New Zealand Disc Golf Championship 2007
Brook Park, Te Kuiti
February 4-6 2007

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2007 New Zealand Disc Golf Nationals
The Te Kuiti Experience - by Bob Gentil

Turning up at Brook Park in Te Kuiti as the morning round of Doubles players were coming in with stories of long grass and lost discs, I felt for the joint TD’s Simon and Nigel H.

Christmas Special - Andrew Taylor (Tauranga) is already trying to 'lean' his disc back to the right towards the group in front who are just below the basket target.

They had made late changes to the course already after many players had dropped by for a practice round and found the layout a little more than testing, and on top of that the local district council had promised to have the park in pristine condition for what should have been the biggest and highest profile event on the National tour and had sadly let them down. The grass was waist high and the hidden undulated terrain was waiting to test the strongest of ankles.

Scarface Got Nothing on This! - Bruno Whale(Taumarunuia) is showing signs of disc recovery after an initial recce of the course..

Most players were happy with the course but spotters were needed on most holes to help speed up the rounds. 

I would also like to note that a true test for Disc Golfers is not just about who can throw the longest, it’s nice to have a course that tests your up shots and placement, not to mention your putting skills. To that end it was sad 8 year old Toby couldn’t be expected to make his way around Brook Park and missed his first Nationals in 5 years. Also it was only after problems in the opening round that woman’s tees were added on some of the very long holes. I feel it’s important to cater for all divisions if we want our sport to grow. Maybe that’s the reason we sadly only had 22 players at Te Kuiti?

The Fenceline Tour - Keen golfers walk up the fairway of hole 7 where Simon Feasey scored an ace - but into the wrong basket! He potted his drive into the chains of hole 5 down the left bank!!.

Any way I digress... After the two rounds of doubles on the Sunday it was the Wellington pairing of Dylan Cooper and Matt Cutler who held off a strong challenge by the Lost Tribes Blair Joins and son Bruno to take it by 1, with another 3 shots back to Speedo Keene and Josh Smith in third. I followed around the pairing of Juan Unda and Marty de Haas and never before have I seen as many foot faults called ... all by Juan against his partner ... Something’s just not right there..!

When it came to the singles competition my thoughts that par would be a good round was pretty much on the mark. If you could get par or slightly better you would probably make the top group. Surprise surprise Simon came in with a 53, Blair a 54 and Dave Keene a 56, Fish and Dylan Cooper were next best on 58.

By the time the cards came in after round 2 Simon still led by 2 shots over Blair with the top group for round 3 the next day being made up of Dylan on 114 and Seip tied for 4th at this stage on 115.

After the morning round on the final day the only change to the top group was Dylan slipping back to the second group and yours truly making the top 4 for the final round. There was only 1 shot separating Simon and Blair and daylight back too the rest of us.

It was a great round to be part of with Blair’s challenge to Simons lead on right until the last putt on the final hole of the tournament.

Oh and just when I was thinking 3rd overall was pretty good for an old fella, Speedo Keene comes in with a course record 51 to slip past Seip and my self to take the third spot on the podium.

Congratulations to all who competed and the divisional winners, Simon the Open, Ming the Woman’s, Yours truly the Masters, Pete Boyle the Grand Masters and Bruno Whale the Under 19’s.