Amesbury Pines Open

Sunday and I have to be crazy to be playing two tournaments in two days. I was stiff and tired and not really looking forward to another full day of discgolf. Amesbury is a tight wooded course in a town park. I arrived about an hour early to try to warm my body up. I walked the holes and thought about what discs worked on what holes in practice. Stretched and then found out where the free water was. I spent some more time practicing my tomohawk thumber on the two water holes because the wind was going to be blowing and I though it could be an accurate shot. Then we were called in for the players meeting.
Play moved quickly on this course even though every now and again you had to watch for flying discs from other holes. I started on hole one and was hoping to be around 58, I had a 54 here but seldom do you throw your personal bests in tournaments where you tend to be a bit tighter. I started with 3 threes and then took a four on the fourth hole, it was not unexpected. On hole 8 I had a duece and finished the first half even. The second nine was much the same with a four on 13, then a duece on 16. That thumber placed me ten feet from the basket, but AI pulled a muscle on the inside of my wrist doing it. For the rest of the day I was in considerable paqin when I threw.

round 1: 3-3-3-4-3-3-3-2-3-3-3-3-3-3-4-2-3-3-54

Tied my personal best! and waqs the leader in the Advanced Masters division. WoW! I was not expecting that at all. What was even better was we finish on 18 so we were right next to the hotdog stand and the first group to finish. Got food and sat with Deb and Steve Guiliotis, I really like them. Nice people.

Top card in the second round and things did not go as well I I wished. The pain in my arm was annoying although I could still throw, but no excuses. Bill (Stew) Stewart put together a great round of 54 while I threw 59. So I ended with a 3 way tie for second. We had a playoff hole which I was able to win and so I got to take home the second place trophy. Made sure the funny money was split three ways, combining the 2nd, 3rd, 4th prizes and then splitting since both Tex and Chris Gagne had the same scores.

round 2: 3-3-3-3-3-3-4-4-3-3-3-3-3-4-3-4-3-3-59

The awards were nearby at the house of Dan-O who was running it and he had food the Celtics on the TV in game seven against Cleveland. Two throwoffs for $90 and then $250 from the upper porch of his house over the yard to the field behind it. Nothing for me there.

I still got home by 7pm and had dinner with my wife Elisa. Feel pretty good about the weekend and enjoyed meeting Stew who I got to play with on both days. Next Year!

Final Scores for Amesbury Pines
2008 APO
Place Player 1st round 2nd round Total Payout
Pro Open
1st Pete Johnson 47 50 97 $296.00 Trophy USDGC
2nd Jason Gordon 49 49 98 $166.00 Trophy
3rd Tim Walsh 50 50 100 $106.00 Trophy USDGC
4th Mike Dussault 47 54 101 $74
4th Matt Stroika 52 49 101 $70
6th Norm Fitzgerald 54 50 104
6th Jason Southwick 52 52 104
8th Jim Wills 53 52 105
8th Joe Yaskis 54 51 105
10th Gary Cyr 54 53 107
11th James Lane 55 54 109
12th Matt DeAngelis 52 59 111
13th Mitch Harden 55 59 114
Pro Masters
1st Daniel Marcus 49 49 98 $134 Trophy
2nd Jim O'Hara 52 50 102 $79 Trophy
3rd Rick Belhumer 50 57 107 $54.00 Trophy
4th John Hart 56 53 109 $44
5th Doug Bechtel 58 54 112
5th John Dickison 57 55 112
7th Matt Jackson 57 56 113
Pro Grand Master
1st Rich Fenton 55 57 112 $116 Trophy
2nd Rich Reilly 55 58 113 $70 Trophy
3rd Bradley Arnell 58 58 116 $47 Trophy
3rd Dan Griffith 53 63 116
5th Rick Williams 58 62 120
6th Roy Doar 57 65 122
Mens Advanced
1st Steve Slobo 51 52 103 $96 Trophy Won Playoff
2nd Shawn Laforce 51 52 103 $77 Trophy
3rd Rob Tatro 50 54 104 $66 Trophy
4th Mike D. Andrews 53 53 106 $57
5th Brian Thompson 54 53 107 $49
6th Clayton Davidson 53 54 107 $42
7th Chris Piaseczny 54 53 107 $37
8th Matt Arminio 55 52 107 $33
9th Josh Barden 53 55 108 $29
10th Jasin Bayer 55 54 109 $25
11th John Tserpes 54 56 110 $25
12th Justin White 56 54 110 $24
13th Chris Byrne 55 55 110 $22
14th Matt Heenan 60 51 111 $20
14th Kyle Sauerbrunn 58 53 111
16th John Borelli 56 56 112
16th Chuck Gerbands 54 58 112
16th Ben Kirby 54 58 112
19th Chad Hershman 53 60 113
20th Aaron Ala 56 58 114
20th John Mucciarone 55 59 114
20th Sandy Redd 58 56 114
23rd Jason Powers 55 60 115
23rd Shawn Mullen 58 57 115
23rd Robert Direnzo 56 59 115
26th Tushar Patel 59 59 118
26th Andrew Streeter 58 60 118
26th Mark Valis 59 59 118
29th Keith Burtt 59 60 119
30th Eric Kaplan 56 64 120
31st Steve Bigelow 63 62 125
32nd Marco Iannello 64 73 137
Woman Advanced
1st Michelle Ala 66 72 138 $26 Trophy
2nd Kristi Bayer 71 77 148 $16 Trophy
Advanced Masters
1st Bill Stewart 55 54 109 $81 Trophy
2nd Ed Hovestadt 54 59 113 $58 Trophy
2nd Chris Long 55 58 113 $44 Trophy
2nd Chris Gagne 57 56 113 $34
5th John Vermynck 61 57 118 $27
6th Ted Liszewski 56 63 119 $21
6th John Fissel 62 57 119
8th Alex Keyes 62 58 120
9th Mike Saimond 62 59 121
10th Steve Guiliotis 59 63 122
11th Gary Stansfield 60 63 123
12th James Beaulieu 60 66 126
13th Greg Jackson 63 66 129
Intermediate
1st Mike Mason 57 55 112 $56 Trophy
2nd Corey Cramer 55 58 113 $50 Trophy
3rd Greg Aucoin 54 61 115 $41 Trophy
4th Andrew McManus 56 61 117 $34
4th Luke Adolph 53 64 117 $27
6th Brandon Doster 64 55 119 $18
7th Jon Gerry 67 55 122
8th PJ Gruen 59 66 125
8th J Soxs Viggers 63 62 125
10th Justin Anderson 59 67 126
11th Pete Nevius 67 68 135
12th Tyler Doar 70 67 137
Recreational
1st Ryan DiPrizio 64 66 130 $20 Trophy
2nd Chris Carr 68 68 136 $14 Trophy
3rd Coleman Marcus 70 67 137 $10 Trophy
4th Paul Rashaw 70 72 142
5th Paul Benoit 75 69 144

