Alabama Open

[electricdriver]

Is anyone going to the Alabama DG Championship this weekend at the sportsplex in Athens? Went by after work and Dave Feldberg put on a free clinic and it was pretty sweet he completely changed my grip, run-up, and my throwing motion. Also got to watch a bunch of the guys and girls practice and A horse game of putting between Feldberg and Lavone Wolfe.

 

[Ric Flair]

Is anyone going to the Alabama DG Championship this weekend at the sportsplex in Athens? Went by after work and Dave Feldberg put on a free clinic and it was pretty sweet he completely changed my grip, run-up, and my throwing motion. Also got to watch a bunch of the guys and girls practice and A horse game of putting between Feldberg and Lavone Wolfe.

Lavone used to come watch me wrastle back in the day....hell of a competitor.

 

[DGRZ001]

Lavone's a great person as well - he was my original DG role model.

 

[billnchristy]

Is anyone going to the Alabama DG Championship this weekend at the sportsplex in Athens? Went by after work and Dave Feldberg put on a free clinic and it was pretty sweet he completely changed my grip, run-up, and my throwing motion. Also got to watch a bunch of the guys and girls practice and A horse game of putting between Feldberg and Lavone Wolfe.

He's good at that...changing everything to HIS way.

Get a clinic from Jay Reading or even better Shawn Sinclair and they will change the way you throw, but within your own means.

Sorry about the mini-rant but I have seen enough clinics and styles to know that Climo and Feldberg's just doesn't work for anybody but those who are already modeled after them.

 

[Apoth]

Did the field at the Alabama Open fill up? Last I checked, it was only something like 64 competitors total.

 

[AirMcNair]

I do know that Avery was complaining about one of the holes in Athens because there was a telephone pole, guide wire, and water pipe near the basket. HE took a picture of it and posted it on his facebook. Made him look like an ASS IMO!

 

[Three Putt]

I do know that Avery was complaining about one of the holes in Athens because there was a telephone pole, guide wire, and water pipe near the basket. HE took a picture of it and posted it on his facebook. Made him look like an ASS IMO!

From a golf perspective it really doesn't matter. If the pipe and the telephone pole and other man-made things are trees, nobody notices that hole.

For a long time disc golf has had a problem in that some pro disc golfers think the way to change things is to bitch up a storm. If there is a problem with the course preparation for SuperTour events, how do you fix that? If a PDGA course guru need to go out to all these places in advance, how do you pay for that? Is it going to come out of the pro purse? You would think by now that the pros would understand that disc golf is nowhere close to being acknowledge by the mainstream media and does not have the resources to pretend that it is.

 

[AirMcNair]

Ya even Val chimed in and said we make our living at this an expect a more professional look. I was like Wow really?

 

[Three Putt]

I'm not sure if it was the case here, but I know we used to have to monkey with courses a lot trying to push back pins to create something to challenge the pro disc golfers. They would carve up the regular configurations we had. Because these were "tournament only" placements, sometimes we put them in spots where you wouldn't normally have a golf hole throw to. Sometimes we did things that were pretty stupid in retrospect because we were really trying to come up with stuff that would make the pros take a bogey and impress them with our "tough" courses. Usually we just pissed them off instead.

 

[AirMcNair]

Here is the pic. And what he and val said.

Avery

I think that everyone is missing the several, very obvious man-made objects within 30 of the basket. That doesn't stand out to anyone as not being a professional standard?? This hole is not very picturesque for a Disc Golf National Tour Event.

These are supposed to be the Best Events in our sport on the PDGA National Tour!!! If these courses continue to have utility boxes, telephone poles, wires and other such odd obstacles we will never make mainstream media. We have to start by taking this seriously if we expect others to take our sport seriously as well.

Val
its different story when its your job

 

[badsmurph]

wow has that head swelled over the past few years. They're bigger than the game now.

 

[badsmurph]

Kenny didn;t seem to have a prob with the course today

 

[roadtripstuff]

Haha funny that everyone is agreeing in this thread, but when jenb pointed out that they did they same thing to another tournament, in her area, everyone was one her case about it.

Oh and while they do have a point that we will have a hard time getting taken seriously by others with courses like that, they sure do seem to go about it the wrong way. I don't know what they think they are accomplishing by doing this, but I would like to see some more constructive and productive attitudes.

