Minnesota Majestic
June 15 & 16, 2002

It is always a pleasure to go to a tournament in Minneapolis as I get to see a good friend and former roomate, Susan. This year was no exception. We played three rounds of 24 at two of the local courses, North Valley and Kaposia. Both courses were used in the World Championships last year and both have a number of changes. The weather was perfect for Saturday's rounds. I played pretty well and secured a 5 stroke lead. Shawn also did ok and found himself tied for forth. During the second round I played well and added a few more strokes. Shawn had a mediocre round boogying 2 of the shortest holes on the course, but didn' t loose any ground on the field.

Sunday we were scheduled to play one more round of 24 then the top 4 men would play a 5,000 foot final 9. I played a frustrating round as I felt like I was verge of doing extremely well. I played all the harder holes beautifully and made some uncharacteristic little errors that resulted in just an ok score. When I saw Shawn after the round, I could tell he didn't play very well. I assumed that meant that he was no were near the top 4. Instead it meant that he too almost had an awesome round, but missed numerous putts in the 20 foot range. Luckily he still played well enough to put him in third and thus in the final 9. There was actually a 3 way tie for 4th so the final 9 included 6 people: Barry Schultz, Tim Schroeder, Shawn, Cam Todd, Avery Jenkins, and Ron Russell.

There was a 2 and a half hour wait between the third round and the final 9. About 30 minutes before the round was to begin, dark clouds filled the sky. With about 15 minutes to go, the skies opened up and blanketed the course with high winds and rain. It was nasty, but it didn't last much more than a half and hour and the final 9 was able to proceed. I was suprised at how many people remained to watch the event considering the delay and the rain. The holes for the final 9 were huge and fun to watch. They played a number of elevated tees to baskets 600 - 1300 feet away. In the end Barry maintained his lead for the win. Shawn moved up a spot to tie Avery and Tim for second and Cam and Ron tied for 5th.