I am going to let out a small bit of frustration here, but only as much as is pertinent to the story I am about to tell about a wonderful disc golf tournament. Every year for the past several years I have played a tournament in Colorado called St. Patty's Meltdown. It has traditionally been the first tournament of the year in Colorado and has always been good. Well, this year the powers that be decided to only post information about registration on Facebook, which I am not on. And then only to do a waitlist on Facebook, which I am not on. I found out about registration 2 hours after the tournament filled up and had no hope of getting in. If you are a TD and reading this, just know that the world does not revolve around Facebook and I am not going to get on Facebook just because of your disc golf tournament.
So, I started to look for other tournemnts that I might be able to play instead of this one and found one near an old roommate from my time at Talbot School of Theology. My buddy Jaron has always been a solid guy and I honestly believe has the gift of hospitality along with his wife. We did a few skiing trips together which I filmed and then made movies of. I am sure there is a DVD somewhere that would embarass me now but is still histerical to those of us who were there. I was able to get in touch with him and made my way out to Sacramento, CA to play in the St. Patrick's Classic in Orangevale, CA at the lovely Shady Oaks Park.
After getting in late and finding that my car rental reservation was less than solid (ended up paying twice as much to find any car from a different company, blah) I made my way to Jaron's house. The highlight of this trip was not the disc golf but the time I got to spend with Jaron and his family. They are still valued friends. His kids, three girls, are all amazing. It was great to see his oldest again as I first met her in the hospital shortly after she was born. It brought back a lot of good memories and provided for some really good new memories. Perhaps the best was watching Big Hero 6 for the first time with the family and them trying to figure out which character I would like best. It is Hero, just in case you were wondering. It was also great to go rock climbing with Jaron again. Something we used to do when we were in school together back in the day. I am looking forward to seeing them all again.
As for the tournament, it was interesting going to the course early to walk a course and then play it blind in the first round of the tournament. The people there were very nice and helpful for the most part as I tried to figure out what exactly I was going to do. I ran in to Nikko and Jessica again, and perhaps they even remembered me from the Memorial. The first round went well for the most part. It was slow and not very exciting. I missed a putt here and made a putt there. Got a birdie on one of the tightest holes on the course because I hit a line and slid under a log and then made a putt. Also made a few bogies becuase I tried for a bit too much and ended up whacking my way through the numerous trees. Still, the round ended with a birdie and a score of even for the round.
The second round was nice though felt more difficult at times. I had a really solid stretch of holes, all while Jaron and two of his girls were watching me. But when they weren't watching me things go a little bit squirrly. I also put a disc up in a tree, caught in poison oak. The round once again ended with a birdie and a few good corrections, but a score of +2 for the round. I then of course decided that I could not leave my disc in the tree, so I went back and risked getting poison oak in order to retrive my disc. I was waiting as groups played the hole but would then spend short periods of time trying to get the disc back. Eventually it came down, after about three hours. And of course I would later pay the price for playing with poison oak. I was able to make it back in time to see most of Jaron's oldest daughters baseball game. That was also a very good memory from the trip.
The final round came and went and the struggle of not knowing the course came back to cause a less than delightful round. I missed a putt after a great drive on the first hole (did that the first round too). And struggled early in the round until I made a huge putt on hole 8. Still, most of my drives were keeping me just far enough away from the hole not to be able to make the putts that I needed or wanted. The best news was that I was able to birdie the last hole for the third dtraight round and walk away from the tournament with a great experience and the desire to come back again and play a fun course.
The experience at this tournament was good enough that I might not think about playing the Meltdown in Colorado again.
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