We raised $165.75 at the after party
Marshall Street 20% Kickback $236
Thats $401.75 raised for our course this weekend. Looks like another Chainstar in the near future.

$250.00 Ace pot given away as a CTP for Mike Dussualt
$90.00 CTP for ANY registered players given to Rob Tatro

Eastern Mass. Championships 3

On Saturday I had the pleasure of playing in the Eastern MA Championships 3 in Topsfield MA. It was a nice warm breezy day with temps in the high 60's, yes that is warm in New England in May. Gusty breezes were a condition we had to deal with but with a really nice course open with sloping greens for us ametuers it was a challenging day. I spoke with a pro Pete Johnson who thinks it is too much an easy monotonous day there. Of course for the pros most holes are reachable on the drive and they rarely miss their putts. My experience differs and I find it a lot harder.

I play Advance Masters which is guys over 40 years old who are not good enough to play pro. There is seldom any real money to be won, sometimes a trophy, gift certificates to disc golf stores and free food are what we play for. That said it is also the great group of guys and the active competition. This day there were eight of us in the division and all really capable of winning the thing. One difference between Pros and Ams is we Ams are chronically inconsistent, not playing and practicing enough to work the flaws out of our games.
My round 1 was really good. My group started on hole 16 and got to get the tough 16, 17, 18, and 19 holes out of the way in the begining of the round. I started 3-4-4-6 with the 19th hole (unusual in its existence and distance over 700 feet)being really hard for me. Then I cruised, had birdies on hole 6 and 11 and finished with a 60 for the par 58 course, just one throw behind the two leaders.

round 1: 3-3-3-3-3-2-3-3-3-3-2-3-3-3-3-3-4-4-6-60

In round two we again started out on hole 16, the lead card with Bill(Stew) Stewart and John Campos at 59 Me and John Fissel at 60. I started off a bit better with a 4-3-3-5 on the first four we played and was feeling pretty good, in fact for a short time I lead the thing by hole eight we had all had a turn on top but I was looking at 7 holes left and the lead. That is when the wheels came off. I took a four on 8, 5 on ten, four on 11 and another four on 13. Ouch, I let a couple bad shots get in my head and that was that. So fourth place was what I threw.

