Ace Race Day Glow Mini Golf Results and Summary

Wow - great day. It was a beautiful day for disc golf, sunny and 60's during the day and a little cooler at night but not bad at all. We had a great turnout of 78 people for the Ace Race and 59 for the Day-Glow. Not sure how many played the Mini Golf but I do know they all enjoyed it. The Mini Golf has become a big hit for this day and night of disc golf. We had some really good food for the cookout - chicken, hamburgers, pork chops, hot dogs, metts, baked beans, potato salad, chips, pretzels, pop and the always ever-delicious cupcakes and cookies by Patty Francis. Not sure if someone else brought some sweets or not. We finished the day off with the awards over at Gold Star which had been dead all night until we showed. So win-win again for everybody involved in the days events.

First off, the Ace Race. We had 78 participants and a great Ace Race. After two rounds we had three tied with one Ace and one Metal: Gary Thompson, Dave Parslow and Russ Foster. Jeff Eades ran the three-hole playoff and a CTP if no one got an ace or metal. After three holes they were still tied - no aces or metal in the 3 playoff holes. I had to step up before the CTP hole and see if the three players were interested - there was a Discraft bag and 10 premium Discraft discs at stake here. So the question was - did they want to make a deal between the three of them for the prize package - DEAL or NO DEAL? The answer was some blank stares and stiff faces. These guys were seriuous - NO DEAL!! Dave Parslow went first and went about 40 feet long and left. Russ Foster gets up and throws even longer. So Gary Thompson gets up and just has to lay it up to get the Discraft prize package. Gary throws and the wind takes it long - longer than Daves throw - so the Ace Race was won by Dave Parslow. Congrats to Dave.

Just a few notes from the 2 rounds: we had a total of 5 Aces. The other two besides the aforementioned, were Clint Barnes, his first Ace ever and Tony Vincent. There were two with 3 metals each: Eric Simpson and myself, Dan Bayless. There were a total of 37 metal hits on the day. Jeff Eades, the guy who has probably won more Ace pots and CTP's than anyone else in the club took 34 holes without a hint of metal, but came through with two metals on the last two holes. He just missed an Ace on the last hole to get into the playoff. It seemed to most participants that this was definitely the more stable disc of any Ace Race to this date. Most seemed to think it was somewhere between a Buzzz and a Wasp for stability. You could definitely put a little something on this disc without it turning over. All in all, I think the disc gets a yes for putting it in regular production. We'll see and we'll see what they name it if they do.

Jeff Eades once again set up a very challenging 9-hole Mini Disc Golf course around the creek by our shelter, including a mando hole. Mini Golf has definitely become a great hit for the people who come to this event. For many they have never really thrown a mini disc for anything other than just tossing it in frustration or pitching to their partner in doubles. But now you have to throw one for long drives, approaches and putt. It truly is a lot of fun and utilizes all the same skills as the full-size game. We played two rounds of 9 and had 2 players, John "Big Boy" Kuhns and Dave Marlow tied at 6 down. They played a 9-hole playoff round and Big Boy won, Dave second and Tony Vincent came in third. You may want to play in the Ace Race Day Glow Mini Golf event next year just to do this!

For the Day-Glow we had 59 participants so we had one odd man who got to be his own partner, Joe Javins. He got one extra shot per hole. Joe took definite advantage of his home course and the extra shot per hole by shooting a 40, -14 the first round. This was 3 strokes better than the next team of Fishnet Dave and Bobby Daws, who came from near Polaski County to participate in our event! In the glow second round, Russ Foster and TJ Giesling shot a 41 for a total of 88, -20 for the day, but this was just not quite enough as Joe held on shooting a 47 in the glow round for a total of 87, -21. Congrats to Joe! I'll try to get the rest of the scores up here later.

I would like to thank everybody who helped out during the day. I'll name a few but know I will forget some but here goes: Jeff Eades for helping me put on the event, setting up the Ace Race course, mini golf and the glow lights for the baskets; Liz Shooner, Dave Marlow, Paul Dumont, Fishnet Dave and Jughead for doing the cooking, Alicia Eades for the design for the Day Glow discs, Patty Francis, Kindra Burress, Hank Rodrick and whoever else did anything to help - sorry if I left off your name. I would also like to thank my beautiful wife Candy for putting up with me either working the shop on Saturdays or running tournaments on Saturdays. She also came out and helped in the morning. I love you Sweetie.

I still say that this is the most fun event I play in all year. I'm not just saying that because I run it, but I do have the most fun on this day. It's just so much fun to be out there with so many other people having fun throwing a frisbee/disc/mini all day and all night for fun, not worrying about the score as much as you do in tournaments. And no matter what you get three discs, a mini, a hat, a glow light, a cookout and some prizes for the mini and Day-Glow as well as the big prize package from Discraft for the Ace Race. You want to do good, but you're there for the fun. We have minimal prizes but we have MAXIMUM FUN!