Category: Club Days

R12: Athllon Park

The thrilling finale of the 2024 season’s first round took place at Athllon Park, where 35 determined players braved the elements. Despite the chilly, windy, and occasionally rainy weather, the turnout was fantastic, especially considering many regulars were away, gearing up for the QLD Open.

With season titles on the line in all three grades, the atmosphere buzzed with excitement. Competitive pairings were made for A and C grade on the same card, forming the honorary lead card for the day:
A grade – Dan Frost v Zac James
B grade – Peter Bligh v Roland Kaschula
C grade – Steven Khoupongsy v Rhys Shelley-Jones

But before we get into the season results a few big shootouts to winners on the day.

Grade winners:
A grade was won by Dan Frost with a raw score of -5, +38 points above handicap and 1001 rated
B grade was won by Jeremy Davies who shot +32 above handicap
C grade was won by Tarni Cunningham who shot a +60 above handicap and was also best player on the day!

CTP winners:
A grade – Dan Frost
B grade – Josh Sargent
C grade – Jackson Leckie

Winners vouchers are in the mail!

Now back to the battle for season winners.

C grade featured a nail-biting showdown with Rhys (+12) narrowly edging out Steven (+13) on the day. However, after accounting for handicaps, Steven emerged victorious with a total score of 131 to 122. Both players had a sensational season and are set to clash again next season, promising more thrilling competition.

Unfortunately, Roland couldn’t make it, giving Peter a clear run at the B grade title. However, Peter still had to play his best. In the end, Peter clinched the B grade title by a single point — a testament to the razor-thin margin, as that one point equated to just one shot difference.

In A grade, Dan delivered an impressive performance with a score of -5, while Zac followed closely with -3, marking the two best scratch scores of the day. Ultimately that meant Dan reigned supreme, taking the A grade title with a score of 105 to Zac’s 100.

We had 491 registrations across the 12 club day events, which is about 40 players a fortnight. To put that into context this season has seen the largest participation numbers we’ve seen as a club.

My personal season highlights were seeing so many new faces come to club days and being able to put names to friendly faces I see out casually on course, in particular the increase of juniors that have started to participate in club days.

The ace pot that was there to be won after jackpotting for all of 2023! Nick Greeney’s 2 aces before and after the round, followed by Nicholas Hall also making 2 aces after the club day – both missing the window and ultimately Emma Hayes cashing that Sensei on hole 3 to win!

A huge congratulations to everyone that participated, won or contributed to the success of season 1 of 2024!

I look forward to seeing everyone at The Drizzler for our 3rd PDGA sanctioned event of the year at Weston Park on the 13th and 14th of July. If you aren’t able to attend you are always welcome to come along or reach out to assist with event organisation.

Otherwise next season will start at John Knight Park on the 20th of July.

Well well! It’s been a while – life has been busy – but there are a few nice photos and stories I’d like to share from the last 3 club days – strap in!

We’ve had a fantastic showing at all 3 club days. Maybe it’s the ace pot, maybe it’s the weather, or maybe there are just lots of keen beans getting out and about all over the place. Either way, it’s been great to see a lot of faces out there, both old and new 😍

R4: Athllon Park

34 ventured out to Athllon Park for the inaugural club day on the Blue layout. Thanks to all those who helped establish a ratings profile in the week leading up to the event!

Big shout outs to club pres Adam Stewart for a huge A grade win (-4; +68), Chris Krajacic taking the B grade lunch money (+3; +47) and Tony Brown for cleaning up C grade (+18; +44).

Many holes went unbirdied (1, 4, 6, 7, 8, 11) – natural on a tricky course with little practice on the new holes – but it will be interesting to compare the scoring profile from this club day to the one this weekend (I’ve seen some amazing scores making the rounds lately).

Register for this weekend’s club day here!

R5: John Knight Park

Cash is king, as evidenced by the amount of OB strokes and pars taken by 44 ravenous souls in the search for the elusive ace at ace run central AKA John Knight Park!

Special mentions to Adam Stewart (A grade; -12; +19), Margaret Traill (B grade; -2; +101) and Clare Thomas (C grade; +10; +98) for their big handicap wins!

