The Disc Golf  Pro  Tour is one of the first tournaments i have seen live thanks to the wonders of YouTube. For that reason I thought I would share my views on the Championship,  the end of year tournament for the top players. I wanted to make this as contemporaneous as possible. These are my initial thoughts. I have not over-edited this. And dont forget I write this as a fan.

For the 1st, quarter- and semi-final I watched the highlights shows. For the final though I watched the mens competition live on YouTube.  I had planned to watch the womens final as well but something came up earlier in the day and I missed it. I am gutted about that cos it looked like a great final (I can’t even now, a week later, watch the recorded event after Catrina on 17!)

The tournament  – first off, I loved the format. Players ranked 17-32 play off, the top four then joining players ranked 9-16 in the quarters.  The top four then join players ranked 1-8 in the semis and the top four proceed to the final on the Sunday. I don’t know whether this changed their play – you only had to get in the top four to proceed,  after that your score was irrelevant. The big plus point, for me anyway, was (virtual) equal pay between the sexes. It made me proud that our sport took the decisive and correct decision to do this. Kudos to DGPT and Grip6 (the sponsors)!

The course – Hornets Nest Disc Golf course in Charlotte North Carolina. A pretty wooded course with some stand-out holes. Even though the front 9 was easier it had the more distinctive holes – hole 2 over the water to the island green, hole 4 with the killer green, hole 5 with the narrowest inbounds that would have given me nightmares, hole 7 with the road on the left allowing for beautiful forehand skips. The back 9 was harder but (with the exception of hole 15 with the narrowest gap and 17 that caused so many problems) was less memorable.

The coverage – live coverage started in the UK at 7.30 pm and went on for 3 hours.  It made for perfect Sunday evening viewing. I was transfixed. At various points throughout the evening I found myself exclaiming to no-one in particular as the story of the day unfolded. The commentary was, of course, very knowledgeable (what else would it be with Nate Doss on the mic). However it always seems aimed at the experts rather than the more casual fan. The number of times I heard “this will need to be a side-arm, anhyzer, flex, skip shot”. Most people will not understand this.

The play – Jones v Dickerson, Hannum v Heimburg. From hole 6 onwards it was fairly clear that it was a two horse race for 1st place and a 2-horse race for 3rd. The standard of play, particularly from Kevin Jones and Chris Dickerson, had me purring. They pushed each other all the way. There was never more than 1 stroke between them. To finish on 9 under and 8 under (the second and third best scores in the whole tournament) in the final when $20,000 was on the line shows the quality of the play.

Equally enthralling was the battle for third. Calvin Heimburg must have gone into the final as favourite as his bogey-free 10 under in the semi-final was a joy. 2 over after 3 holes it took him until the 10th hole to get under par. He just couldn’t get going. Austin Hannum,  the least well-known of the quartet, completed 3 rounds of play in a total of 13 under. He must have been happy with his overall performance.