Da Blahg is Back with Dawn Patrol Disc Golf

First of all, DeLaBlahg is happy to be back online, and ecstatic to be a part of santacruzdiscgolf.com. Eventually the DeLaBlahg archives will be moved in entirety to its new home here, but for now a little fresh and current blogging.

I played a true dawn patrol round this morning at our glorious course, starting at 7:07 AM as the sun began to rise over the ocean. The mixture of orange and pale blue hues in the sky, absolute quiet, and air as fresh as that anywhere in the world repaid me right there and then for dragging myself out of bed at 5:45. Then it was time to start throwing discs, and the amazing aesthetics dissolved into the background replaced by the difficulties associated with 40-degree temperatures.

After earning bogeys on three of the first 4 holes and feeling like my cold rigid body would never loosen up that day, I told Assaf that I would be "ecstatic" if I could just get back to par today. And believe me, I meant it! Standing on the tee for hole 5, just getting par on all of the remaining mostly long holes seemed an arduous task. Some days are just like that.

Anyone who has read my blog knows that I'm constantly looking for ways to stay positive and focused. This time, after collecting a couple pars on holes five and six, I decided I'd project my situation onto the Masters Cup. It's our biggest tourney of the year at DeLa (obviously, as an NT event) and I asked myself 'what would I do if for whatever reason my first round in the Masters Cup started like this? Would I pack it in and decide six holes into an 81-hole event that it just wasn't my year, or maybe start attempting risky long putts in an attempt to surge back quickly? I hope not. On days when the putting touch isn't there, and maybe the luck seems a little cruel, you just gotta grind it out- so that's what I decided to do.

On hole 7 long I needed a downhill 40-foot putt for par- and got it. Hole 9 wasn't much different, and 11 (now in the sadistic long-left placement) required an improbable hyzered skip shot for a routine par. Finally on 12 I collected a birdie, and after a typical 4 on hole 13 I was done bogeying for the day.

Mixing in a few more birdies (15, 19, 21 and 23) enabled me to crawl back under par for the round, and if it had been the first round of the Masters Cup I would have been satisfied with the strong finish. I think it's more grafifying to shoot a -1 on an off-day than a -7 when I'm feelin' it. And even if the round had continued as it started, we had the course pretty much to ourselves for 2.5 hours and the weather warmed to t-shirt weather. All things considered, and with the right perspective, it was impossible to have a "bad" round.