The worst thing about not going to the Kzoo Worlds was not being able to catch up with my old friends and foes, and meeting up with some new folks as well. The Pro-Am Worlds remains not only the greatest promotional opportunity for the sport of disc golf, but also is a throwback tournament where for most of the players, it’s as much about camaraderie as it is for titles and winning stuff. We’re really stoked about having the disc golf family coming to KC next July and will be working hard to make that trip full of memories as well. Congrats to the KZoo crew…from what I’m hearing, you did a great job. It was definitely a good thing that you were “fueled” by Bell’s. Yum!

It’s kind of funny how many of my picks actually won. Even though I’ve not traveled at all since last year’s Worlds and of course, there’s been no DGW in 2008 to make me pay attention, I do talk to folks still and read what’s online. Congrats to all the winners. I hope that FDM will give each division and or champion his or her due.

While I was not sitting at my computer every minute following the live scoring at pdga.com, I did scour the Net for coverage. Of course, the PDGA led the way with lots of photos, some videos, several PDGA radio broadcasts, and irregularly posted “daily” summaries. The scoring crew and Chuck Kennedy combined on a few rounds to bring some electronic play-by-play, consisting of photos of the holes and Chuck describing the action or, at least, the result of throws on the message board.

New players in the field of electronic news coverage with Worlds reports are the up-and-coming 1000rated.com and flyingdiscmagazine.com. Other sources for news were the pdga.com message board, where the scorekeepers announced live scoring and aces, Hosfeld’s blog, and a couple of bloggers at discgolfersr.us.

Not surprisingly, I discovered that there is no substitute for actually being where the action is to get a real sense of what the event is like. Of course, it’s hard to convey the totality of such a huge event, but there is room for improvement in all areas. By taking the extra time to caption photos, to identify people and places in videos, to interview more people with incisive questions, etc., a fuller picture of the event can be presented. While we will strive to do better for the KC Pro-Am Worlds, our top obligation will be to the players themselves. Not only are we expecting over 900 competitors (sure we’d like to top Des Moines’ 911 in ‘04), but we will be encouraging people to travel to KC to form one of the largest galleries in World’s final-nine history. More on this later.