Weekend Tournament Experience

[garublador]

A buddy and I played in a local worst/best doubles tournament this last weekend (first round was wost shot the second was best shot) and while we finished dead last in our division, I learned some lessons. Some of them will look really familiar.

Before I get into it, I'll say that my partner and my skill levels are quite a bit different. I'm, at best, an OK intermediate player and he's brand new to the game. Also, it was a fairly short, 21 hole course, which may impact a few of these lessons.

1. I need to work on my putting - not really anything new, it was just reenforced.

2. Driving with putters is good - I saw a lot of Surges and Wraiths being thrown on ~220' holes (there were several holes in that range) and no one was able to control where their disc landed, no matter how well they aimed.

3. Being able to drive well with a midrange or a fairway driver is better than being able to throw a distance driver far - this relates to number 2, but on longer shots, throwing a nice, easy, 300' shot with a beat Gazelle or Teebird netted much better results than throwing a high speed driver. The second group we played with (best shot round) was similar to our group. One guy who had been playing a while and one who just started. The better guy threw Wraiths and Surges farther than the newbie thew his fairway drivers, but they used the newbies shots more because he was in the fairway. There was only one shot on the course where throwing 350' instead of 300' helped at all. We were only able to take advantage of it once and even then, it just made the approach easier.

4. Beat up base plastic is good - I don't know how many intended anhyzer and straight shots I saw turn into 'S' shots and hyzers. They were almost always with high end plastic, and high speed drivers. Yes, I hit trees with my soft DX Gazelles, no the flight path did not change during the tournament. I was able to throw a turnover shot that landed flat, though. If I accidently threw it too high it just went farther, it didn't fade out into the schule. If I threw with too much hyzer or not enough anhyzer, it didn't go as far right as I wanted, it didn't go left instead.

5. Apparently I have a decent turnover shot - who knew?

6. Fewer molds in the bag make for easy disc selection - The molds I threw in the tournament include: Wizard, Element-X, Gazelle, Teebird (only twice), Spirit, Inferno (only three times--once successfully). Had the Inferno not been in my bag, I would have throw the Teebird instead and probably scored the same. I thouht my disc selection for the tournament was awesome and that's not something I could have said for the tournament I was in two years ago where I carried half as many discs, but 1.5 times as many molds.

7. See #1 - I bet we could have shaved at least 10 strokes per round if I could putt well. The pros that played scored much better than we did, but I didn't see a single drive that I couldn't pull off most of the time (we were stuck behind them in the second round). Granted it wasn't a course that was condusive to showing off cool drives and they weren't exactly 1000 rated pros, but they messed up their drives just as much as we did and spent just as much time in the schule. They also hit their putts and scored in the double digits per round better than us.

I realize that most of those were things that are discussed on here frequently, but it's nice to actually see them applied to a real couple of rounds.

[deaddisc]

I too played in a dubs tourney over the weekend, and have to reiterate your putting comments. In our first round we had the best score out of all divisions and it was largely thanks to being able to putt. (also played good/timely partner golf) The need for putting was paramount because of the extreme winds (20-30 mph) Anytime I play in any sort of tourney I always leave with the same thoughts, if only I could putt better I would have shaved off X strokes. This time I did putt well, and we won; amazing how simple it really is.

[roadkill]

Garublador,

You learned (or relearned) some very important principles. I agree with all of them (except about you having a turnover shot since I can't confirm or dispute that).

The two points you made that most players have trouble embracing are

1) limiting the number of molds they throw and
2) forgoing the superfast highspeed drivers for more controllable fairway drivers.

I've preached the lessons you've concluded many times but most people need to learn things the hard way.

[garublador]

I agree with all of them (except about you having a turnover shot since I can't confirm or dispute that).

That one is pretty debateable. I threw several turnover shots that actually flew as intended and it surprised me so I jokingly added that one.