I got the opportunity this last week to go down to Bowling Green, KY to play in the 40th Annual Amatuer Championships at Bowling Green. I went down with my friend Tyler Schrock, who placed will in the advanced division taking 19th overall in a field of 173. It was a great experience for both of us, however we went into the event blind, not knowing what to expect, not know the courses or much about the town. So I figured I would use this week’s post to talk about the courses the experience and give some advice if you plan to go down for the event in the future or just on a recreational trip.
The Event:
The tournament itself was a great event. It was well run for the most part, there was a minor issue with no scorecards when we arrived at the third round, but with 838 players spread over 10 courses, small lapses are bound to happen. the Rounds are spread out well over the 3 days of the tournament, round one was friday at noon giving you plenty of time to get to courses get ready, and still have time for the rest of the evening. Saturday started early with round two at 8:30am tee off, tyler and I were split between courses so it was a bit of a rush to drop one off and get to the other course. Round two was followed by a decent break to grab lunch, tyler and I used that time to go back to our hotel shower, warm back up, eat, and get ready to go back out for round three 2:00pm. Sunday was another early morning with round four starting at 8:30 in the morning. there was a final 9 for the top 8 in our divisions but since neither Tyler or I made final nine and we had a 7 hour drive ahead of us we took off back to ohio. Overall it is a great event to go down to, I will break down the courses in full detail further on.
Surrounding the tournament itself was a plethora of side events, clinics, challenges and tournaments. The Disc Golf Pro Tour was there bringing with them the festival of the flying disc, and it’s games, and putting challenges including the putting tower, and putting tic-tac-toe. Innova disc brought out there Wombat3 challenge, players take 3 Wombat3s and try to score points on a 200 ft shot at a basket, I put 3 shots within 10 feet and won myself a Wombat3.
There were several doubles tournaments that were set up in the days prior to the tournament. Tyler and I played in a doubles event at the Technical college course hosted by the Nati Disc Golf Store, and there was also an Eric Oakley clinic there. We talked to Eric for a while, he seemed like a really cool and nice guy, then played doubles with a few other people we shot pretty well and ended up on third place.
Friday night of the tournament was the Flymart. If there was any one who sold discs, made discs, or did anything disc golf related they were there with a pop up shop (except mvp). It was just a zoo of people and discs being traded in a large bazaar format. We ran into some people who had spent a ton on new discs. Tyler spend $3 on a turbo putt, and I picked up a mini zone just to get some cool signatures for $10, if you are looking for plastic it’s a great place to go but if you do not like crowds I’d avoid this part.
Saturday night was a player party at Hot Rod Stadium. By this point in the weekend the weather had kind of turned on us and there was not a huge turn out. There were some good ctp and putting competitions as side games going on, but overall it seemed spaced out and fairly unorganized, this may have been do to it being late at night and pretty cold. The tournament is fun and the surrounding events add a lot of fun opportunities to play and to mingle with our tribe.
The Courses :
Phil Moore:
Phil Moore park is for the most part a long bombers course with a few holes in fairly tight woods. A lot of the course is open field with par threes of 350-400ft and go all the way in length to a 911 ft par 5. There are a good number of ob lines in the fields that are the post to mark the cross country running courses across the park, for the most part these Ob lines should not come into play, but exposed to the wind discs can find there way to the lines. I unfortunately played this course in my fourth round while I was tired and it was in constant rain, and wind. I played my first 9 holes really well until both my towels were completely soaked and I did not have a dry disc the rest of the round. Be ready to throw drivers on Second and even third throws here.
South Central Kentucky Technical College:
Tech was the most technically demanding course we had to play in the Intermediate division. The course is largely holes with tight fairways that are about 25-40 ft wide, on either side are 8 ft high dense bushes that you are very likely just going to be pitching out. It requires tight course management and placement while still trying to get significant distance if you want to score well. If you can stay out of trouble the par 4’s are pretty soft, a three feels good and a four feels like you did not quite capitalize on the opportunity. The flow is little off with a few holes randomly on the other side of the campus that are just big and open but for the most part it is tight in the woods.
Preston Miller:
Miller was a very short course that was primarily in very tight woods, The rough was not really as rough as techs rough was and there were plenty of opportunities to scramble if you kicked off a tree (which was very likely to happen). Most of the holes on the course are under 250 ft long.
Hobson’s Grove:
This course was a little more traditional park style course. A few holes of open park style golf with a few gardian trees and elevation changes. A few holes that go through the woods with good sized fairways and rough that you could easily scramble out of. Hole 2 has some length and teeth, and I would recommend walking the hole prior to playing it.
Those were the intermediate courses, I did not play any of the others to give a full right up.
Town:
Just wanted to give a shout out to a few of the local places of the town that Tyler and I ended up. First the A-Frame was a great local dive bar, no food there but this was recommended to us by a few local players we ran into after playing doubles on Thursday. The place has a great atmosphere the bartender was a great guy gave us good food recommendations, and they had a great selection of beers.
At the A-Frame we got advice from the bartender for food to go to Gino’s Italian Deli. They had some amazing food, and they had good vegetarian options for Tyler. We got stuff to go which was really nice, and its location was great being right across the main road from the Holiday Inn, and Convention Center that served as tournament central.
Media:
Check out Tyler’s videos for his perspective on our trip:
Recap:
It’s a great tournament with a great players pack, its well run I met a ton of great people. I highly recommend finding some of the local places for food it seems like a lot of people funnel into the chains. We look forward to going back in 2018
Chasin' Chains 