Last-minute entrants from Whitehorse thickened the field at the inaugural Haines Fall Disc Golf Tournament in Alaska on Saturday.
“We were going to go paddling on the Yukon River Saturday night but the weather wasn’t that great, so Friday night about 7:30 we decided to go to Haines,” said Alan Hill.
Hill was joined by fellow Whitehorse players Dan Reimer and Andrea Badger at the two-course 36-hole tournament. Organizers were thrilled to have them there considering they didn’t give much warning, said tournament director Tony Haack.
“We were thrilled to have guys from the Yukon come down. It was pretty awesome,” said Haack.
“(My friend) actually drove up to Whitehorse two days before and hung up flyers. The most impressive thing is that we gave two days notice and we still had three players come down.”
Hill was a standout at the event. He logged the top score on Haines’ “red” course with a six-under 48, marking the second best score ever recorded on the new course.
“That’s impressive; the red course is hard. It’s heavily wooded with not a lot of windows, so you’ve got to throw pretty accurate,” said Haack. “The course record is minus-11 — the guy threw the game of his life to get that score.”
After two rounds, with one on the “yellow” course, Hill finished third overall with a combined 101 for seven under par. He also won two closest-to-the-pin contests, two putting games and the longest drive, bagging a number of prizes, including cash and jars of smoked salmon.
“I’ve played the yellow course, the older course, before — they’ve made some changes,” said Hill. “The red course is brand new. They share a couple holes, but that was my first time playing all the new holes on the course.”
“The tournament was good. I liked that they paid out (prizes) the first round and then paid out the second round, and then paid first place overall.”
Haines’ Jeremy Reed placed first overall ahead of Juneau’s Derek Eby, one of five players from Juneau in the field of 11.
Reimer placed sixth overall after two rounds with a combined 104.
Badger totaled a 157 after two rounds and won the amateur division.
“We were expecting it to be just me and Andrea playing and then Dan Reimer rolled in. It was good to play with a local,” said Hill, adding that Reimer happened to be in Haines to meet friends.
Hill has definitely been on his game lately. He posted the first hole in one at the new Solstice DiscGolfPark in Whitehorse two weeks ago. Hill, who is on the executive of the Whitehorse Disc Golf Association, drained it on the 66-metre par-3 eighth hole.
The WDGA will host a Solstice course grand opening tournament on Oct. 1.
Contact Tom Patrick at tomp@yukon-news.com