Brengle Terrace Construction to Begin!
The San Diego Aces are finally ready to begin construction of the 18-hole disc golf course at Brengle Terrace Park in Vista. All of the legal steps have been taken to allow the club to get to work with an army of volunteers manning shovels, rakes, saws and clippers. The course will be built entirely by volunteers, who will be installing the 18 Innova Discatchers that the club purchased from Emerald Isle Golf Course when they ceased disc golf operations. Aces Treasurer John Heaton has been appointed to oversee the volunteer effort. John recently sent out an e-mail to all current members asking for volunteers. Contact him at John@whirldsports.com:
Pelg Sails Through Mission Bay (Golf Course, that is…)
Mission Bay Golf Course hosted the final Ice Bowl of both the 2012 Golden Sombrero Series and the entire 2012 Ice Bowl season on Sunday, February 26th. San Diego’s Ice Bowl got these distinctions by being held on Sunday night under the lights at Mission Bay Golf Course. TD Randy Wylot (with design help from Snapper Pierson) set up 18 challenging temporary holes on the 18-hole executive ball golf course and drew a crowd of 81 players for the event (one from Sweden!), raising $1,480 and collecting 300 lbs of food for the San Diego Food Bank. It is hoped that hosting a few successful demonstration events at this golf course might pave the way for a permanent installation of baskets.
In the Open division, Carlo Pelg shot a lights out 46 and broke the course record by two strokes, using only three mulligans. Micah Dorius had set the record last year with no mulligans. Carlo’s 12-under round beat 2nd place finisher Brad Armstrong by five shots, with Luke Christensen and Deano Porter two more throws back. Kim Cottrell squeaked out a win in the Women’s Open division with a 74, one shot ahead of Shonda Garcia and two over Allison Wylot.
Golden Sombrero Top 4, from left: Patrick Paramore, A.J. Risley, Daniel Lichtman, Carl Renda
A.J. Risley won the Advanced division with a 6-under 52, three shots better than a group of four golfers at 3-under (Matt Howard, Daniel Lichtman, Patrick Paramore and Jon Yergler). The Advanced division was the center of competition for the Golden Sombrero title, the overall crown for the 7-event GS series. Going into this tournament, Carl Renda held the lead, followed by A.J., Daniel and Patrick, so these four played on the same card at Mission Bay. A.J.’s margin of victory over the others allowed him to jump into the winner’s spot for the Golden Sombrero, with Daniel taking second, Carl third and Patrick fourth. A.J. took home his fourth gold-painted sombrero and a Discatcher Pro basket with the win.
The Intermediate and Recreational divisions both featured close competition. Brian Vallance shot a 2-under 56 for the win in Intermediate, one shot ahead of Hans Degner and Doug Larhette. In Rec, Brett Camack beat out a field of 30 disc golfers with another 2-under 56, one throw better than Daniel Flores. Juniors David Kyhlstedt and Shannon Wylot won the under-13 Boys and under-10 girls divisions, respectively.
There was great chemistry among players throughout the tournament. The SDSF Pro shop @ KCP set up a table with awesome selection of discs and apparel. They also gave generously to the raffle. Play It Again Sports in Pacific Beach donated golf discs and a bag to the raffle, as well as a disc and mini for the top three finishers in each of the 7 divisions. This tournament wrapped up the Golden Sombrero Series, in which 293 players played in seven events across Southern California (Redlands, San Marcos, Los Angeles, Beaumont, El Cajon (Sycuan), Wrightwood and San Diego), raising $8, 545 for charities that feed the hungry.
Last year’s rain prevented carts, but this year the weather was cool and clear throughout the round, allowing many players to take advantage of riding in a cart. The set up and tear down of the temporary course was well choreographed by the many volunteers that helped throughout the night. Many thanks to Mission Bay Golf Course for the opportunity to hold the tournament and congrats to TD Randy Wylot for a well-run event.
Ice Bowl Season Wraps Up This Weekend
The final two Ice Bowls of the Golden Sombrero Series will be held this weekend and the Golden Sombrero Series title is on the line. Saturday will see the only SoCal Ice Bowl of the series that has a chance of truly having icy conditions. Bill Maury-Holmes of Redlands will be running a 24-hole event at Mountain High North in Wrightwood on 8 of the holes from the 27-hole Wrightwood layout. The entry fee for this event is $20 and like all Golden Sombrero events this winter everyone will get a GS-stamped disc (Champion Darts and Gummy Champion Rhynos) and mulligans will be on sale. Bill promises to have on of his unique, handmade trophies for the winner. Check-in is at 8:45am, player’s meeting at 9:30am. All proceeds will be going to the Desert Challengers 4-H club. Online registration is still available at DiscGolfU.com. The Golden Sombrero Series is responsible for so far collecting $6,620 and hundreds of pounds of canned food for local charities in Southern California (Redlands – $927, San Marcos – $1,000, Chavez Ridge – $2, 538, Beaumont – $355 and Sycuan – $1,800).
