Well, we're back.  The course changed some from last year, but it's still far and away my favorite.  The players changed, but it was still the best field (well, except for worlds).  Thing is, this was the best tournament I've ever been to.

If you want to know what happened, click on the USDGC link up there (oh, ok, or this one), the results are all there (along with a bunch of pictures and some video).  Climo won again.  Big surprise.

The womens thing was also really cool, they had almost 40 players.  Lesli won the pro division by 13 shots over a really friendly girl from Colorado whose name slips my mind right now.  The payout was awesome, she got something like $550, a new basket (one of those new blue ones with a solar light on top from DGA), and a really cool crystal vase trophy.  Nikki Ross won the AM part, which to be honest I probably wouldn't mention except she shot a 60 at Hornets Nest and a 78 at Winthrop and she's 13 years old.   

Cam finished 12th, Phil 20th, Scott 27th, and Ryan 31st (1 shot out of the cash).  Jesse shot 2 good rounds and then fell apart and finished 57th.  

Me?  To quote Climo, "Heard you Tin Cupped hole 14".  I did. I finished 75th.  After the 2nd round Cam gave me a putting lesson, so I used the brand new putt the last 2 rounds.  In the 3rd round I 3 putted a few times early, but by the end I was hitting everything, so that was cool.  The 4th round, though, (along with the Tin Cup action) I missed every putt.  Practice is in order.

We got there late Tuesday night and then went out and played a practice round on Wednesday.  Afterwards we were sitting around when I remembered I had heard the distances to carry the water on hole #7 (#8 last year, it's the 1100 footer to the basket on the pseudo-peniunsula) would be put on little signs for all the players to see.  So I asked Billy Crump (who, along with all the volunteers, worked their asses off last week) and he said it had fallen through.  So me and Ryan decided to go do some marking.  We bought a range finder, borrowed a golf cart, and headed out with a bunch of orange electrical flags and a sharpie. We marked distances until we couldn't figure out anywhere else to mark, and then we put one on hole #1 (228 feet, I believe), right at the first tree.  We marked it, "156 feet. Ha-ha".  Our job was complete.

So what else?  There was a distance contest, both disc and ball (although not at the same time).  They had qualifying on 2 different days, Phil Arthur won the qualifying the first day at 180 yards (a bit down hill), Tim Ellis was 2nd at 177.  Billy Crump won qualifying with a 308 yard drive (including roll).  Cam crushed one out there pretty good and Ryan, although dressed for the part, had some problems.

Tell you what, if you have anything you'd like to share about the tournament, send me an email and I'll put it up here.

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