ODDS #12: Rice Properties Group's Duck Golf XL - Am Women, Am Age-Restricted, MA3, MA4

Tournament Recap

PDGA B-Tier

November 19th, 2022

First of all, I would like to thank all of the sponsors for supporting this tournament, and to Mike Sullivan and Gabi Sigafoo for always putting on the best tournaments I have had the privilege to attend. I think it’s pretty well known in the DC Metro area that they always host the most incredible events, and this was no exception.

The Course

This tournament was held at Burke Lake Park in Fairfax, Virginia with a slightly modified layout. We played holes 7-10 of the original layout, then temporary field holes A-F, then the original holes 11-18. This modified layout ended up being 6,466 feet (1,971 meters) long. All but 3 of the original holes are tightly wooded and the field holes were all long open holes with a few mandatories and trees to keep things interesting. This is a much safer layout for tournaments than the original park layout. The normal layout has some slightly overlapping fairways in the first 6 holes which is why they were not used during this tournament. Although, holes 8 and 13 run parallel to each other and the baskets are about 40 to 45 feet (12 to 14 ish meters) apart which I thought would cause some problems during the tournament. Luckily everyone was very respectful of each other and made sure each person had the opportunity to tee off on those two holes before all walking down together, almost as if the two cards had acted as one but were throwing to their respective basket. The only time my card really had to watch out for errant throws was on the tee pad for hole 8 as some of the hole 7 drives landed pretty close to us. Luckily no one had to “duck” too many times! 

Preparing for the Tournament

Before getting into each round, I wanted to talk about all the prep work I did to get ready for this tournament. As you might have seen, last weekend, November 12-13th, I played in a tournament in Pennsylvania. Read about how that went here! One of my takeaways from that event was that I needed to work on my approach shots, and I needed to regain confidence in my putting which also took a hit. So, on the Wednesday leading up to the event I went out for my first practice round on the course, although the field holes were not going to be set up until the day of the tournament. I could still tell my confidence was down during that round. Confidence is the biggest factor in hitting your lines in a wooded course. If you don’t feel confident then you will likely miss your intended line. So, I decided that I would make sure to put in some more work in the upcoming days. 

On Thursday, I went out to a local soccer field and worked on my 120-150 foot (36 - 45 meter) approach shots for over an hour. Trying to develop a repeatable technique that I could use to hopefully land close to the basket. At the end of that session I was feeling much better about the shots I would do for that distance, for both forehand and backhand. 

On Friday, I went back out to the course to get another round in while I was feeling more confident in my throws. This was definitely a great idea because I was able to accurately decide what discs to throw on tournament day and what places to aim at to make sure I hit all of my intended gaps. This helped me gain more confidence in my throws and that translated over into the tournament day. Friday night, I also spent another hour practicing my putting to make sure I could shake off any bad spit outs I had the weekend prior. The past two days are what helped lead me to success during this tournament.

Tournament Day

I got to the tournament an hour and a half early to check in, warm up, and practice some of the field holes. During this time I was feeling great. I was hitting all of my lines and my approach shots felt good! I was definitely ready to get this tournament started! 

Round 1 was pretty good! I hit almost all of my lines which is a great statistic for wooded courses! My only issue was that my putting was not amazing, it wasn't bad just not what I’m used to. I was making all of my short putts but some of my longer ones, say past 25 feet, were a little shaky. I even had a long birdie putt on hole 7 that I ended up chaining out on! But I finished the round in the lead by 5 strokes with a +9 and a round rating of 855! 

Round 2 honestly didn’t feel any better with hitting the gaps. I ended up hitting a few more trees but I was having a much better time scrambling and my putting felt amazing! I ended up cashing several edge of circle to outside circle 1 putts! Including a circle 2 birdie putt on hole 7! This definitely helped me throw better and even with a few silly mistakes I was able to shave off 2 strokes from my previous round! I ended this round at +7 over par and with an 876 rated round! I am so happy that I was able to overcome all of the negative emotions from last weekend and come out on top with another win! I even ended up winning by 10 strokes which felt pretty good!

Next Steps

I plan on continuing to work on my approach shots and my putting. However, I also know I need to work on my forehand. There were two holes this past weekend, hole 8 and 13, that I really should have been throwing a forehand on but I just don't feel as confident with it yet. I think if I was able to throw a good solid forehand down the gap, I would have shaved a few strokes off of both rounds. However, gaining an accurate forehand isn’t going to happen overnight. So, that is one of my long term goals. I’m hoping with lots of hard work that I’ll feel more confident in my forehands next year. 

- Jen ♡