Another very special mention to certified club legend Nick Greeney for his astounding performance in the lead up to and directly following the club day round. Nick managed to ace hole 2 before the round, and hole 1 straight after the round (but importantly, nothing during the round). Luckily no small children were around to hear his expletives echoing around the park, but some say the wailing echoes can still be heard during late night glow rounds…

In any case, now at $699, the ace pot lives on! Though with the move to the A-pin layout, something tells me it won’t last long.

R6: Eddison Park

Windy and dewy conditions greeted a massive 42 players on our return to 10am starts.

Choccies on handicap went to Dan Frost (A grade; -12; +48), Roland Kaschula (B grade; -2; +54) and Peter Hall (C grade; +5; +48).

A huge shout out must be given to young gun Harry Murray for a blistering 982 rated -9 (169 points above his rating). We hope to see a lot more of him at our upcoming club days and tournaments!

The warm glowing warming glow

The ACT Disc Golf Club glow series has returned for 2024! The schedule can be viewed here.

If you’ve never played before, all you need is a glow disc. More than one is preferable for the longer courses (though note we don’t play any really long layouts).

There will usually be enough people around with a torch who are happy to share, but they can also be bought online (search UV torch, and get one with a decent amount of bulbs).

Remember to not park within the gated sections of the parks, as the gates close early.

• For JKP, park outside the main entrance
• For Eddison, park at hole 1
• For Weston, park at the dog park
• For Athllon, park at regular HQ near hole 1

A massive 41 players made up the field on the latest instalment of club day at John Knight Park.

Some new players joined in the action – Dan Buttress, Josh Sargent and Timothy McIntyre – welcome!

Special mentions of the day:

• Ryan Goad for taking out A grade with a sublime -13 (40 points above his rating)
• Carol Hartley for winning B grade with an absolutely clinical bogey-free -6 (a massive 125 points above her rating and a new PB)
• Tim Potter for cleaning up C grade with an astonishing -4 (a gargantuan (I’m running out of adjectives here) 152 points above his rating)
• Ryan Goad and Dan Frost for splitting the scratch pot with a couple of -13s
• Honourable mentions to Tony (+2, +131pts), Jeremy Sakul-Thongbai (+1, +128pts), Tony Mumford (+10, +111pts) and Harry Murray (-10, +106pts) for their fantastic rounds
• Joshua Conroy and Peter Bligh for taking the only birdies on hole 14 – well done!
• Hole 14 for claiming 9 OB strokes 👿
• The 💸ace pot💸 for surviving yet another club day at John Knight Park, and all the OB strokes that were taken in vain (I’m looking at you Zac) (this is a direct copy-paste from the December club day 🤣)

Join us for the next club day at Weston Park on 10 February – register here (gold) or here (white). It’ll be a good chance to get in some practice for the Sizzler (noting the Sizzler layout contains quite a few modifications – see below).

Memberships

If you haven’t done so already, consider becoming a member for access to cheaper club days! Silver fees are recouped after attending 3 club days, and Gold fees after just 5 club days! So, if you plan on attending more club days than that over the course of the year, it’s a no-brainer!

Membership fees strengthen the support base (helpful when approaching the government for permission/funding), and they also go a huge way to enabling us to design and install new courses, and maintain our existing ones.

Sizzler 2024

We’re now very much moving into the final stages of preparation for the 2024 Sizzler, presented by Choices Flooring (24-26 February). For those unaware, the Sizzler is the ACT Disc Golf Championships, one of the major tournaments on the Australian Disc Golf tour. We’re expecting a full field of 144 players (including over 30 professionals) to attend, many of whom will be coming from interstate.

If you’re not planning to play in the tournament, please come out and watch some of the action. It’s always more fun to have to make a 6m putt in front of a crowd!

If you’re feeling very generous and want to volunteer your time to help make the event be the best it can be, please let us know on Facebook or shoot us an email. Volunteer roles include player check-ins, spotting, directing, course preparation, course pack-up, etc.

