For the third year in a row, Chichester Park has played host to Summer League. Designed to be a fun and casual league, this year’s iteration did not disappoint. Over the four weeks we had total of 148 players, including half a dozen people who were playing their first ever organised disc golf event!
With $1 from every player’s entry fee going towards the ace pot, there was a total of $148 up for grabs. Somehow, (maybe because Boat only played one week) we managed to go the entire league without anyone snagging an ace and the loot that goes along with it. We’ll be holding onto that cash and it’ll carry over to Sunset Glow League in April.
Onto some winners and notable performances. Starting with our female beginner division, we had Sharon McCormick take it out for the third year in a row! I had the pleasure of being on her card when she drained a 20m putt on hole 10 for her first ever birdie, the way she celebrated you’d have thought she had just won the ace pot. As much as Sharon loves winning each year, I know she’d love it more if she had some more ladies to compete against so let’s hope we can see some growth in our female divisions over the coming year.
In the mixed beginner division, one of our new faces to the sport, Steve Kirk, managed to throw down four solid performances to claim the top spot. After playing for the first time in late December, Steve caught the bug hard, buying up discs, getting a go-pro to catch his highlights and even venturing out to Red Tail to play his first comp at Mundaring just one month into his playing career. I’m excited to see Steve’s progress over the coming months and years. Speaking of progress, our second place winner is a young man who has developed immensely over the past 12 months. James Lim has learnt to throw far, but more than that, his putt and his shot choice have seen his game go to the next level. James shot a PB of +1 in week 2 and was only a couple of strokes off claiming the top spot on the final day, more big things to come from him I’m sure.
Mixed Intermediate was a tightly fought contest between two long-term members of our community. Kim Holmes (who some might argue has more experience than the entire experienced field combined) showed that precision and consistency are just as important as big putts and long drives. Kim’s three first place finishes saw him edge out Lotus Kingston quite comfortably in the end, although Lotus kept the pressure on right up until the final few holes. Knher Santos claimed third spot just ahead of Jake Kauffmann (by a point, not on a tiebreak like I said at presentations).
Female experienced saw some very hot scores, including a PB for the eventual winner Leah Manning. Leah (Lethal) shot a -7 in week one and didn’t look back from there, claiming top spot every week and completing the clean sweep. In second place, the other half of the Lethal Ninjas, Jo McCamish (Ninja) shot some great rounds as well but just couldn’t quite keep up with the rampaging Leah. It was great to have Sue Summers down for the last two weeks as well, always a pleasure to have the Mundaring crew join us from up on their hill.
Finally, in mixed experienced, Blake Houston was too strong once again, showing why he holds the rank of 3rd highest rated player in Australia. Shooting an incredible -44 over four weeks, Blake managed two first places across the league and it took Alex Kynaston shooting a massive -15 in week two. Rob made it 2/2 second places for the Lim family. Rob threw down -10 for three weeks in a row, well done on a solid performance. Third place was won by the wonderful Ken Summers, Ken has just recovered from elbow and numerous other injuries so to see him put together some great rounds and build his confidence back up was great to see.
I’d love to extend a huge thank you to everyone who made Chichester Summer League the relaxed, friendly and welcoming event that it was. Whether you played every week, only made it for one ore even just followed along with the scores on Facebook, thank you for being part of it. If you like what we are doing here at Sunset Coast Disc Golf Club, can I encourage you to sign up as a member, it’s not a lot of money but it helps us to cover the costs of running a club and any extra money we make will be going towards trying to get some new courses installed around Perth.
Finally, we will be jumping on the bandwagon of the social leagues. With the huge success of Chichester Summer League and Free and Curtin Socials doing well further south we thought we’d come on board and run the Chichester Social every Friday. For some, even the pressure of Summer League is too much of a barrier for making that first step into organised disc golf so we hope that Chichester Social can offer new players a low pressure environment to come and meet some new people and join the community. Keep an eye out for more details coming very soon!
Winners:
Mixed Experienced:
1st – Blake Houston
2nd – Rob Lim
3rd – Ken Summers
Female Experienced:
1st – Leah Manning
2nd – Jo McCamish
3rd – Sue Summers
Mixed Intermediate:
1st – Kim Holmes
2nd – Lotus Kingston
3rd – Knher Santos
Mixed Beginner:
1st – Steve Kirk
2nd – James Lim
3rd – Mason Williams
Female Beginner:
1st – Sharon McCormick