Sunday is an event that has been much-anticipated: the return of Ice Bowl disc golf to Mission Bay Golf Course. TD Randy Wylot reports that he has a full field and long waiting list for this event, which will be the deciding event for the Golden Sombrero Series crown…er, sombrero. Randy has teamed up with Snapper Pierson to design a challenging 18-hole disc golf course on this executive length ball golf course. One cool thing about this tournament is that it will be played under the lights. Players must check in at 3:30p on Sunday in order to get things teed off on time, as the tournament has a short window of opportunity to play. Because of the tight time frame, players will only be allowed one mulligan per hole and it can only be used on the tee. Proceeds from this event will go to the San Diego Food Bank. Randy may still be in need of portable baskets for the event. If you are playing and can bring one, please do.
As mentioned earlier, this tournament will decide the Golden Sombrero Series winner. First place in the series will win an Innova Discatcher Sport basket and the fabulous Golden Sombrero trophy hat. Carl Renda is the current leader in the series with 198 points collected from four events. Players receive points in events based on the number of players that they beat, with their top four point-total events counting toward the title. A. J. Risley is currently in second place with 189 points, which means that in order to pass Renda for the series title he would need to beat nine more players than Renda does on Sunday. Dan Lichtman is currently in third place with 173 points, but probably has the best shot at catching Renda since his finish on Sunday will likely earn him more points than his current low score of four (20 points from Beaumont). Lichtman would need to beat 4 more players than Renda in order to catch him. Confusing? You betcha, but that’s part of the fun. You can find the current GS Series points standings here.
Sycuan Hosts a Generous Ice Bowl!
The first official tournament at the Olive Glen Disc Golf Course @ Sycuan Golf and Tennis Resort (say that three times fast!) proved to be a fun and successful day for the San Diego Food Bank, and a happy one for Carl Renda. After doing the math, Tournament Director Mark Verrochi announced that the 54 players at Saturday’s event had purchased enough mulligan/raffle tickets to raise over $1,700 for charity. The tournament was one of the many Ice Bowl events being held across the country this winter – which are held as fundraisers for local food bank charities. The players were very generous, purchasing lots of $1 mulligans to make up for poor shots, but Sycuan also kicked in quite a bit by waiving their greens fees, covering insurance costs and providing some great concert tickets as prizes.
As for the competition, Saturday was “Beanieman” Carl Renda’s chance to shine, as he picked up his first win in a PDGA-sanctioned event. Renda and 2nd place finisher Daniel Lichtman tied with totals of 79 after 36 holes, but Carl was able to cinch the victory in a one-hole sudden death playoff. Patrick Paramore won a CTP contest to break a three-way tie, one stroke back for 3rd place with A.J. Risley and Paul Morgavo. Angel Garcia was the remaining member of a rather idiosyncratic lead card, finishing one more stroke back at 81.
In the Intermediate division, Matt Howard took first place with a two-round total of 84. Kevin Christie found that the low-ceiling Olive Glen layout suited his style of play, as he took second place with an 88. Josh Hesser (who also did quite well in the raffle) won a playoff with Glen Kluge for 3rd place (89) and Phil Jordan carded a 90 for 5th place. Shonda Garcia fired a very respectable 106 to win the Ladies’ division.
Some disc golfers tend to look down their noses at mulligan-aided Ice Bowl victories, but for many in attendance at this and other events, a win is a win. Patrick Paramore had this to say about Renda’s win: “Considering that we all used mulligans and were limited to 3 per hole, Carl did rightfully win this XC-tier event. He made some crucial putts that gave him the edge.” Witnesses to Saturday’s rounds further pointed out that the tournament winner was probably not the top mulligan-user of the day. But he was definitely the one who used the necessary amount at the right times. And you would be hard-pressed to find critics at the San Diego Food Bank. Food bank officials have stated in the past that each dollar donated can feed three hungry people, which means that there are 5,000 people who will get to eat a meal because of Saturday’s mulligan-hounds. Take that nay-sayers.
