If there is one thing that was proven at the 2007 Australian Disc Golf Championships is that the Swedish know their disc golf, but the Aussies are never too far behind.  The event that capped off the inaugural year of the Australian Disc Golf Tour was very well attended, leaving little doubt of the growth of disc golf in Australia over the last few years has been larger than what most of us expected.  It was a lot of work for many of us, getting players packages together, inputting scores and making sure overall everyone was having a good time, but needless to say we were very pleased with the turnout and the smoothness of how everything ran.

The course layouts used for the event on Saturday showed us all two things, 1. that disc golf can be very frustrating, especially when you are continually losing discs in the infamous Macq uni pond! and 2. Martin Ryland and Kurt Karlsson can design some pretty mean courses when they want to. Overall, the scores showed the level of difficulty of the course and the consensus amongst the players was that it was very appropriate for a national championships. Despite the very large number of discs that ended up in the drink on Saturday, the course proved to be challenging to all levels of play. Also a great big thanks to Sally Hill for providing a very yummy lunch.  Saturday also introduced the newly designed ADG National Bag Tags, some of you may already have some State bag tags, but the National bag tags were introduced at this event and if you didnt get one, you missed out (sort of! I still have a few).  Everyone seemed to enjoy the additional challenges placed on players to keep or upgrade their tag numbers and the elusive tag 0001 changed hands many times.
 
Members of the Sydney Disc Golf Club decided that the brutality of the course layouts at Macquarie Uni were probably enough to create a significant separation between player’s scores and decided to ‘go easy’ on the difficulty of the layour on Sunday play which was held at the newly installed Sydney Olympic Park Disc Golf Course at Newington Armory.  The weather held out beautifully and even though it looked like I was severely stressed out I had a lot of fun. The action was very hot and even though Kurt had a commanding lead, Erik Dahl wasnt fazed and was going for the jugular at every opportunity. I couldnt see much from the second group but it was a very hotly contested morning of play before the groups were reshuffled for another quick 9 holes after lunch and the grand finale 9 to be contested between the four top Open Mens and Womens.  Cassie Anderson proved too good for Sally Hill and Uai Stack and her consistent play on both days of the competition didnt only get her the first place trophy but it also got her every single CTP prize in the Womens category.  The mens was another issue, Kurt decided to rearrange the holes to be played which allowed for some spectators to have a close watch at the action and the opportunity to take some photos (which by the way if any of you have some and would like to share them, please email them to info@australiandiscgolf.com).  In the end, although there were some scoring discrepancies (which have since been resolved with little bloodshed), the leaders were pretty clearcut. Kurt had us all by an obscene margin followed by Erik Dahl. Third outright was taken by our own Andrew Ferguson from Victoria much to the pleasure of Paul Arden who was heard for kilometers yelling; "Victorian Power!!!".
 
Thanks a lot and we will be announcing the dates and venues for the 2008 tour very soon!
 
Albert Munoz
Co-TD Australian Disc Golf Championships

Results – Australian Disc Golf Championships
October 27th-28th 2007