Ken Climo and Des Reading maintained their leads in the DGWN rankings. Climo is followed closely by David Feldberg, up one spot from the 2007 year-end rankings, and Nate Doss is in 3rd. Eric McCabe might be the hottest player on tour this year. McCabe has won at Lewisville and at the Texas States in Houston, and finished second in Las Vegas and at Bowling Green, and a third place finish at the Memorial. Eric finished 2007 in 13th place in the DGWN rankings, but has rocketed all the way to fourth.
Des Reading maintains her lead atop the women’s rankings, but Val Jenkins keeps chipping away at it. Val has 5 wins this year already, including wins at the Memorial, Las Vegas, and Bowling Green. The only blemish on her otherwise perfect record in the women’s division this year was a second place finish to Nicole Frazer at the Bluegrass Open in northern Kentucky (suburban Cincinnati) this past weekend. Frazer moved up seven places to ninth based on her win in Kentucky and 4th place finish at Bowling Green. Carrie “Burl” Berlogar has moved past Angela Tschiggfrie into 3rd place. Tschiggfrie hasn’t played in a sanctioned event since September, while Burl has top 4 finishes at the Memorial and Bowling Green, and a win at the St. Patrick’s Classic in Orangevale.
I just posted a geographical breakdown of where Ice Bowls are being held this year at icebowlhq.com.
The 221 events we’re tracking so far represent a 10 percent increase over 2007. We’re still 6 states shorts from having an Ice Bowl event in all 50 states. If anyone from Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Delaware, North Dakota, and Alaska is interested, you can register your event at the Ice Bowl site or contact me for more information.
December 22nd, 2007 by Rick Rothstein · 5 Comments
It’s a done deal. The last issue of Disc Golf World is on press. It’s a solid and fat (104 pages) issue with interviews with Frisbee icons Dan “Stork” Roddick and “Crazy John” Brooks, coverage of the USGDC and the USWDGCs, reports from around the globe in Transcontinental Flights, our picks for player of the year (Kenny and Des) along with a list of rookie candidates, and the always ubiquitious more.
Now that I no longer “buy ink by the barrel,” I will be investigating the world of web communication a bit more, perhaps offering some commentary here from time to time. For today, I’m just discovering if this gets published. More later.
Ken Climo took back the top spot in the Disc Golf World rankings, based in part on his win at the European Open. Really, the 2007 Player of the Year award seems to be a wide open competition this year between Doss, Climo, and David Feldberg, who is currently 2nd in the National Tour points standings (one spot behind Doss and one ahead of Climo). Feldberg maintained the number three spot in the Disc Golf World rankings this week, and a win by any of the three players at the United States Disc Golf Championship might cement not only the #1 ranking, but also Player of the Year honors. The only other large move in the top ten was Mike Moser, moving from 7th to 5th with a win in Paw Paw at the West Virginia Open and a second place finish at the Eric Yetter Memorial.
On the Women’s side, nothing’s really changed that much. Des Reading maintains a solid lead in top spot, with Val Jenkins and Angela Tschiggfrie rounding out the top three. The Player of the Year (POY) battle appears to be between Reading and Jenkins, who are also 1-2 in the National Tour points standings. If one of these two can play well in Peoria and win at the U.S. Women’s Champioships, they could cement Player of the Year honors. If Angela Tschiggfrie successfully defends her title, or Burl adds a second major win this year at Peoria, then it’s going to truly be free-for-all for POY.
Nate’s win in Highbridge not only puts him at the top of the disc golf world, but also gave him the points he needed to pass Ken Climo and take the number one spot in the Disc Golf World rankings. Val’s win helped her close the gap on Des Reading, but Reading’s second place finish allowed her to maintain a 4 point cushion and hold on to the top spot.
One thing that stands out about the World’s is the amount of mental and physical stamina it takes to succeed. I was drained just following players around for the week. It was interesting to watch the almost 40 year old Ken Climo’s play steadily improve as the week wore on.
Our Flickr gallery has been updated with images from the final nine and the awards ceremony, check it out.
Finally getting some images uploaded. The weather has changed up here with a front moving through Thursday night bring some rain and much cooler temps. Todays high should be in the upper 70’s with light winds. Prime conditions should lead to some hot rounds today.
We are up in the wilds of Wisconsin for this year’s Worlds. This is a shot from Whitecap ski resort where many of the players are staying. Awesome accommodations, but no cell service.
Highbridge is located about 15mi. from here and is beautiful, but isolated. You spend a lot of time on the road. The players meeting last night at the casino in Ashland (about 30 mi. one-way) was pretty straightforward, with most players leaving immediately after and making the trek back in order to get some rest.