The Sycuan Ice Bowl and the earlier San Marcos Ice Bowl were two stops on the 7-event 2012 Golden Sombrero Series of Ice Bowl tournaments. This is the fourth year of the series, and this year’s collection of events will set records for charitable donations. So far, the Golden Sombrero events have raised $6,570 (Redlands – $927, San marcos – $1,000, Chavez Ridge/L.A. – $2,538, Beaumont – $355, Sycuan – $1,750). Remaining events include Wrightwood on Sat., Feb 25th and San Diego/Mission Bay Golf Course on Sunday, Feb 26th.
Full results can be found here. Full Golden Sombrero Series standings can be found here.
Construction Affecting CSUSM DGC
If you haven’t stopped by Cal State San Marcos in the last few days, there’s something new.
Inside the green fence line is O.B. Very O.B.
Green construction fencing has been installed through much of the upper campus area between the Library and Science Hall #2. That’s holes 10, 11, 12 and 15 if you’re a disc golfer. The fencing is in place for a new construction project that will be going on near the center of campus between now and August 2013, as the university builds a new student union. An Aces representative was on hand Wednesday to walk the site with CSUSM’s Campus Recreation Director, Hugo Lecompte and staff from Planning, Design and Construction to see how the course would be affected.
Bottom line: we don’t expect to lose any holes during the construction project. A few holes will be impacted though. The tees for holes 10 and 11 will be shifted slightly as they would have been up against the fence. Hole 12’s basket and tee will be moved which will result in a shorter hole for the time being. Hole 15’s basket will also move under the large Sycamore trees. One thing that was stressed was that discs that go over the fence into the construction site cannot be retrieved, for safety purposes. We’re trying to work out a process for retrieving discs, although it’s possible we may gain some new players from the construction crew. The willingness of the campus planning and design department to keep the course relatively intact is a positive sign – disc golf is welcome at CSUSM.
Sycuan Ice Bowl this Saturday
Hole #1 at Olive Glen
South County’s newest disc golf course will be the site of another Ice Bowl tournament this Saturday (Feb. 4th). Olive Glen Disc Golf Course @ Sycuan Golf and Tennis Resort is its official name, and it’s $20 to enter the first PDGA-sanctioned tournament to be held there. TD Mark Verrochi is working on getting some Sycuan schwag for winners and raffle ticket holders, and there’s also an assortment of prizes from SoCal and Innova. But the point behind the event is fun…and to raise money and collect canned food for the San Diego Food Bank. Mulligans will be for sale during the tournament, with the proceeds going to the food bank. You can also get free mulligans by donating some canned food. All players will receive a commemorative disc (Champion Makos or Glow Champion Firebirds) from the 2012 Golden Sombrero Series of Ice Bowls. Current Sombrero Series points leader Carl Renda will be on hand, as will some of the other knuckleheads trying to catch him. Only a few spots remain at DiscGolfU.com
Gigantic Bag Tag Melee!
- Saturday’s participants
Seventy-five disc golfers met at Kit Carson Park this last Saturday with one goal in mind: to leave the course that day with one of the coveted San Diego Aces black bag tags. The black color is reserved for tags 1 through 10 each year and competition is fierce for these tags. This year, our bag tag supplier (Little Flyer) had run out of the black mini discs used to make the tags when we ordered 2012 bag tags back in November, which meant that when the first 2012 tags were distributed back in December, the top ten tags were not included.
Which brings us to Saturday. With the ten black tags in hand, a bag tag melee was organized where players would surrender their current tags before going out to play one round, with the tags to be redistributed based on the results of that round. Interest was so high that thirty-five players signed up to be 2012 S.D. Aces just before the round. Many players showed up early to take part in a quick work party aimed at cleaning up trash from around the course. Twelve of those players received prizes from a work-party-only raffle, including Innova discs, hats, towels and shirts.
The prizes...
Saturday morning was especially windy for Kit Carson, and the scores reflected it. Even though some players are known to brag about shooting “double-digits-down” on a regular basis at KCP, the best score of the day was a 46 (8-under) carded by Pro Master player Mike Westerman. Mike took home the #1 tag by shooting one stroke better than Luke Christiansen and Stephen Heaps, whose 47’s got them tags #2 and #3. Justin Kirk and Chris Vilmorin earned tags #4 and #5 by shooting 48’s, and four players (Tom Vincent, Christian Cullen, Nick Newton and Pete Rudart) took tags #6 through #9 by tying at 49. Tag #10 went to Chris Armacost, who tied with four other players at 50, but had started the day with a lower tag and hence got to leave with the lowest tag in the group. Full results can be found here.