A new year, a new start, and what a start it was! A club record turnout of 51 showed up to crowd-favourite Eddison Park, overcoming a dewey start and a steamy finish to post some impressive scores!

Jeremy Sakul-Thongbai, James Kenna, Timothy McIntyre and Matt Bradley all made their club day debuts – welcome!

We also welcomed Jindy regulars Adam, Baz and Julie, while Sydneysiders Rhys and Liam made the journey south.

Some special mentions:

• Shaun Archer for edging out the A grade win over Zac James with a -7, 27 points above his rating
• Liam Aungle for the B grade with a -5, 77 points above his rating
• Steven Khoupongsy for taking out C grade with a +5, a whopping 155 points above his rating! 🔥
• CTP winners Aaron Curtis (A grade), Angelo Arcidiacono (B grade) and Paul Jackson (C grade)
• Jade Brady and Dan Frost for splitting the scratch win at -10
• Shaun Archer for getting the only birdie on hole 16 💪
• Our dear president Adam Stewart for spending more time in the drain than he did out of it on hole 18 😆
• Jamie Belcher for coming before tee off to get his club shirt, letting himself be talked into playing club day, paying for club day, borrowing a pair of shoes, throwing practice shots, then deciding against playing at the last minute as he had washing to do at home.

What’s on next?

Looking forward, we have two club days coming up:

• John Knight Park on 28 January – register here – the ace pot is LARGE 💰🤑
• Weston Park (gold and white) on 10 February – register here (gold) or here (white)

Remember that from next club day onwards, half-priced entry is only available to members at Silver tier or above. Check out our membership options here. Silver fees are recouped after attending 3 club days, and Gold fees after just 5 club days! So, if you plan on attending more club days than that over the course of the year, it’s a no-brainer!

Membership fees strengthen the support base (helpful when approaching the government for permission/funding), and they also go a huge way to enabling us to design and install new courses, and maintain our existing ones.

Sizzler 2024

After that, we move into the final stages of preparation for the 2024 Sizzler, presented by Choices Flooring (24-26 February). For those unaware, the Sizzler is the ACT Disc Golf Championships, one of the major tournaments on the Australian Disc Golf tour. We’re expecting a full field of 144 players (including over 30 professionals) to attend, many of whom will be coming from interstate.

If you’re not planning to play in the tournament, please come out and watch some of the action. It’s always more fun to have to make a 6m putt in front of a crowd!

If you’re feeling very generous and want to volunteer your time to help make the event be the best it can be, please let us know on Facebook or shoot us an email. Volunteer roles include player check-ins, spotting, directing, course preparation, course pack-up, etc.

It was clear yet blustery conditions that greeted us on our last club day outing of 2023. 23 players showed up to tackle the gold layout (including a couple of strong contingents from Jindy and Camden), while 9 opted for the white layout.

With season prizes on the line, there were a few close races across the 3 grades going into the round:

• Dan Frost led Aaron Curtis by 1 point in A grade.
• Shane Bailey led Ian Warren by 3 points in B grade.
• Alex Marshall led Carol Hartley by 2 points in C grade.

Would it stay that way? Read on to find out!

After the round, the club hosted a BBQ, which club legend Monir Farhadi agreed to organise. Incredible patties, soft potatoes, juicy snags, a wide selection of Kirks beverages, plus melted ice creams – Monir did an amazing job to both organise everything and also find time to play a half decent round of his own. Thanks Monir, you truly lived up to the hype!

A few shoutouts on the day:

• Adam Rigby for taking out A grade on the day, shooting a handy -3 on the golds (41 points above his rating)
• Shyam Bhatia with the win in B grade, shooting a fantastic -8 on the whites (67 points above his rating)
• Tim Potter for crushing C grade, shooting +32 on the golds (a whopping 81 points above his rating)
• CTP winners Jade Brady (A grade), Tom Rugg (B grade) and Baz Heath (C grade).
• Jade Brady for taking out the scratch win with a very solid -8.
• Steven Khoupongsy (+76 pts) and Carol Hartley (+52 pts) for putting in some fantastic rounds, but not quite enough to get the handicap win.
• The Jindy contingent Adam, Julie, Margaret and Baz, and the Camden contingent Dave, Troy and Josh, for coming all the way from their respective regions!
• Gold holes 5, 6, 12, 13, 14 and 23, and white holes 10, 15 and 18, for remaining unbirdied all day ❌🐤 (I’ll be honest, that was more holes than I was expecting when I started typing this sentence).
• Gold hole 12 for taking everyone’s lunch money.

