Of Games and People

I am a little behind on writing about some great events in my life that are worth writing about, but I will try to post them in chronological order and maybe throw in a rant or review in the middle :)

This event happened the Sunday after Thanksgiving in the form of the Turkey Triples Tournament. I had the opportunity to play in a triples disc golf tournament. If you are unfamiliar with idea of triples, it is basically three players using their throws for one group score. There are variations on how you can attain your score. In this tournament, the first round was "three-headed monster," in which each team member must contribute 6 of the total 18 drives, and for the holes that a team member contributes their drive, their other two teammates continue to play out the hole.

The second round was played as "best shot" which is exactly how it sounds. All of the team mates get to throw something for every shot, and the team picks which one they like best to get an overall best score.

As fun as this event sounds, (and as hard as I tried) there ended up being only one women's team at the event. (Actually, there ended up being a total of six women at the tournament, the other three were all part of different men's teams). My team consisted of Amber Cochran, Jackie Heider and me. We called ourselves Team Girl Squad and we competed with the Advanced Men. (Sadly, I was the only teammate who could appreciate Strongbad's cartoon!)

Our first round we set our goal to playing the coarse at par (54 total strokes, par=3 at each hole). We played most of the course at 2 over, but saved some of the difficult holes for the end where our focus and energy also dwindled, and ended up with a score of +6.

After getting some food and getting warmed up on that foggy day, we came back to play the best shot round at 2 under par! I can lay claim to 2 of the birdies (Birdie is one under par for the hole, so a 2) and the other 2 birdies I contributed a decent putt and a good drive.

The day proved to be very exciting for me, it was the first time I had ever birdied hole 15, and I hadn't played a round of disc golf since the event I ran on Halloween. More than just having fun at the event, I learned some things too. I feel like I have a very strong mindset, and have a lot of self-confidence in general. During those two rounds of disc golf, I learned that I have limited myself with how well I can play that disc golf course at Willamette Park. In my head, I really didn't think my team could play better than par. What helped me see these limitations I had put on myself, was playing with Amber. She is an up and coming disc golfer, and has a generally positive attitude towards disc golf. She helped me remember the attitude that I used to have playing that course, that one day I really could play every hole there really well. Why not? It's not like my drives haven't been getting farther and my putting range hasn't been getting longer. If I got nothing else from that tournament, it was well worth it.

Alas, that was not all I learned that day. For a long time I had been struggling with one certain relationship that seems to follow me like a shadow. Just before this event, some changes were made and I was still unsure that my decision was the right one. Now I know it was. At this event I got to see the many friends I have made over the years through disc golf. There are so many people that I know, and people that actually are happy to see me and what to know all that I have been up to since we last spoke. I have come to realize that it is really nice to be around people who want to see you. It's probably close to whether anyone reads your blog. I mean, take a look at this one, super long, should I read it? Well, I genuinely want to know what is going on in her life and what insight she can bring into mine, why not? Thanks for caring and I apologize for the length!