Worm on Worlds

After leaving Mad City we started on our long journey of practice and preparation for the world championships.  I knew it was going to be an interesting tournament when I heard about the 500 dollar bounty for the person that could card a 44 or better. We found a camp ground in a pretty good location considering that all of the courses were spread out. The camp ground was home to many other traveling golfers including Iqbal Jehan, Jeff Hoepner, Al and Sue, Steve Brinster, Lesli Damark, and maybe even some more.

For the first round we were to start at Kaposia, probably my favorite course of them all. When we arrived I went for my discs, and to my surprise they were missing. I quickly realized that I had left my bag in Iqbal's truck the day before after divisional doubles was over. Iqbal was in pool D, so he was at a different course, and the world championships was fixing to start. I decided to put together a selection of discs for myself out of the van and proceeded to warm up. Everyone was sitting around waiting to head out to their holes when out of the blue my savior Joel Kelly, who was actually staying in our pop up with us, pulls up and hops out of his van with my discs. My first round ended up being a good one and I was happy to have my bag back.

After the second round was over and I found out that I was leading the tournament I think I kind of let that freak me out. After last year's performance I was just hoping to be somewhat in contention after the first day, but all of a sudden I'm tied for the lead. I did tumble a little the next day but not too far, and I never fell below the 4th card for the whole week. Enough about me, now let's talk a little about my teammates that seemed to shock the world with their performance, and if you were there then you know. We now have a new world champ, and his name would be Cameron Todd, from Atlanta, Georgia and all over the USA. It's pretty cool to watch your touring partner win one of the most prestigious tournaments of the year. Congratulations to Cam, if it weren't for you I might have given up on touring and probably lots of other things.

Big congrats to Lesli for taking her game to a new level and giving Juliana a great run for the title. It was interesting to see peoples' expressions and hear their comments about Cam's semi-final round at North Valley where he shot a mind boggling -8 to take control. The finals just consisted of what I had heard about the previous round and that was, damn Cam sure can putt, and throw of course, but his putts are what stick in their heads. I was even like wow during the finals on every shot he made except for like one hole, but I said he was going to win before the tournament even began. The finals consisted of a huge gallery, great players, and lots of cameras that made for some good footage I hope.

Lesli started off her tournament at a good steady pace and shocked some people when she took over the lead.  I bet if I told you, before the worlds started, that Juliana would not be on the lead card at one part of the tournament you would call me crazy, but it happened and that surprised me to see her not on the top card. It ended up being a battle all the way to the end, but Juliana gained what she needed going into the finals, however Lesli came to the finals and played exceptionally well and ended up with the best score for that round.  Juliana ended up winning by 7 strokes, and that says a lot about the ability of Lesli Herndon, so watch out Disc Golf world because there are other women with lots of talent.

All in all the worlds was a pretty good experience.  By the rumor, they may have the worlds there next year.  Hopefully with this year's experience, we have lots to look forward to.