Full results here and here.

2023 Season 2 results

Down to business!

As the results came in, and the sausages went down, the gears of the spreadsheet were turning, and our dear President Adam Stewart finally took to the makeshift pulpit to put us out of our misery.

• In a huge twist, Jade’s final round was good enough to leapfrog both Dan and Aaron to take out A grade.
• Shane held off Ian and Monir to take home the B grade choccies.
• Carol was untouchable in C grade over Alex and Angelo, who had fantastic seasons in their own right.

I also want to shout out some players who had huge increases to their ratings over the course of the season.

• Jackson Leckie went from 730 to 784 (+54)
• Angelo Arcidiacono went from 819 to 869 (+50)
• Alex Marshall went from 771 to 817 (+46)
• Carol Hartley went from 693 to 734 (+41)

Those are gargantuan numbers! Well done all, the grind is clearly paying off 💪

2024

Casting our eyes forward to next year, you can find the club day schedule here. Of note is the inclusion of the new Athllon Park course, and the change to Weston Park club days, where we will now run golds and whites at the same time.

If you haven’t already, consider purchasing a club membership for next year. We’ve made some tweaks to give you more choice in how you want to support the club, based on the ways you interact with the club. Early access to club shirts (at a discounted price) is open until the end of January for Platinum members. After this, the shirts will be made available to Gold, Silver and Bronze members, then to the wider public after that.

Merry Christmas!

If you’ve made it this far down the page, well done! Thanks to everyone who has read my ramblings since I started these wrap-ups back in September. I hope everyone has a relaxing break with their loved ones, and comes back in the new year, repping the club shirt and raring to go in 2024!

The dicey weather held off for the latest (and second last for the year) instalment of club day at John Knight Park.

Some new players joined us – Ollie Forster, Steve Price, Owen Sulway, Tarni Cunningham and Yanping Yu – welcome!

Special mentions of the day:

• The entire A grade division, who each shot below their rating. Andy Irons was the best of the lot, shooting a -6 (13 points below his rating)
• Ian Warren for taking out B grade with a handy -9 (48 points above his rating)
• Carol Hartley for destroying C grade with a -1 (a whopping 86 points above her rating)
• CTP winners Joshua Conroy (A grade – beat my shot on the last hole of the day 😤), William Bennett (B grade), and Peter Bligh (C grade)
• Dan Frost for taking out the scratch win with a -13 (after a very low quality sudden death forehand-only playoff with Jade Brady on hole 1)
• Tenzin Adams for a very impressive -10 as a new player. Hopefully without incident this time 😏
• Nicholas Gregg, for making the long trip from Cairns to Canberra just to attend our club day (one can only assume)!
• Zac James for very generously messing up his scorecard, awarding 2 eagles to cardmates Kevin Santo and William Bennett on hole 16! 🦅
• Steven Khoupongsy for ripping an absolute monster 118m drive (a PB by a mile) on the back 9 par 4 (hole 16), only to follow it up with a hilarious (sorry Steven) full-bodied 90 degree shank straight OB on the front 9 par 4 (hole 7). Slow is smooth and smooth is far!
• The 💸ace pot💸 for surviving yet another club day at John Knight Park, and all the OB strokes that were taken in vain (I’m looking at you Zac)

Full results here.

The next club day will be a dual-event affair, with Weston Golds teeing off at 8:30, and Weston Whites teeing off at 10:30. Register here for Golds, and here for Whites. Please register for one or the other – not both!

After the action, we’ll be hosting a free BBQ and presenting the end-of-season awards. So we have an idea of numbers, please register well in advance and tick the BBQ box if you plan on attending it.

Yet another perfect day (touch wood this continues) greeted us on Sunday for the latest club day at John Knight Park.

