For the love of the sport. A place for DG enthusiasts to share their thoughts.

Archive for February 26, 2013

Running a tournament is like singing in public. Wait… What?!?

Posted by chrissmithspresence


I am just over five weeks from my first crack at being a tournament director.  It really feels like the home stretch.  At this point, it looks like this thing is going to be really successful.  I’d like to share my experiences with you and hopefully help you through my successes and my failures.

I tend to be a bit of an oddball.  I am constantly thinking up twists to the game that could be fun or fall flat.  I am convinced that blue discs fly farther when you throw them toward water and pink discs are under-stable.  The idea of running the same tournament that everyone else runs is like standing in line for a crappy roller coaster.  I just can’t do it.  I’ve got better things to do with my time.

Last year I played in an April Fool’s Worst Shot Doubles tournament that I was really excited about and it turned out to be an absolute flop.  It wasn’t really worst shot.  It was farthest from the pin, so an errant shot could just be followed with a safe short shot and there was no need to recover.  The course was disgusting and covered in broken glass, stagnant water, and old mattresses.  It was really disappointing.

When my partner from last year joked about playing again, I responded “I bet we could do it better.” and the idea was born.  It was like a song that gets stuck in your head.  I found myself thinking about the things that did and didn’t work last year and the things that I could add or twist to make it better.

One of the first things that I had to decide was “why” this tournament was going to exist.  Just having a song stuck in my head is no reason for me to sing in public.  People would much rather listen to someone else that has sung before and knows what they are doing.

I came up with three reasons:

  1. I have a lot of friends that don’t play.  If I could focus more on the fun and less on the competition, I may be able to talk them into enjoying disc golf with me.
  2. We have a regular Sunday game at my local course and it would be great to get some new blood playing regularly.
  3. I wanted a group of people willing to try playing with my crazy twists.

So the tournament was for all skill levels, with weird rules, intended to get the word out about our regular Sunday game.  It was time to start combining things from tournaments, our regular game, and my weird rules to come up with a combination that worked.

The regular Sunday game is random draw doubles and the losers owe the winners a beer.  They also add one to their handicap and the winners take one away from theirs.  New players usually take a couple of weeks to settle into a handicap that works for them but most weeks are fairly close at the end of the round.

This format works well for small groups but in a large tournament, without handicaps, I needed to find a way to stop someone that may be really competitive from being upset about picking up a brand new player as a partner and I wanted to make sure that there was no incentive for a foursome to “cheat” and not pick the worst shots.  I decided that if player’s were only competing with others from their own card and cards rotated partners throughout the round, this would eliminate both problems.

There was no reason to charge for the tournament because there were no costs involved and no club to raise funds for.  Everyone could bring a beer and the best score on the card would take two beers, the worst would take a single beer, and we would throw together some other competitions for the one leftover beer per card.  While I was at it, I decided anyone that brings a beer unique to the tournament can take two strokes off of their final score.  That would help set the tone.

I decided to have special rules on every third hole and have the partners switch after each special hole.  I came up with a scorecard that helps show the special holes and when to switch partners.  I honestly don’t know how this is going to work out.  It may be that there are too many special holes and switches.  It may be just fine.  Time will tell.

Our course has 24 holes.  There are 18 numbered holes and six letters that are just mixed in throughout the back half.  I decided to have the letter holes played as individuals for a tie breaker.  This could be another way for a competitive player to feel like they have a better chance.

After I came up with the format and the fees, I had to figure out how to advertise and get people to sign up.  I chose the Sunday before April Fool’s day and named the tournament April Fool’s Shenanigan Doubles and decided to use two different methods to advertise.  Disc Golf Scene is a great way to publicize to disc golfers but new players would never know about it.  A facebook event was my answer for the less serious and potentially first time disc golfers.  As players say that they are attending my facebook event, I just add them to the registered players list on disc golf scene.

A couple of weeks later someone looked at a calendar and broke the news to me.  I had six players signed up to play a tournament on Easter Sunday.  Since when is Easter in March?  I pushed the tournament back to April 7th and let everyone registered know to contact me if they wanted to be removed from the player’s list.

One other problem that I didn’t think about until it was too late was that people assume that they need to bring a partner and pass on the tournament without looking at it based on the name.  Once you pick a name, you aren’t allowed to change it.  I wish that I would have put “Random Draw” in the name.