round 2: 3-3-3-4-3-2-3-4-3-5-4-3-4-3-3-4-3-3-5-65

The final standing in the tournament were:
MPO (Pro Open Division)1st round 2nd round Total
1 Jason Gordon 53 53 106
2 Joe Yaskis 52 57 109
3 Brian Harrington 57 52 109
4 James Lane 54 55 109
5 Matt Stroika 52 58 110
6 Pete Johnson 57 55 112
7 Josh Rogers 57 57 114
8 Phil Vilmorin 62 56 118
9 Matt Deangelis 55 68 123
10 Matt Thomas 66 57 123
11 Mitchell Harden 62 62 124
MPM (Pro Masters)
1 Daniel Marcus 54 59 113
2 John Dickison 57 57 114
3 Rick Belhumuer 61 57 118
4 Tim Jiardini 60 59 119
5 Matt Jackson 62 62 124
6 Bill Newman 67 64 131
MPG-M (Pro Grand Masters 50+)
1 Greg Kurtz 56 60 116
2 Rick Williams 64 64 128
3 Bradley Arnall 65 65 130
MAM (Advanced Masters Am)
1 John Campos 59 61 120
2 Bill Stewart 59 63 122
3 John Fissel 60 62 122
4 Ed Hovestadt 60 65 125
5 Ted Cormier 64 67 131
6 Steve Guiliotis 68 70 138
7 Greg Jackson 70 70 140
8 Ken Dawson 61 DNF DNF
MA1 (Ametuers top division)
1 Jason Powers 58 54 112
2 Chris Piaseczny 59 57 116
3 Allen Smith 55 61 116
4 Jay Bayer 58 59 117
5 Steve Solbo 60 57 117
6 Mike Andrews 61 57 118
7 Clayton Davidson 59 61 120
8 Justin White 61 60 121
9 Sandy Redd 57 65 122
10 Chuck Gerbrands 62 61 123
11 Pat Barnett 64 60 124
12 Arty Graustein 62 64 126
13 John Borelli 62 65 127
14 Mark Valis 65 62 127
15 Keith Burtt 65 62 127
16 Eric Kaplan 67 61 128
17 Matthew Heenan 64 65 129
18 John Mucciarone 64 66 130
19 Tushar Patel 69 61 130
20 Jeff Chauvin 70 61 131
21 Bob Direnzo 70 63 133
22 Kyle Sauerbrunn 67 70 137
23 Marco Iannello 69 70 139
MA2 (AM 2 second level)
1 Sean Jack 61 62 123
2 Corey Cramer 62 63 125
3 Brian Cummings 61 64 125
4 Brandon Doster 62 65 127
5 Eric Kevorkian 66 64 130
6 Justin Anderson 70 70 140
7 Brady Martin 70 74 144
8 Tom Graustein 78 72 150
9 Sam Paul 79 73 152
10 Paul Benoit 83 77 160
WA1 (Am women)
1 Kristi Bayer 74 78 152
2 Debbie Guiliotis 88 92 180
Recreational
1 Sam Allen 57 67 124
2 Cosmas Papanikolaou 66 87 153
3 Coleman Marcus 66 96 162

Last Practice @ Amesbury & Topsfield

Yesterday I got out of work a bit early so I could go up to Amesbury and Topsfield for the last of my practice round. This coming weekend I will be playing in two tournaments On Saturday The Eastern Mass Championships will be held @ Pye Brook Park in Topsfield and on Sunday The Amesbury Pines Open @ Amesbury town park.
Without much ado, I played fairly well but not well enough to win a tournament here are the scores

Amesbury 1: 4-4-3-4-3-3-3-3-3-3-3-3-3-3-3-3-3-5-59
The five at the end was because I was trying to use a newer disc to see what it would do but threw it in the drink.

Amesbury 2: 3-3-3-3-3-2-3-4-2-3-3-4-3-4-3-3-3-3-55
Better with some luck on a few holes.

Topsfield: 3-3-4-4-2-3-3-3-3-2-2-3-3-3-2-4-3-3-6-59
Some good play here I need to clean up the mistakes and then we will be talkin.

Playing for tags @ Borderland

On Mothers Day Joy and I minus her mother went down to Borderland for a round. We played a handicapped tag round. Joy has the Borderland tag #14 and I have #25 so I was looking to take her lower number. The idea being whoever wins gets the lower tag with the goal of getting the #1. We played Blue tees to white baskets and Joy got 18throws as a handicap.She struggled early with a pair of 5s while I had 3s putting me up 2. We matched fours on hole three a 4-3 kept us at me up 1, then I got another on the next hole. Joy struggles on the eigth with a six and my 3 made me ahead by 4 throws. This did not change until hole ten when matching 3s left joy behind by three. She seemed to be getting her stuff tofgether but had a bad putt on 11 and again I was comfortably up by four. I was feeling it throwing well and thinking I was going to get me a nice tag. Unfortunately that is when Joy seemed to find her game.we both went 4-3-3-4-4 on holes 12-16, this is a throw per hole and if you have been paying attention then you can see Joy took back the lead by a throw. On 17 we were even with Joy aty 4 and me at 3. 18 was my last chance but I only got one as I went off the lip with my second shot took 3 and Joy had a 5. We were at this point tie so Joy keeps her tag.

