution of the shuffle. A lot of us were under the impression that the standings and new pool assignments would be faxed into the sponsoring restaurants or bars. Not the case at the Wooden Nickel, for example. If you went to bed at a decent hour, you still had to get up early to find out if you played in the morning or not. I heard some players even drove to the course to check, fighting a crowd of twenty guys with one sheet of paper. Perhaps a hotline would've been nice. As far as I could tell, the new pools were posted at the dorms shortly after midnight. Meanwhile, several of us were having too many beers at the Nickel. Ended up going to sleep at 2:00. I let Jim know his new pool, but due to the $1.50 pitchers, the alarm was somehow not set properly.

Tomorrow's my turn for an early round, so I'm off to bed… just as soon as I check the alarm clock. Later.