 

[Sadjo]

I'm surprised at the low turnout overall and in the open field for this event. Is it the travel expense or the location that has kept players away?

Maybe if they could do a NT Event playing only weekends or try and get as many NT Events on 3-Day weekends.

 

[Dr.Seuss]

I see their point about the man made objects that close to the basket, and I agree with them that it is very unprofesional looking. This is something that the PDGA and NT organizers should have seen and corrected.

But they are deffinitly not helping anyone buy ranting about it on facebook. We are no were near national media attention, especially with the low open numbers to this NT event.

 

[Cgkdisc]

Yeah, I always thought that manmade structure in every ball golf hole looked kind of tacky. Much better if it was natural like a skinny tree you could pull out by the root ball when you needed to putt.

 

[denny ritner]

From Avery's FB page, I like this quote from Brian Mace:

"Many if not all of the problems in Disc Golf come back to one word, Cheap! The underlying message from the beginning has always been keep it cheap and fun. But free doesn't gather any operating capitol, and cheap people scream the loudest as soon as there is any fee associated with any activity. Those 2 words are the biggest obstacle standing in the way of the progress that players are demanding."

 

[Three Putt]

From Avery's FB page, I like this quote from Brian Mace:

"Many if not all of the problems in Disc Golf come back to one word, Cheap! The underlying message from the beginning has always been keep it cheap and fun. But free doesn't gather any operating capitol, and cheap people scream the loudest as soon as there is any fee associated with any activity. Those 2 words are the biggest obstacle standing in the way of the progress that players are demanding."

This is a long-standing issue. In order for there to be functioning "championship" courses there has to be pay for play courses generating revenue for the operators. Otherwise there is no real incentive to pay for a qualified designer and maintain a course. The places that do have a championship design have to depend on the work of volunteers to maintain them because there is no money being generated by the course to pay a maintenance crew. Once you are depending on the kindness of volunteers, the results are going to be hit or miss. Avery Jenkins seems to have lost patience with what he perceives as the misses.

By in large, disc golf has not been presented to the parks and recreation industry as a revenue-generating sport. Few charge a greens fee to play their courses, and a lot of parks departments that have courses don't even try to sell discs (the no-brainer revenue generator.) With the majority of our courses on public park land, that has to change before the courses will get the attention somebody like Avery Jenkins wants.

Of course the flip side is that many recreational players are in no way interested in paying a greens fee and really don't care what Avery Jenkins wants. There is a huge gap to bridge between the 1000 rated players who want to be able to earn a living playing disc golf and Joe Schmoe disc golfer who likes to be able to play for free. I've seen the leadership of disc golf make a lot of positive strides during my time in the game, but nobody really seems to have an answer for that one.

 

[Peterb]

Furthermore, if your NT event is only attracting 62 professionals, something is definitely wrong with that level of the sport. Apparently the Texas NT was lackluster as well, which is surprising since I think of Texas as being one of the meccas of the sport.

I totally understand where Avery and other touring pros are coming from. However, they may simply be too far ahead of the times to see their vision come to fruition. The USGA was formed in 1894 and pro golf took off from there. It may be that in 30-40 years disc golf will be played in major venues with revenue streams from advertisements and whatever video format succeeds TV. Until then, the efforts of this current group of disc golfers may be in more of a pioneering vein.

 

[JTacoma03]

Denny, ThreePutt, and Peter are making really good points.

I agree with what Avery is saying, though while I feel there may be a better way to go about saying it. Most of the people who think Avery is just an ass are the same people who want disc golf to stay in stasis, what those don't realize though is that communities either grow or die, they don't stay in static equilibrium without sacrificing longevity. If people are happy with the status quo - which in an overall picture is GARBAGE for a sport we're supposed to be taking seriously then they unknowingly have sentenced our sport to death.

Avery is a friend of mine so I'll admit I'm not without bias here, but people seem to forget that he's been playing this game for about as long as Climo, Schultz, etc. He's not some 20-year old who's played for 2 years spouting this stuff, he grew up with the sport and has seen its evolution since the 80's and has made the decision to push for better - which should not be a point of ostrcization but a rallying point. If we all put forth the effort we can make take this sport to the next level, from the smallest things such as packing trash and picking up cigarette butts to the pros taking a hard stance and demanding that a NT event and State Championship not be just the weekly league with guest appearances by sponsored pros.