I will be getting some shots from the courses later today and will be posting from Highbridge, so stay tuned.
OK, so you’ve probably wondered, why the big swings in the
rankings with some of the women, and the lower ranked men?
Well, when a lower ranked player does extremely well in an
event, that gives her a lot more points, and only one more
tournament to average in, so their ranking points go up by
a large percentage. Now you take someone like Niloofar
Mossarrahmani, a fine player from Sweden, but someone who
hasn’t played in as many A-Tier and above events as say,
Des Reading, well, one good result (such as her recent second
place finish in Skelleftea this past weekend) will move her up
in ranking points an even higher percentage.
At the top of the grid, Angela Tschiggfrie and
Val Jenkins will have to work a lot harder to topple Des
Reading from the #1 ranking. And that’s the way it should
be….players in our ranking system get rewarded not only for
playing well in big tournaments, but you get rewarded more
for playing well in LOTS of big tournaments. And although
both Val and Angela have beaten Des at times, and can do
so on any given weekend, Des has been clearly the best
over the last 4 years or so in the overall scheme of things.
Anyway, notable changes recently:
Nate Doss overtook David Feldberg last week for the
#2 spot on the mens’ side, and Ken Climo is definitely within
striking distance. A strong finish in Pittsburgh this weekend,
coupled with an NT win for Nate at Columbus might give him
the #1 ranking going into the Worlds. David Feldberg is
within striking distance of #1 as well.
Avery Jenkins overtook Steve Rico this week for the
#4 spot. Steve hasn’t traveled outside the Pacific Time Zone
this year, and although he’s generally done well, hasn’t done
well often enough to hold off Avery from the #4 spot.
There’s been a couple of injuries recently to top players:
Barry Schultz hurt his throwing shoulder at the
Kansas City Wide Open. He shut his tournament down 3 holes
into the final round. Looks like it was just a precautionary
move on Barry’s part….all indications are that he’ll be
healthy and ready to compete at Worlds in 3 weeks.
Steve Brinster apparently tore a pectoral muscle
in Toronto last weekend. He had to miss the Skylands Classic
on his home course in Warwick, NY. No word on the severity
of his injury, but hopefully he’ll be back in time for Worlds.
David Feldberg broke a bone in his hand at the
DGLO, but has been able to play through it, carding 3rd at
the DGLO, 4th in Kansas City and Toronto, and 5th Place
at Warwick last week.
Player to watch: Kyle Crabtree has made the
biggest move in the last 3 weeks, vaulting from #48 to #19.
The Disc Golf World crew just returned from a four-day expedition to the Wakarusa Music Festival. We had planned on posting from the field, but contrary to the large banners displayed at various points throughout the grounds, there were no “Free Wi-Fi Hot Spots” available.
Despite the technical shortcomings, much fun was had by all, and it was a bit refreshing to be unplugged for a few days with nothing but disc golf and live music on the agenda.
The DGW tent became “disc golf central” for the weekend and we had lots of people buying a disc to give the game a try for the first time. In addition to the new players, golfers from all corners of the country brought their discs with them and were excited to get in a few rounds during the festival.
The two on-site 9 hole courses had received much attention prior to the event from the Waka course team assembled by Crazy John Brooks, and the mowed fairways and detailed signage made navigation a breeze. The courses certainly provided a challenge, though, with deep rough and well protected greens, and many of the newer players had problems keeping track of their plastic.
Disc golf is finding its way in to more music festivals each year and with good reason:
It is a low cost addition relative to other amenities.
Requires little or no oversight during the event.
A large percentage festival attendees are disc golfers and vice versa.
An easy nine-hole course requires little more than a single disc to play.
Discs can be event stamped and vended at the event creating a revenue stream.
Check out some of the images from the event. (Link)
In the process of researching an article for the upcoming issue of Disc Golf World, Rick has manged to cover every available flat surface in the shop with stuff he dragged up from the basement documents from the archives.
I am not a big fan of clutter, but looking over 20+ years of club newsletters, tourney flyers, and other assorted DG publications has been a real treat. It has also got me thinking about the nature of communication in our online world.
Since it exists in a physical form, printed matter has a residual quality that lends itself to accidental archiving. Who doesn’t have a few of “those boxes” in the basement/attic/closet full of magazines, books, or photographs.
In the process of putting out a magazine for the past twenty years Rick has managed to accumulate quite a few boxes which, when taken as a whole, document the birth and growth of disc golf. I wonder how much of the online communication we rely on so heavily now will be around in a decade or two? Hopefully someone is printing out all those PDF files.
