2011 Ice Bowls: Share Your Experience

[JHern]

I'm playing my 2nd "Ice Bowl" of the season today, and was just contemplating how spoiled I am here in Santa Cruz. The weather forecast: sunny, with a high of 69F. We have Avery Jenkins, Nate Doss, and a host of great regional pros (Shasta Criss, Patrick Brown, Jon Baldwin, Chris Edwards, etc.) playing, and Nikko Locastro is also joining the tournament (he's in town for the Otter Open next weekend, where he's the defending champ). The DeLaveaga Enduro Ice Bowl is 2 rounds of 29 holes each...58 total. This will be a workout, but a great way to spend a Saturday! We'll have chili for lunch, and the proceeds (plus 2 cans of food from each player) go to local food banks.

I'm curious about what Ice Bowl events are like in other parts of the country, where there is snow and cold and stuff like that. I'm sure its still a blast, but wondering how everybody dresses for, and copes with, colder weather. Lots of layers? Hot drinks like coffee or tea? How does one manage to not lose plastic in the snow?

[Solty]

I ran our local ice bowl and soup and chili cookoff yesterday. Temperatures were in the upper 20s all day....and we have a base of snow 8-10 inches with an iced coating. Teeboxes were cindered during the week which made them player.

We played 2 rds of 18....on the shortest layout. We did a CTB(closest to beverage) after rd 2...while i was doing payouts and such. Aslo...we did a bakesale headed up by sisters/wifes/girlfriends/mothers of some of the disc golfers.

We has 79 people come out and raise 1159 dollars and 145lbs of food. We had people from Wash DC to Maine show up in Eastern PA....

GREAT SUCCESS!!!

[Jeronimo]

JHern, you Cali fools have no idea what an "Ice Bowl" really is...

[rusch_bag]

None of the tds around here host a real ice bowl. We have our fair share of snow/winter tournaments but no sort of fund raising or anything of that sort going on.

[JHern]

JHern, you Cali fools have no idea what an "Ice Bowl" really is...

Tell that to the food banks! In just the 1st Ice Bowl at Felton we raised 250 lbs of canned food and $1250 in cash ($2500 after donor match). I don't recall the DeLaveaga Ice Bowl numbers, but they're similarly high. But yeah, we're spoiled in terms of weather, it has been unseasonably warm for the past month and very little rain. The rain returns tomorrow.

Props to Solty and all other TDs hosting Ice Bowl events, this is a really good way to play disc golf and do some good in the local community.

[Eric O]

Ice Bowl in Portland was pretty low key but really fun. I brought a flat of canned food from costco that I immediately exchanged for some Ice Bowl Pale Ale when I showed up. Best part was that it was homebrew I was not expecting much from that actually turned out really good. I ended up getting drunk by lunchtime and eating like 5 kinds of homemade chili from the cookoff, then running to the store for Supplication before round 2. Weather was fairly balmy. I don't think I played too well on account of repeatedly refilling my kleen kanteen til the keg went dry then moving to sours.

[JR]

No experience so far because they are arranged when i'm at work. Last year they played in -21C and a lot of wind. About the same for this year i think. There's a video of Tali ice bowl 2010 on Youtube. On Sunday hole 15 at Tali had snow above the bucket. The official snow height is 31".

[JHern]

No experience so far because they are arranged when i'm at work. Last year they played in -21C and a lot of wind. About the same for this year i think. There's a video of Tali ice bowl 2010 on Youtube. On Sunday hole 15 at Tali had snow above the bucket. The official snow height is 31".

Finland probably has less poverty and hunger than the US, so events like Ice Bowl aren't as big a deal, especially when faced with -21C + wind!

[uNicedmeMan]

Played in 3 Ice Bowls this year:

Seneca (first 1/2 of the MD vs VA Battle) 1/8:
There was 2" or so of snow on the ground that day and pretty cold. I foolishly brought a well seasoned dx rancho roc instead of my usual winter star mako. It cracked nearly clear in half on my first or second warmup throw. I then lost my glow (nearly white) z stalker on the same warmup hole, had to give up the search for the players meeting but luckily found it before going to my starting hole. Disc selection is key when playing in the snowy cold.

The format was one round of 27 holes from the long tees to mixed basket locations. I played pretty well for a long time that day but starting getting stupid bogeys toward the end. DGRer chiggins bested me by 4 strokes for the win in adv, 7 strokes off the hot open score. The food / beverages were excellent. I stuffed my face with loaded hot Italian sausages and washed it down with warm mulled cider. The td for the event is a class act and seems to always hold it down in the food department. $1,366 raised for MD food bank.

Druid Hill TNT Style Ice Bowl (semi random triples) 1/22:
My second favorite Ice Bowl of the year and not just because of the free crack. It's great because it's triples, you get to play all 27 holes at Druid (my home course) and enjoy free beer provided by the generous TD.

The weather was frigid that day but luckily not terribly windy, little or no snow. I played very well and parked some difficult holes helping my team secure the win. My buddy / teamate / td got shit on by a goose on hole 11, it was so cold that the shit froze and simply bounced off his hat when it landed. Drunkenness snuck up on me that day as I was casually hitting my flask (Jim Beam Rye) throughout the round and drinking on the free Dog Fish 60 min IPA. I needed to sober up before driving home and luckily, in typical Druid fashion, a large lid catch session broke out giving me some time to work the booze out. $1,058 earned for charity.

Rockburn Chili Bowl 1/29:
The premier Ice Bowl in MD. One round of 18 then chili eating / judging and beer drinking. 9" of ice on the ground but my feet didn't get cold once thanks to my new shoes (see gear thread for more details). I played well once again but it took me a few holes to get dialed in and I finished 2nd in open. Most of the chili's were excellent and my buddy won the chili competition for the 4th year in a row . $800 raised for the MD food bank.

My buddy and I got there way before anyone else and helped out by shoveling the pavilion. I even took it upon myself to shovel a pathway to the port-a-john in case anyone had a rush.

[JHern]

The ice bowls around here are some of my first tournaments in the area, and now I can see firsthand how good the players are. At the DeLaveaga Ice Bowl (2 rounds of 29 holes) there were some ridiculously good scores. Nate Doss won Open with a score of -29 (bogey-free!). Steve Lonhart took down Masters division with a -26. Every position was short, but still...these are amazing scores.

Played in 3 Ice Bowls this year...

Good stories...

Seneca (first 1/2 of the MD vs VA Battle) 1/8:

Who was ahead at the first half: MD or VA?

Seneca is a fun course...must be interesting in winter.

[J-Bolt]

I even took it upon myself to shovel a pathway to the port-a-john in case anyone had a rush.

Many thanks for that.

Nice performances too btw. 2011 is shaping up to be great year for you.

[Monocacy]

Who was ahead at the first half: MD or VA?

Apparently MD led after the first half and held on to win:
http://www.freestateflyers.com/phpbb3/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=3269

Seneca is a fun course...must be interesting in winter.

As of last weekend, most snow had melted except for a few north-facing slopes, where snow around the baskets had been packed down to solid ice. Made for some interesting downhill approach shots.

[uNicedmeMan]

I even took it upon myself to shovel a pathway to the port-a-john in case anyone had a rush.

Many thanks for that.

Not a problem.

Nice performances too btw. 2011 is shaping up to be great year for you.

Thanks Jim!

[captainanhyzer]

The one I ran this year made this weeks' PDGA newsletter. 7th one down the list.
http://multibriefs.com/briefs/pdga/PDGA021711.php

33 Ice Bowls were held that weekend. Pretty cool that they chose ours to put in the newsletter.