Now that I have a good sized group of players registered, I am a little bit worried about the true first-time players.  I think that I am actually going to run a “how to play disc golf” clinic two weeks before my tournament and ask people that want to come to go to their local disc shop and pick out a mid-range and a putter that feels good in their hands beforehand.  During the clinic I will give them a chance to throw all of the drivers that I own to see what does and doesn’t work for them.  This will also give me a chance to teach them basic rules and etiquette.

At this point I am just over five weeks away and I already have 36 players pre-registered.  I am really looking forward to seeing everyone enjoying this crazy idea that I had a few weeks ago.  I have managed to get some of the best prizes donated that I have seen at any non-A tier and non-sanctioned tournament.

In my next post I will talk about how I worked with great sponsors like Gorilla Boy, Fade, NutSac, Dynamic Discs, Millennium, Gateway, Flywood, Dogleg, and more.


Intro to the DiscRaptor

Posted by discraptor


Hey guys and gals, just thought I would do a quick post to introduce myself and what I hope to bring to the Dogleg community.

My name is Justin, I’m 27 and currently live in Seagrove, NC with my wife and Hoover my 5 year old Lab/Coonhound mix. I’m currently a photojournalism student with a concentration in sports photography and hope to translate that to bringing the sport of disc golf to the masses through photos. Outside of disc golf my interests pretty much peg me as a nerd, LOL! I’m a huge music fan, mainly heavy metal, but do enjoy music as a whole to a degree. My favorite bands include: Machine Head, Pantera, Amon Amarth, Battlecross and Testament, but the list is quite more extensive. I’m a big tech guy, specifically custom PC builds. I’ve built the last 4 PC’s my wife and I have owned and recently started getting into case modding as well. Art is another big passion of mine. I do everything from pencil drawings to acrylic and spray painting, and yes I do disc golf related work. One project I have going at the moment is trying to figure out a way to do LED paintings that can light up!

I was introduced to disc golf last summer by a buddy of mine, Dex, who I’ve known all my life. He called me up one day and asked me to come down to the park near his house and try it out. I had heard of disc golf before, but never gave it much thought as a sport that would interest me. I am a former baseball and football player used to really challenging sport; I just never thought of disc golf as something I’d enjoy. Well, I get down to the park and my buddy is out there with a bag full of discs. He explains the rules to me, shows me the basics of a BH throw and tells me to let it rip. The disc went 50 ft then hard left into a tree. Needless to say, as a former athlete, I was less than pleased when he put his shot under the basket 245 ft away. I’m not one to give up easily, but looked at Dex while just shaking my head. Dex has been playing for a few years, told me I just had to get the mechanics of the throw down first and that distance would come with playing/practice. The next hole was almost the same story, I threw a disc maybe 75 ft this time, but Dex again parked it at 300 ft. This went on for another 5 or 6 holes and I became increasingly frustrated. That’s when it clicks in Dex’s head, since I’m a former Shortstop and 2nd baseman, maybe I would have better results from a FH throw. He shows it to me, hands me a higher speed/more stable driver and says rip it like you would if you were gunning out a runner at first. It clicked. I put that muscle memory to work, put all I had into the throw and let it rip down the fairway. The disc was parked 5 ft from the basket 315 ft away, my jaw dropped. Watching a disc I had thrown sail that far, that fast, it was like a rocket leaving my hand, and I was hooked.

Since that moment I’ve dedicated my game to driving FH. I drive FH for distance, control, as well as anhyzer now. I will throw close to 95% of my drives FH and probably 80% of my upshots. The FH drive just feels so natural and smooth to me. I seem to generate much more power and snap with far less effort throwing FH as well, but the best thing about it is that is doesn’t hurt my shoulder like a BH drive does. My baseball career ended in High School when I tore my labrum on both the front and back of my shoulder, my family couldn’t afford the surgery to fix it, and they are still torn now. This causes my shoulder to pop out of socket when exerted too much.

Those are the main reasons I’ve come to Dogleg. I want to spread the knowledge I’ve gained over the past year about driving FH and playing disc golf with injuries. I found Dogleg through Twitter and immediately emailed JT when I saw I could join and help contribute. I don’t see a lot of information out there right now about FH driving and disc selection. I hope to help anybody that I can with disc reviews from a FH player’s perspective and any throwing tips I can give. I also want to share what I’ve learned over the last 10 years about conditioning and strengthening joint injuries for recovery, preventive methods and how to translate that into a routine to help with both distance to your drives and overall health.

I would also like to share any disc golf related pieces of art or projects I work on if anybody is interested in seeing them.

I look forward to contributing and talking with the Dogleg community, as well as spreading the word about Dogleg around the NC disc golf community!

-DiscRaptor



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