The winners!
These players’ names have been added to the top ten tag holder list on the Aces website and will remain there until new tag holders are reported. You can report top ten tag triumphs by sending an e-mail to rizbee@teamrizbee.com (he updates the website). It is quite possible that some of these tags have already changed hands, because several of these players immediately defended their tags at Sunday’s Goat Hill Monthly (Westerman, Vincent, Rudart and Armacost). That’s the spirit!
Black Tags are Here!
You know you want one...
The infamous black bagtags, those numbered 1 through 10, are now in the hands of the Aces’ Membership Director and will be distributed on Saturday (1/28/2012). The Aces will be holding a work party/bagtag melee at Kit Carson Park, with the work party beginning at 8am and the bagtag round starting at 9am. Members who participate in the work party will be entered into a special raffle for schwag items from Innova Disc Golf.
Before the melee round begins, players will surrender their current Aces bagtag and the number will be recorded. We will be signing up new members on Saturday before the round – more bagtags and discs have arrived! The top ten scores from Saturday’s round will receive the black tags, with the remaining tags being distributed based on scores. Ties will be broken according to the tag a player started with. Example: if players who started with #48 and #115 both score 50, the player who started with #48 will get the lower new tag.
Come out on Saturday for your shot at the black tags. Then you can defend it the next day at the Goat Hill monthly!
San Marcos + Ice Bowl = Fun!
photo courtesy of Lee Beecher
Sixty players filled the course on Saturday for the 5th Annual San Marcos Ice Bowl, and by all accounts the event was a great success. Most importantly, over $1,100 and 200 lbs of canned food were collected for the chosen charity, the North County Food Bank. It was a great field of players, consisting of experienced tournament PDGA pros, first-time players, loosey-goosey amateurs, recreating Marines, two father and two-son trios, a mother-daughter pair, a father-daughter pair and a husband-wife pair. Ample mulligan purchases and use led to some great scores, with Daniel Lichtman taking 1st place in the Men’s Open/Advanced division with a score of 75 for 36 holes, holding off challenges from Carl Renda (78), A.J. Risley (80), Travis Cutler (82) and Dennis Keane (83). Allison Wylot continued her domination of the Women’s Open/Advanced division, winning again with a 2-round total of 101.
Kevin Christie took home the icy trophy in Men’s Intermediate/Recreational, tying Corona’s Darrell Degner with a score of 80 for two rounds and then winning the darkness-infused CTP playoff. Steve Brueker (83), Kyle Becker (84), Brendon Tayag (84) and Chad Nichter (85) also posted great scores. In the Ladies’ Int./Rec. division, first-time tournament player Laura Elliott (124) outlasted Maxine Cook, and newcomer Dakota Sessler (132) won the Junior’s division.
There were side games, too. Carl Renda won a CTP playoff with Kevin Beath to take home the Hole-in-One basket. Carl had aced Hole #7 (sidearm) and Kevin aced Hole #8 (lefty backhand skip) in the first round. Andrew Mills won the long putt contest and its first place Ice Bowl hoodie, while Shannon Wylot won the Juniors long putt contest. Laura Elliott was the winner of Disc Golf Bingo and received a full-color Ice Bowl stamp Roc.
Because of the great numbers of mulligans used during play and the mysterious missing scorecard from round 1 that delayed the start of round 2, playoffs and awards were conducted in the dark. It was quite a sight to see – dozens of people huddled on the basketball court using flashlights and cell phones to read raffle ticket numbers, and everyone in good cheer. Over 30 raffle prizes were handed out, including Ice Bowl-stamped discs and t-shirts, several discs and shirts from SoCal Disc Golf Association, a variety of prizes (hats, t-shirts, towels) from Innova Disc Golf and two gift certificates from Goat Hill Golf Course.
With this win, Daniel takes a 1-point lead in the overall Golden Sombrero points race, one point ahead of Carl and two ahead of A.J. Many thanks to all of the players and to our sponsors and contributors: Innova Disc Golf, SoCal Disc Golf, San Diego Aces, City of San Marcos, Goat Hill Golf Course, Tina’s Deli. Full results available here.
San Diego Aces Disc Golf Club 