90 days of disc golf: It should have been a 3, and other comforting lies.

- It should have been a three… but I got a five. 
- This is a stupid hole.
- Hyzer? What! That disc always flips. 
- How do you bogey a birdie hole?
- Did you see that? That was the wind. The wind ate my disc.
- This is a stupid tee pad.
- I should have thrown a big hyzer.
- That was in and the basket spit it out.

… The list goes on and on and on and on…

We are home. The wounds are being counted and the laundry is being sorted into two piles; “wash it” or “throw it away.” The heat is giving us more than enough reasons to stay home and just relax. For some reason, there was no parade waiting for us when we rolled into town. No banners hanging across Main street, no screaming fans throwing flowers at our feet as we passed by. Just an empty apartment with a nice soft bed waiting for us. It’s nice to be home. 

We fled Seattle a day early with plans of playing highbridge in Spokane – one of our favorites. Our four day trek home includes stops at Diamond X in Billings, and a few other courses splattered here and there which we want to try. There is a real hope that Gilette, Wyoming will produce the first real 18 hole disc golf course worth playing in the entire state of Wyoming (hope, hope, hope). 

We stepped on a tee and my forearm started to burn. I can’t grip a disc and i’m not sure what sort of injury I am dealing with. It just hurts to grab a disc… No discy golfy for me. No highbridge, no Diamond X. We did play Gilette and Rapid City, sort of. They are both pretty tiny courses and I was able to walk them without playing (something I think is tantamount to a prison sentence to a disc golfer). Neither course is astounding and I think Minna was 12 under after 12 on both courses. I do give Gilette credit for making a disc golfer feel good about themselves. Each tee sign was in yards, so it felt good using my buzz to throw 340 yards. It was a crusher. The 550 yard par 3, was the best birdie of my life. 

So the leisurely four day trip home became a sprint to the finish. And in retrospect, it was the right choice. Being on the road isn’t easy and I’m baffled that the touring PROS can do it week-in and week-out. I respect them even more now than I did before as it would seem that to be a great player on the tour it takes more than just a good drive and putt. It takes a great deal of endurance. 

We left Beaver State and noticed on Facebook that Eric McCabe made it back to Emporia by early Tuesday morning. Then we saw that Val Jenkins and Nate Doss made it to Warwick, New York by Wednesday morning. That’s just ridiculous! If you dont know, Val and Nate LIVE in a custom van which looks like a surveillance van. It’s smaller than an RV but larger than a mini-van. A genius idea. Perhaps the next 90 days summer tour will wise up and “van up.”

Money is tight so we are going to sell off all our spare discs to raise funds for the push East. So far we have three weeks of six covered, but that may be all we can physically do. The best news about the East Coast push is that everything is closer together and Wyoming isn’t in our way. I think we also learned a few tips to avoid missteps. First and foremost, don’t live like you’re dying. Whoever sang that stupid country song should come rub my sore muscles while I kick him in the face. Live like you’re alive today and there is a good chance you will be alive next week. I know that doesn’t sound like a great country song, but no country song after 1980 (with a few exceptions) is worth singing. 

Thanks for hanging in with us on this tour. We will be back in July with Worlds, Fly Boy, Pittsburgh, Hambrick, Toronto and a gazillion courses in between…. We hope.