2017-03-27 Long Holes I played my first big tournament [0] yesterday: 18 holes, 85--200 meters. That's much more than everything I played before. Let's start with the putting. After last week's windy situations, I thought a lot about my putting and came to the conclusion that I should switch more from push to spin putting. I did so today, thus getting some longer putts in. There were few putts that I missed but shouldn't have and there were no bad outcomes of longer putts I failed. Compared to the previous months I layed up less often intensionally, rather I ran the putt if a miss would likely stay within five meters. Overall, I'm satisfied with my putting. Spin-putting is the way to go. Next to putter driving. After the bad experiences with my P2 last week, I bagged the more shallow Pure in hope for cleaner releases. Again we had some wind, though not as much. I ended in not throwing the putter a single time. I was too unsure about it. Instead I used the Comet for all those upshots. I would feel much more secure with the putter without wind. The Comet, however, worked just well. For the second round I left the Pure in the car. The Comet was the only midrange I carried with me. I felt no need for anything else. On these long holes I drove with my fairways almost always. Maybe I should have used the Comet more often. I release cleaner with it and with a bit of wind it goes far as well. If I threw the Comet I usually aimed too low; it never rose up high but often cut the grass. My best shot was a blind 15m spike hyzer around a tree right into the basket ... with the Comet! Then the fairways. I started with my overstable Champ Teebird, my light Star Teebird and my JLS. For the second round I added the Leopard to the bag. I had hardly any experience with fairway drivers on the course; had just thrown them on the field. These long hole motivated me to drive with the fairways and the slight wind pushed me into driving harder than usual. Also, I used an X-step from the teepad on open holes. The X-step lead to a lot of shots high into the air. Sadly I achieved few low fair- way drives. This is the biggest technical problem in retrospec- tive. Especially the JLS had so much uplift. I should have thrown that much lower (or more nose down). But the good things: I usually picked the right disc. Compared to the other players in my flight, my disc turned only a single time. I had unwanted large fades left only few times (although I often threw too high). I did really well with my disc selection. My problem was more the overlap among the three straighter fair- ways (S-TB, JLS, Leo). The Leo helped with some of the more rightish lines, but if I would have been better with my anny releases, the JLS could have covered that as well. Same for the Star Teebird and the JLS. There is a lot of overlap. I should note that I released the discs almost always flat. That's what I practiced most and that gave me the most confidence. Seems I should work more with different release angles to react on the overlap. Then the JLS could cover the S-TB and Leo lines. In general, I should work more with the JLS. (Btw: I regret having bought both JLS in dark colors. Well, the purple one is too beau- tiful ... but the reddish one I should have bought in bright orange or so.) The overstable Champ Teebird is an indispensible disc in my bag. It was my out-of-trouble disc. I used it for the overheads, for the hard bends, for the forehands. It fills a unique spot. There wasn't a disc I really missed, i.e. a line that wasn't covered. Well, it kind of was on one hole, but the Leopard filled that nicely in the second round. My most important discs were the P2 putter, the Comet, the JLS and my overstable Champ Teebird. I could have well played with them alone. The light Star Teebird and the Leopard only replaced release angles of the JLS. If I had to carry only three discs, I might have chosen, P2, Comet and Star Teebird (as a compromise ... or maybe the JLS still) ... but, well, maybe I even would have picked the overstable Teebird and used the Comet for all straight shots. My forehands, which I threw less often than the others, had surprisingly good technique (guessed from flight cleanness) and none of these throws left me on a bad spot. Maybe I should facil- itate them more often, i.e. not only for sharp doglegs right but also for longer rightish drives. My worst holes were one where I couldn't manage to get me back out of the woods (scoring an 8 on par 4) and another where I missed the mando and the putt (scoring 7 on par 4). Out of the 2x18 holes, I could reach par only three times, all of them on the shortest holes, of course. Smoother throws could have helped me score better, I assume now, afterwards. In the end I came in second-to-last, with the same score as the last one, but a better best round. Par was 104, I had 147, which is 43 over par. [1] Looking back, it feels as if this big tournament was a bit too much for me. The P&A last week was just right but that now demanded more than I could deliver. Of course, I learned a lot, but relativly not as much as last week. Currently I wonder if I should play disc golf more casual (instead of challenging myself with such tournaments). Do I really want to start playing disc golf intensively? Hardly. Discgolf is more of an emptiness fill- er, I think, and I have (had?) a lot of challenge and fun under- standing it. [0] http://www.discgolfturnier.de/event- details.html?event_id=127 [1] http://www.discgolfturnier.de/ergebnisse.html?event_id=127&Event_Name=03_DGCA_New_Season_Safari http://marmaro.de/discgolf/ markus schnalke