Joy 5-5-4-4-5-3-5-6-4-3-5-4-3-3-4-4-4-5-76
Ed 3-3-4-3-3-3-4-3-3-3-3-4-3-3-4-4-3-3-59

Joy, Lee and I @ Borderland

Getting this trip to happen was a challenge and getting to Borderland during the week is difficult. In this case I had to pick Joy up before going so we did not get on 128 south until 3:30 pm. This is a problem because the section we start on in Waltham is slow at that time of the day. If you get on by 3pm you can get through but every minute after that just adds more and more commiters. We had the added slow down of a car broken down in the third lane, so it was stop and go from Rte 20 to the Pike. After clearing the car, a half hour later it was a pretty smooth 30 more minutes to the Park.
It was a beautiful day with sun and temps in the 70s. The black fly are just coming out but were tolerable. Lee arrived about ten minutes after us while we were warming up. We played one round of White to White 5080'. I have been playing regularly lately so I felt pretty good about the day. Sister Lee was out only for her second time in months and Joy has not played since the Minuteman Classic, so it has been months for her.
Joy's rust showed through with a tree infested six on hole 1. Lee and I took pars, with mine being a long putt. Two bogeys and a dbogey for Lee after that while Joy had 4 bogeys. I was even irratic throwing my drive withing 50 feet of hole two but then throwing my upshot/putt way past the hole. Took a bogey. Had a nice S though the trees to birdie hole two. Bogey on 5 with an early tree doing most of the damage but then again saved myself with a birdie on six. Lee and Joy had matching scores of 3-4-4-4 on holes 6-9 while I stayed at par.
The front half ended with me at 27 par, Lee at 35 +8, and Joy at 37 +10. The second half looked to be Joy's early with +1 on the first three holes, Lee struggled with 4-4-5 and Joy had a one throw lead. Lee then straightened it out getting pars on the next five holes while Joy went +5 on those holes. I parred holes 10-14. Then on 15 I threw way into the thick woods and took a bogey. I made up for it with a beautiful drive that skipped up to the basket on 16 and nailed the two putt. I parred out and had my Par Round. Lee finished par and a 5 on hole 18 while Joy went 3-4 and so there scores of 68, Lee and 71, Joy were recorded

Joy 6-4-4-4-4-3-4-4-4-3-4-3-4-5-4-4-3-4-71
Lee 3-4-5-4-4-3-4-4-4-4-4-5-3-3-3-3-3-5-68
Ed 3-4-2-3-4-2-3-3-3-3-3-3-3-3-4-2-3-3-54

Amesbury & Topsfield practice

After work I headed up to Amesbury for a practice round. I was surprised that I only saw one other person on the course while I was there. 3:30 on a thursday you would think a couple could make it out. It was a nice day about 61 and cloudy to partly sunny with a healthy breeze.
Amesbury went very well although again I started with a four on hole one. This one seems to get me every time. Maybe I need to warm up a bit more. I got a couple 3's and then another four on hole four. It was the first time I had a drive get by the first set of trees. If I had used a slightly more stable disc I could probably avoided the right hand side mess and hads a good shot at three. I birdied 8 and 9 using the newer Sidewinder on the drives. Seems the understable discs work a bit better on this course for control purposes.
I had all threes the rest of the way to get a very solid 54, best score ever.

4-3-3-4-3-3-3-2-2-3-3-3-3-3-3-3-3-3-54

At Topsfield's Pye Brook course I blew up on the second hole which set a bad tone. My drive with the light wraith was not far enough right and ended up OB on the road, although the diatance was all the way to the basket. So I was shooting uphill on three, I hit the lip and it rolled all the way back down the hill sothen of course I laid up and took my 5. The next hole I blew my second shot and took a four. SO there I was three holes in and +3 ouch. Got a birdie on hole 5, but bogeys on both 8 and 9. Eight I just missed a makable putt and the same on nine, should never have missed the putt. Cruised until the last two holes, 17 is almost always a four for me but on 18 I totally blew the 3 by letting the wind bother me on both my second and third tries, both putts were off bad. So a 60 on a course I can play better tha that.

3-5-4-3-2-3-3-4-4-3-3-3-3-3-3-3-4-4-60

My arm was absolutely killing me and I may have to skip the weekend practice to let ot improve. Damn elbow.