In case you lost your copies, I thought I would share some images of the stuff I have been walking around this week. I like the flyer from the 1st PDGA worlds with a copy of the original score sheet attached (right). I have more pics that I will put up on Flickr when I get a chance.
To navigate through the images click on the left or right side of the large image to move through the gallery.
Well, as everyone knows, Dave Feldberg was on the Conan O’Brian show last night. I don’t know that the “sport” side of disc golf was on display, but the fun factor of the game sure came through.
It was great that they set up multiple baskets in the audience, anytime I am at a large, crowded arena/theater I have the urge to fire some putters into the crowd. Dave can check that one off the todo list, along with a few others from the night I’m sure.
Overall, I feel it was a positive moment for the game we love. The most identifiable aspect of our sport, the basket, was featured prominently in front of a large number of people, and the fact that Conan was able to hit some 20 footers after a few throws makes the game look accessible. Conan showed the full range of DG emotions in three putts- he hit chains and missed, sank one, and he was robbed. I have got to work on the crazy karate routine the next time I hit a clutch putt!
The rankings have been updated with the only meaningful change being Feldberg’s upward movement in the men’s top 10. Dave narrowly edged out Schultz for the #2 spot based on his win at Augusta over the weekend.
In the women’s rankings Des continues to pad her points lead with a significant 7 point lead over #2 ranked Angela Tschiggfrie.
The Bite reps stopped by yesterday and let us have a peek at the next generation of their high-top disc golf shoe. It will be available in a darker color scheme and is fully waterproof. The low-top version will also feature a waterproof outer, a real plus for those dewy morning rounds. Unfortunately, the new line isn’t due out till 2008. I really wish they would have released the Vertigo Line. I prefer the more subdued look, and the less aggressive sole would be nice on concrete pads.
With over 30 Ice Bowls yet to report, the collective charitable goal of $180,000 has been exceeded by $10. This represents about 170 events held in the US, Canada, Finland, and Germany. In addition, over 16 tons of food was accumulated.This compared quite favorably to last year’s total of $155,000 and over 11 tons of food.
On average, the weather this year was colder and snowier than in 2006.
The average temperature was 34°, six degrees colder than last year.
There was an average of 3.38 inches of snow this year compared to 1.2 inches in 2006.
This year’s record-setting, charitable total was accomplished by a total of 7,630 players, compared to last year’s 7,800.
Below are a few charts showing the Ice Bowl leaders in several categories:
In the most recent issue of Disc Golf World, we unveiled the Disc Golf World Rankings, showing the top 25 men’s open players. In the article we also promised to provide weekly updates here at DGWN.com.
True to our word, we are ready to go live with the week 14 rankings. The results will be updated every Monday. As a bonus, we decided to take it up a notch and provide rankings for the top 100 players. Women’s rankings are in the works and will be included soon.
The top 100 is the brainchild of box scores guru John Chapman. In the DGW article Chappy explains his methodology: [Read more →]
Both Gateway and Quest have some new plastic on the market.
The Blurr, a high-speed, wide rim driver, has been out for a couple of months now and we just received some discs from the second run. According to Dave at Gateway, “…the latest run is less overstable and more flexible…”. Visually, the new disc sports a larger dome,a different stamp, and only come in white or yellow. Both discs are only available in the Evolution Pro-Line plastic.
The Rage is the latest wide-rim driver to come from Gateway. We haven’t had a chance to get it on the test range yet, and there isn’t any info on Gateway’s site, but judging by its rim configuration it looks to be an overstable flyer.
The prolific plastic producers at Quest have come up with “ultralight” versions of the various Inferno molds. We received a batch of these DT Raging Infernos in the 135-139g range. The plastic is very tacky, flexible and semi-transparent. These could be fun extreme tailwind drivers.
From the “It’s not golf unless you use a club” file:
I came across this wacky take on disc golf the other day. It is little more than an Aerobie hooked to the back of a regular club, but according to the inventor it can do it all. Among some of the uses; snow golf, basedisc, golf hunting, golf fishing, and the always exciting - Kung Fu golf.
Their site has an extensive collection of videos and is full of fantastic Engrish.
Using Golf Club To Launch Frisbee To Fly
The Fantastic Brand-new style of golf product - Golfrisbee is for you.
You are playing golf, you are playing frisbee, you are playing both at one time.
You can doubling your fun while you are doing excise!
For a disk golf player, with the club, your hand is extended, you can reach farther!
For a golf player, with the disk, you can play anytime, anywhere!
Rick just returned from Bowling Green with some stacks of sexy, flexy goodness. With the release of the super-fast Avenger and the overstable Predator in FLX, you can still get your flex on when the wind picks up.
