Juliana's Disc Golf Stuff: Great Lakes Open Results

The Great Lakes Open, or GLO is always an impressive event. This year prior to arriving in Ann Arbor, we heard that at least one of the two 24 hole courses was going to be lengthened. This made us even more excited about attending. The courses at Hudson Mills Metropark are good, fun courses and there is plenty of room to make them even better. We arrived in town on Thursday and went right to the park to see the changes. Unfortunately we were not impressed in the slightest by the changes. Seven of the holes on the "Monster" course had been lengthened. Of the seven, I liked only one of the changes. On most of the holes, you still threw the exact same drive then you had to figure out a way to get your disc into the conservatively cut green that was nearly completely surrounded by rough and trees. The new holes weren't lengthened as much as they put a new basket in a little longer position that was really hard to get to. The worst part was all the poison ivy and underbrush surrounding the new basket. The other strange thing was that they couldn't remove the old baskets so they left both baskets on these modified holes. This created a problem when the pro pool had two divisions (masters, and women) who played the short baskets during the first round and the men who played the long baskets. I heard of at least two people who threw to the wrong basket during this initial round.

In the first round, I played incredibly well. I was putting well and my drives had a really good line. Everything seemed to fall into place and I shot a personal best of 72 on the original layout on the Monster course. This was good enough to put me in lead by 4 over both Lesli Herndon and Elaine King. Shawn also shot a 72, but he played the extended course so his score was respectable in the men's division. Because of the changes to the course, the round took significantly longer than previous years. I believe the women's groups were the last to return to tournament central and by the time I got my lunch (which was provided) and finally sat down, I had less than 40 minutes until the tee off for the second round. The second round was played on the original course. I didn't play as well as I had in the morning, but I was still playing solid. I didn't have any serious trouble with any of the holes, but I didn't feel like I did as well as I should have on all of the birdie holes. I ended the round with a 70 or 2 under par and added several more strokes to my lead. Shawn had an OK round. He had 9 birdies which is respectable, but he had 3 bogies on a course he typically doesn't bogie on. Last year Shawn shot a 14 under on this course so the 6 was a bit of a disappointment. The second round didn't take as long as the first, but it was still an incredibly long day. I was absolutely exhausted at the end of it all.

On Sunday, the sun was shining brightly again. Everyone played one round of 24 then the top 4 men and top 3 women played a final 9. During the regulation round the women and masters joined the open in playing the extended layout on the Monster course. I managed to do very well on many of the very difficult holes. I had a couple of bad holes, but was very pleased with the resulting 78 which gave me a 12 stroke lead going into the final 9. Des had a good round and moved up to 2nd while Lesli edged out Elaine for the last spot in the finals. Shawn shot another even par which was good enough for a tenth place finish in the strong field.

The finals where played a bit differently than in past years. They put all the men and women final nine competitor together to play in one big group. This allowed the very large crowd to watch both races. It worked out wonderfully and was much more fun (from a woman's perspective) then the typical format that allows the women to play in their own group in front of the men. In the old way, the women where lucky to get more than a handful of spectators. This weekend we played in front of a couple hundred people. The layout for the final 9 took a few holes from the original layout as well as a number of "safari" holes made up solely for this showcase. Many of the holes were quite long with the exception of the island hole. They drew a circle with a radius of about 25 feet around one of the baskets. They set the tee about 220 feet away. If your drive didn't land AND stay within the circle, then you had to take a penalty stroke and rethrow. You had to keep rethrowing until you did land and stay within the circle. Now normally this shouldn't be much of a problem, however, the hole was blind. You couldn't see the basket from the tee. There were bushes and tall grass between you and the basket. The obvious flight route was a spike hyzer that had to turn and fly between two medium sized trees. The men all made it in their first throw but none of the women did. So we all take a penalty stroke then throw again. My second throw landed in the circle, but then skipped about 10 inches outside of the painted line - no good. Both Des and Lesli made their second shots in the circle. Now I have to take another penalty and try again. Once again I hit that stupid tree and fall outside the circle. At this point I'm getting rather frantic. I'm now laying 6 and I'm still standing on the tee. Thankfully my next shot did land in the circle and I was able to make the putt for an 8! Yuck. I lost 4 strokes to both Lesli and Des on that hole. It was quite stressful. I was able to gain a couple strokes back during the rest of the final 9 and ended up winning by 10.

Pro Men ( total 55)
		Rnd 1	Rnd 2	Rnd 3	Final 9	Total
1.	Barry Schultz	68	59	70	27	224
2.	Steve Rico	69	62	67	26	224
3.	Cam Todd	69	62	71	24	226
4.	Ron Russell	69	61	72	26	228
5.	Steve Brinster	71	64	67		202
6.	Al Schack	69	64	72		205
7.	Brian McRee	74	65	68		207
7.	Dave Feldberg	70	64	73		207
9.	Scott Martin	70	65	74		209
10.	Shawn Sinclair	72	66	72		210
10.	Mike Milne	77	66	67		210
10.	Todd Branch	77	61	72		210
10,	Mark Taylor	74	62	74		210

Pro Women ( total 17)
		Rnd 1	Rnd 2	Rnd 3	Final 9	Total
1.	Juliana Korver	72	70	78	34	254
2.	Des Reading	78	72	82	32	264
3.	Lesli Herndon	76	73	85	32	266
4.	Elaine King	76	73	86		235
5.	Carrie Berlogar	81	73	92		246
6.	Sue Stephens	81	76	89		246
7.	Jen Ketz	84	75	88		247
8.	Ruth Steele	88	79	84		251