2022 Women’s Open of Pennsylvania Presented by Home Again Disc Golf Tournament Recap

November 12-13, 2022

Before I get into all of the details about how I played, I wanted to thank all of the sponsors, TD’s, volunteers, and spotters for this event. I also wanted to give a special thank you to Greg, the owner of Hidden Hollow, for allowing us to all come to his property to practice for the event and for holding this tournament there. The courses were in pristine condition and it was amazing how much support this tournament had from the local community. I would definitely recommend this event in the future to other women who are looking for a more competitive tournament setting. Thank you again to all of the aforementioned people for hosting such a spectacular event. 

The Courses

This tournament was a three round, two day event. The first day we played two rounds at Hidden Hollow Disc Golf Course, a private course in Dover, PA. This course is fairly short at a total of 4,148 ft (1,264.31 m) with twelve of the eighteen holes being under 250 ft (76.2 m). This is a wooded course, but it did have distinct fairways which is nice. Although, several of the holes had Out-of-Bounds (OB) within 5 ft of the basket and the 17th and 18th fairway cross slightly. The course owner has put in a lot of effort into his course. There are ropes to help people walk down the hills, stairs, wooden platforms, and benches on most holes. I think this course is a very nice one, especially for a short technical course. In fact, it is probably one of the better home courses I have ever played, and I would recommend playing it if you have the time. However, I do not think it was the best course for a B-Tier tournament. This event is supposed to be the big women’s event in Pennsylvania, and therefore the courses should match the prestige. To me, this course is too short and the OB comes too close to some of the baskets. The main landing zone shouldn’t be a 5 ft radius around the basket. I love wooded courses, especially the more I play them. However, this one was almost more difficult for those who could throw further because we had to power down so much. I found I was losing the accuracy I needed in the woods because I was having to switch to only stand stills and then power down on the throws. I don’t think every hole has to be a bomber of a throw, but powering down that much on 12 of the 18 holes is a bit much. Another problem is how the 17th and 18th fairways cross, it even ended up causing some drama during round 1 of the tournament. Once again, this is a beautiful and a very nice course, just not one that should have been used for this event. 

The second course we played was Klines Run Disc Golf Course, a public course in Wrightsville, PA. We only played one round at this 5194 ft (1583.131 m) course, or 6827 ft (2080.87 m) for the FPO divisions. The local club had put in a lot of effort into making this course tournament ready by blowing most of the leaves off of the course so it would be easier to find discs during the tournament. This was huge and definitely helped with the keep up the pace of play. Klines Run is a beautiful course with most of the holes having a view over the Susquehanna River. There is a lot of elevation on this course, all of the holes you would either be throwing up or down hill on at least one of your throws. This is normally fun, unfortunately for us we also had to deal with up to 20 mph gusts of wind that made it much more complicated. However, I think this course is perfect for a tournament of this caliber. It has difficulty with the elevation and trees while still being fair if you stay on the intended fairway. In practice, when there wasn’t much wind, I found par to be very doable on every hole. In conclusion, Klines Run is perfect for this event but I think another course in the Lancaster area would have been a better fit for the first course. Plus, the two courses would be close together making it easier for people to stay in the Lancaster area without having to travel further to get to the other course. 

My Rounds

During rounds 1 and 2 I ended up getting some unfortunate tree kicks that put me into difficult places to scramble from or landing me in OB. I think this hurt my confidence levels a little because approach shots between 150 and 80 ft have always been the weakest part of my game. Luckily my putting felt pretty good! On the holes where I could do a run up, I did much better. I think it’s a confidence problem I have with those shorter throws that are just outside of jump putt range that ended up being exposed during this tournament. 

Round 3 ended up being even worse for me. The lack of confidence from the first day carried over into this round. It's never good to not be confident with your throw, but especially when it's windy and hilly. My drives were pretty good but the lack of confidence ended up affecting my putts as well. Overall, this was my worst performance in a tournament since the Women’s Open of Maryland in May. However even though I feel like I played terribly, my round ratings were all still above my current rating and I ended up taking third place out of nine competitors. The only blame I can place is on myself. I knew the first course would be a pitch and putt style course and I should have worked more on those shorter throws before the event took place. 

Next Steps

This tournament was a great learning experience for me. One saying I love is that “Winning is fun, but losing teaches me more”. I definitely learned and had my weaknesses exposed during this event. That's ok, it only means that I have room for growth. The goal going forward is to work on my approach shots to help gain back the confidence I lost in them. Hopefully, with hard work I can get back to feeling good about that part of my game. I'm almost happy that I didn't play to my best because I think I needed the push to work on that part of my game. I was able to get though the past seven events by winning and not really worrying about those shorter throws. Now it has been brought back into my mind as something that needs work. Next up is another B-Tier tournament this weekend! I'm excited to gain back the confidence in my game and compete again! 

- Jen ♡