Rochester : Tues Doubles: Week @ Parma

After winning the first prize payoff last Wednesday, I decided to use the money to enter a Doubles competition held on Tuesday evenings.  The fee is $10 and there are the standard ways to win money (Best score, CTP, Ace) but some money goes toward the year end Doubles tournament, as well as the league for course improvement expenses. I found out recently that the league maintains the baskets and tee pads with both labor and finances. Just this past weekend, volunteer members poured the cement for the tee pads for the MCC course.

The Parma course is truly both challenging and beautiful. It has a nice balance of long field shots, as well as technical woodsy holes with changes in elevation and water hazards.

Even though I was satisfying one of my objectives of playing in a doubles night, I was still very scared that I would be useless to my partner. The rules of Doubles is Best Shot, or two teammates throw a disc, and the best lie is chosen, and again the two teammates throw and choose, until a basket is made.

Well, my partner, N., has over 15 years experience, "on and off", but that's a lot more to my 12 weeks of solid play. I was hoping that I would not embarrass myself too badly.

The first two holes were shaky (I clanged a 20ft putt) and again it wasn't until the third hole that I was playing well. N. could drive the disc well over 300 ft with a backhand throw, but I helped with some very good approaches to secure a par score.  I also had some long forehand drives with my Xcaliber (which mostly flies straight then fades to the right) which were chosen as placement for our second throw.
 
My personal highlights: include a personal birdie on Hole 9 (a small note here: though your teammate is the first to start the next throw, {alternate throws}, N. allowed me to sink the putt since the drive was <10 ft out out of courtesy that the player with such a good drive should finish the putt. I also sank a 35 ft putt for par 3 on hole 18, and most importantly I drove a disc over 240 ft forehand to avoid a pond (hole #1A, which was recently returned to its original placements with the water hazard). The disc landed about 20 feet left of the basket, scooted to the right some more feet and ended 12 ft in front of the hole, which set us up for our 2nd birdie of the night. My throw even beat the CTP "pro" flag by a few feet...

We ended at 58, (thanks to the late birdie on #1A) which was +4 only par, and we tied with the other team on the card; we won a slight bit of money but we decided to donate the small amount back for the year-end Doubles event. It was also amazing to hear that the 1st place Professional score was 9 under (45) which implies 9 birdies and 9 par holes. Wow.

PS I also lost my orange SideWinder on Hole 6 in the creek. This was the same place I had temporarily lost my TeeBird.  I never learned to throw the SideWinder well as it would veer to the left, and that's what happened tonight : a veering to the left, a crashing in trees, a weird landing, some rolling and a muddy splash.

Here is a picture of basket #6; according to the course rules, "all of the area left of the creek is OB. I was more disappointed that both N. and I had OB drives costing us a 4 on a "easy" par basket.

N. told me something about his disc collection: "I  don't have any of my original discs anymore, I currently only have what I haven't lost yet..."

Also we scored a 19 for the night. Each team (and player) gets a point for each player they beat (2 for each team they beat) plus 2 for each player. The highest team received 34 points, so we beat more than half the field, not bad.