It’s six weeks after I won my first Advanced tournament at Doug and Mary’s course in Eden, NY. This time with more competitors, including the oh so elusive brother of mine, Dylan (He claims I only won the NYS Championships because he wasn’t there). I seem to have this curse that just does not let me beat my brother at tournaments, and of course it always seems to be no more than a 3 stroke gap. My goal is not only to demolish my brother, but to shred this course and come away with my second win proving that I’m a champ champ by defending my title at Hawk’s Landing. These events have started turning into a family outing as my Uncle Rick is also playing in the Intermediate field. This is a 2 day, 4 round B-Tier event. Let me tell you a little story about how it went down…

Day 1

… it started off ROUGH! I was fortunate to get to play on the same card as Dylan, and for this tournament our division played in groups of 5 because we had 15 players in the division. We started out on the white tees for the tournament. It’s a challenging course with tight woods and tricky lines that most players aren’t required to throw often. From the white’s I typically want to shoot -3 to -5 to feel like I had an average round. I’m sure most people can relate, but this was one of those rounds where absolutely nothing was clicking. I was getting into my head on short putts and missing and I couldn’t hit a line in the woods if my life depended on it. It was just one of those rounds… After reading this post, go check out my Instagram to see some highlights (fails compilation) from the first two rounds. Everything was off by inches. I ended up shooting a 55 (+1) rated 874 that landed me in 11th place and a spot on bottom card while Dylan shot a 53 (-1) rated 899 and was in the middle of the pack at 6th. Really a poor performance according to both of our standards. At this point I’m rated 916 and Dylan is rated 918 which means we shot below our rating.

Round two from the blue tees ended up being a little better. If I shoot a poor round like I did in round one, my goal is always to do better in the preceding rounds. As long as I do that I feel like I accomplished something. I managed to hit some seriously tight lines and get myself looking at putts on most holes, but just like round one I was still missing those short birdie putts because I couldn’t stop thinking about my putt. The mechanics were just completely off which I noticed afterwards looking back at some of my putts in videos. This round I played with a great group of guys that have many many years of experience in the sport. John Mikulec and Billy Tedesco shared some awesome stories of times they were on the road for disc golf events. I also had the honor of playing with Jackson Rotella who is only 19 and has been around disc golf his whole life. He had some of the smoothest form I’ve seen and hit some incredible putts in this round to shoot a hot 49 (-5) which came in at 1000 rated! Dylan shot a solid 52 (-3) rated 968 which jumped him all the way up to 2nd place and only one stroke behind the lead! I shot another 55 (+1) which was rated 936 and managed to squeak up a few spots into 8th place, 6 strokes behind Jackson.

Day 2

Now it’s Sunday and my main focus is to make it back to the lead card with my brother. Of course I’d love to win, but at this point I want to keep my expectations low to reduce the pressure on myself. We are scheduled to play the blue tees the first round, then finish on the white tees for the final round. Today was a different day than the day before, I could feel it! I was hitting lines like it was my job! The only problem was I still couldn’t hit those must get birdie putts I was leaving myself. I even had a perfect putt cut right through the chains and plop on the ground. Always devastating… No matter though! I managed to shoot a 54 (E) rated 946 and the round just felt calm. There was very little stress and I did manage to birdie some of the hardest holes on the course which boosted my morale for sure. And guess what?? It was enough to make lead card for the final round with Dylan! I pulled off some sort of miracle and managed to jump up to 5th place and end up right where I wanted to be. Playing with the best.

The final round was a mix of new players (new to me) and a few familiar players. Jackson Rotella, the 19 year old stud that throws smooth in the lead at -7 under par. Patrick Schwagler, the first time tournament player that has been playing on lead card the entire tournament in 2nd place at -4. Dylan, well we know Dylan by now sitting in 3rd place at -3. Nick Wolcott, who I met a few years back and is a great guy to play with is at even par and myself in 5th at +2. Now I have nothing to lose, time to let it loose and see what I can pull off! For the most part it was a relaxing round for myself, I was on at this point and hitting some of those long putts I’m used to making.

Hole 14 is a challenging hole that puts a lot of pressure on players because the basket it only a few feet from an OB pond, and it’s also blind from the tee. It plays as a righty backhand hyzer and has a short net that can actually prevent a disc from going OB. We now have two holes left, this one and hole 15. I had 5 birdies up to this point and wasn’t far out of the lead! I was shooting the hot round and could feel it. Our card was the only one in the whole tournament not doing live scoring because we had no cell service on our phones. I walked up to this hole and threw my blend Judge, I decided to throw a softer plastic so it wouldn’t have a chance of skipping over the net. I threw it up to the right, nice and high to allow it to spike towards the basket and… SMASH! I hit chains and saw the putter trickle out from behind the tree blocking our view of the basket, I was so close to getting my first tournament ace!

After everyone tees off, we are walking down the fairway and Jackson asks me to see the scorecard. He knew he wasn’t having a great round and Dylan and Patrick were likely very close to him. After adding up the scores he realized he needs to make this 45 foot death putt straight at OB because both Dylan and Pat had him by one stroke going into the last hole. Would you believe this kid made the high level pressure putt to make it a 3 way tie going into the last hole? Unbelievable.

This last hole is no joke, a very tight line with a mandatory left. The basket is out in the only open field on the course and requires either a high turn over backhand or a forehand that either skips to the basket or is high enough to fade all the way out there. All 5 of us hit the gap and get out to the field which is honestly very impressive. Now it’s a putt-off and everyone that needs to make a putt is outside of the putting circle. Dylan goes first. Unfortunately he did not fully commit to the putt and it fades off before hitting the basket. Jackson is next, with roughly a 40 foot putt. He hits the front of the cage. Now it’s up to Patrick with a putt from just outside the circle. He lines up a step putt which he has been making a lot throughout the tournament. He put it up and cashed the putt for the win! His first tournament ever and he beats a very impressive Advanced field at a very technical course. Congrats to Pat!

For myself, I managed to birdie the last two holes and finished with the hot round 48 (-6) rated 963 which is among one of my highest rated rounds to date. This also snagged me a tie for 4th and only 3 strokes away from first! I walked away from this tournament proud to have come back in such a fashion and finish strong. I also realized I have a lot of work to do in my putting game.

All in all this was an awesome event for the entire Hann clan as well as the DeMarco family! Grandpa DeMarco took down 2nd in Intermediate while his grandson Brandon DeMarco managed to take down the win in the same division! Dylan finished in 2nd in Advance, myself in 4th, and my Uncle Rick managed to work his way up the leaderboards with 7 birdies in a row from the reds to take 4th in Intermediate!

Be sure to follow me on Instagram or Facebook so you can follow along as I try to remold my putting game! For the month of September I’m going to commit to 30 days of putting 30 minutes a day and really try to put together a good putting stroke, I’d love to see some of you do it with me! I will play a variety of games as well as try other proven techniques from other pros to improve this aspect of my game.