Discraft has also added the Surge to the SuperColor line-up. While the designs may, or may not, be your cup o’ tea they sure will add some color to your bag. Just don’t get it mixed up with your Spectra.
In the Adv. Mens divisionan unknown playerStephen Whitson from the B pool has apparently shot a 210 to have the lead by 2 strokes over Ronnie Huffman and Dan Defries, who are tied at the top of the A Pool.
At the end of the 3rd round it is a tight race in the Advanced Men A pool. 30 players are within 6 stokes of each other.
The day 1 leader Nate Clapp has a one stroke lead on the field at 155
There is a three-way tie for 2nd between David Rosenbalm, Keith Gallusser, and Dan Devries all at 156
Rounding out the top 5 is Ronnie Huffman at 157
This is from the A pool only and it is possible that the eventual winner could come from another pool, the scores cannot be compared until after the final round. The pools were flighted based on ratings, with the highest rated players being in A.
(Edit: I was going to post this to the PDGA discussion board as well, but the forum is offline.) The board is back up.
As we watched the Bowling Green Amateur Championships go from 500 to 600, and finally to 746 players, we wondered why people chose to attend this event. Thanks to the event’s hardworking TD, Larry Bledsoe, who loaned us an email list of nearly 500 of the competitors, we compiled a brief questionnaire. While far from scientific, below are the results from the 71 players who participated in the survey.
“Why have you chosen to play in the Bowling Green Amateur Championship?”
We asked participants to rate the following answers to this question on a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 indicating strong disagreement and 5 indicating strong agreement. We averaged the responses below:
I like the competition that large fields produce: 4.2
It’s about the people for me: 4.0
The players package/party make it a good deal: 3.6
I really like the courses: 3.3
I’m ready for some warm(er) weather golf: 2.9
It’s the first major competition of the season: 2.9
For about eight or nine years starting in 1984, I traveled extensively—playing events, vending, and writing articles about these road trips for DGWN. Bowling Green, Kentucky was a favorite spot that I never missed. In the beginning, the tournament was called the April Fools and held the first weekend of April. It was always a popular event that served as a season opener for many players, and drew lots of players from the Midwest and Mid-South, as well as players from Canada and the east coast.
When I was here last in 1992, there were three courses; beautiful Kereiakes, Hobson Grove, and Griffin. Fast forward 15 years and we have the largest single-event disc golf tournament ever— the 745-player Bowling Green Amateur Championships, which is being held on eight courses. When I first played the Aprils Fools in 1985, there were no amateur members in the Professional Disc Golf Association, and at that time, the numbering system had reached about #3,200. Of course this weekend’s event is nothing but amateurs and the PDGA is closing in on #33,000.
It’s our hope to share a little about what’s going on this weekend at this history-making tournament with photos, possibly a brief video or two, and a few words. Thanks for stopping by.
Link to Scores Link to event site Link to Bowling Green Photo Gallery
(Edit: We will be adding a link to the full gallery of photos shortly, so check back soon!)
These treats arrived the other day at DGW World Headquarters. A fastback design is not exactly a golf disc, but I can think of worse discs to play golf with. They have the look and feel of Innova’s “Candy” Champion plastic.
Informal testing on the street in front of the shop showed it to be a stable flyer with good abrasion resistance. Should make a great catch disc for any species.
… SuperHero K-9 Candy flying disc brought to you by Hero Disc. SuperHero products are manufactured in the USA in conjunction with the master molders at Innova Champion Discs. Featuring puncture and bite resistant plastic, Hero product guarantees more game time with your favorite companion.
SuperHero K-9 Candy discs come in a wide range of vivid, eye catching, translucent colors and are available for custom stamping. Each disc weighs approximately 136 grams. Hero Discs are competition and safety approved. Bring out the SuperHero in your Dog!
Your source for a steady stream of disc golf goodness. Timely event coverage, playing tips, as well as the latest product reviews are all fair game here at DGWN.com.
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The Disc Golf World crew just returned from a four-day expedition to the Wakarusa Music Festival. We had planned on posting from the field, but contrary to the large banners displayed at various points throughout the grounds, there were no “Free Wi-Fi Hot Spots” available. 
Well, as everyone knows, Dave Feldberg was on the 
With over 30 Ice Bowls yet to report, the collective charitable goal of $180,000 has been exceeded by $10. This represents about 170 events held in the US, Canada, Finland, and Germany. In addition, over 16 tons of food was accumulated.This compared quite favorably to last year’s total of $155,000 and over 11 tons of food.
Your source for a steady stream of disc golf goodness. Timely event coverage, playing tips, as well as the latest product reviews are all fair game here at DGWN.com.