Some new players joined us – Peter Bligh, Rachel Kerrigan. Robert Ryan, Brenda Ryan, David Thomas, Clare Thomas and Jeremy Price – welcome!

Some special mentions:

• Aaron Curtis for taking out A grade with a very handy -15 (29 points above his rating). He also took out the scratch win alongside Dan Frost (which they decided to split).
• Ian Warren for cleaning up B grade handicap and CTP with a fantastic -11 (56 points above his rating).
• Catherine Crowley for storming C grade with +12 (a massive 106 points above her rating), including a birdie on hole 1! 🙌
• CTP winners Dan Frost (A grade), Ian Warren (B grade) and Jackson Leckie (C grade).
• An honourable mention to Carol Hartley, who shot a fantastic -1 with 4 birdies (78 points above her rating), including a birdie on hole 16 (longer par 4)! That kind of performance would usually be good for a handicap win but she was just pipped by Catherine!
• Matt Madsen with a very solid -7 (51 points above his rating), including an eagle (the only one for the day) on hole 7 and an OB par on hole 13. What a round!
• Steven Khoupongsy, who got his first ever birdie with a monster 16m putt on hole 5, and then followed it straight up with another birdie on hole 6!
• All the OB strokes taken in the search for the elusive ace pot (which continues to grow). 📈

Full results here.

Hope everyone is looking forward to a blockbuster weekend next time around, with Spring Sling (caddy book just dropped) on Saturday 21 October and Weston Park Golds on Sunday 22 October! Hope to see you there.

Another perfect day welcomed 37 of us to the latest club day at Weston Park Whites.

A big welcome to brand new players Jeremy Price, Daniel Price, Tenzin Adams, Mark Bray, Steven Khoupongsy and Rhys Shelley-Jones.

Some special shout-outs:

• Austin D’Alessandro for taking out A grade and scratch with a sublime -14 (1010 rated, 80 points above his rating).
• Angelo Arcidiacono (-4) with the B Grade win, 51 points above his rating.
• Alex Marshall shooting a massive 109 points above his rating with a handy -4 to take out C grade.
• CTP winners Cam Davies (A grade), Ian Warren (B grade) and Alex Marshall (C grade).
• Matt Madsen and Jackson Leckie for getting the only two birdies on the tricky hole 5. Well done lads! 🙌
• Hole 11 for having an OB rate of over 50% 🙄
• Joshua for organising the post-round BBQ and social doubles round.
• Andy for the awesome photos! More to come on Facebook.

Full results here.

The next club day will be at John Knight on Sunday 8 October. Register here.

Finally, best of luck to all the ACT members heading up to Sydney for the NSW Open this weekend. You can follow all the action on the live scorecard here (live scores available when the event starts). And of course, you’ll be able to check out the action after the event on Disc Golf Justice (in conjunction with Gatekeeper Media) and PRKD Media.

Warm (though not according to Clayton) and windless conditions welcomed 35 of us to Eddison Park for the latest club day event.

A big shout-out to a few brand new players that joined us (Tony, Andrew and Jason) and to Clayton, who came all the way from Newcastle for the sole purpose of attending club day (I can only assume).

Some more shout-outs to various people among all three divisions, including (but not limited to):

• Jade Brady with the overall hot round of the day (-13), cleaning up scratch, A grade and CTP with an amazing ace in the post-round CTP shootout on hole 9.
• Nathan Borg, cleaning up B grade with a fantastic -7 (a whopping 85 points above his rating), and taking out the CTP too. Welcome to A grade Nathan!
• Jackson Leckie taking out C grade with an impressive +6 (59 points above his rating).
• Andrew Brimfield taking out C grade CTP.
• Jason Chalker and Paul Jackson (two of the aforementioned brand new players) taking birdies on the tricky hole 12. Only 4 other birdies were carded across the other divisions on hole 12. What an achievement!
• Hole 17 for being the only hole that survived the day un-birdied.
• Our dear President Adam Stewart taking 14 straight pars 😂

Full results here.

Hope to see you all on 23 September at the next club day at Weston Whites! Register here.