The The Peter Crowther Memorial Disc Golf Tournament 2013.

The day dawned clear and bright despite a forecast for showers on Saturday 14th 2013, exactly 3 months since Pete’s disappearance. I had continued to cling to a sliver of hope he was alive until the police search was called off. It was with an extremely heavy heart and many tears I put my hand up to run the tournament, and rename it in Pete’s memory.

Having inspected the Victoria Park course a couple of months earlier, I knew it wasn’t practical to hold it there, with at least 1,000 hours of work required to make it playable. Additionally, I had a very bad memory of losing 4 discs on one hole in a prior comp. With my bad ankle also to think about, it was an easy decision to move the tourney to Jellie Park, and I really wanted quite badly for everyone to be able to play the course Pete and I competed on every weekend for the last several years. We’d played a variety of courses at Jellie Park over the years, and several of the holes from the original course still feature on our Sunday course.

I very much wanted to honour Pete with some trophies worthy of his character and Diana, Peter’s partner, had guided me to Doug Neil, a local sculptor and friend of Pete. Doug released a massive trophy from the chunk of volcanic rock he began with, and I secured a similarly gigantic lump of Macrocarpa to its base.  I had planned for this trophy to be the Christchurch Champ’s – and the size of it made that decision a good one, when it finally weighed in at 34 kilograms! I felt in danger driving around with it in the car, even with it restrained with a seatbelt. Next year there will be an overall trophy too.

The Wooden discs in the manikin hands was an idea I’d had for trophies to donate to the Queenstown region, having finally come up with the Missing Two for the 2014 Paradise Plates. Brad at Flywood Discs had previously made for me: three plain, sanded discs; a driver, a mid and a putter. Peter saw them before his disappearance and loved the look of them. We threw two discs I’d bought for myself and they flew very well indeed, but I have kept them pristine as objets d’art.

It had been so long since I had been involved in, or even helped organise a tournament, I had forgotten many of the things needed for the event, and very thankfully Martin Galley and Vorticasport came to the rescue with some prizes, designed the score cards and also did a great job bringing some baskets up and setting them out. Thanks too, to Bob Gentil, whose calm head was a very welcome addition to our home for the weekend. David Keene too, put in a lot of time on the PC getting the scoring ready. Thanks also to Brady Keuch for scoring the Super Six, and doing a lot of good work with the scores. Several others, including the QT crew need thanks, for bringing up extra baskets.

Heading into the event, having marked out the course and being disappointed the council had failed to clear our 15th tee by Saturdaymorning, I realised I was probably going to play fairly poorly. My build up had been going very well, with spectacular scores, and a course record the previous week. However, I knew I wouldn’t get a single minute of relaxation before the first tee, or be able to do any practicing at all ahead of the rounds  – and with Josh and Craig playing, there was a possibility I wouldn’t take home any of the trophies I’d worked on. Ah well, that’s Disc Golf!

I knew we would have good numbers for the event, but 32 was well ahead of my expectations, and I consider it a tribute to Peter that so many people came. Thanks to each and every competitor who came along – it was an honour to host you at Jellie Park.

It’s the players who did not take home any prizes or trophies I want to thank the most. Without these people, National Tour events would not be nearly so big, so exciting, nor so much fun.

Starting at Hole 9 for the first round, I tried to settle into my Sunday Rhythm straight away, but was unable. That would turn out to be the theme of the weekend for me, but I was having too much fun to care much.

Getting to play with Brady, Adam, Akira, Dom, Emma, Nigel, Hemi, Logan, Matthew, Nate, Hunter and Nick was extremely fun for me, and I witnessed some excellent golf shots, as well as managing to execute a few 10+ metre putts, and a handful of  brilliant drives.

It’s always great to see players having progressed since you last saw them play, and I was extremely impressed by both Akira and Dom, who really did put out some absolutely cracking drives.

Seeing so many people in Jellie Park was the highlight of the tournament for me. I hope that despite the delays, everyone got a good chance to have a good look at a lot of other group’s play – and for me, this was one of the nicest and most intimate comps I’ve ever been to.  It was terrific to see discs flying back and forwards across the pond, and to catch cheers as someone out of view pulled a beauty out of the sky.

I missed Peter intensely during the comp, and almost heard whispers from him. He’d have come up to me and put his hand on my shoulder. He’d have looked at me, and asked me how I did – and I would have no idea what he had thrown, because regardless of his score, he’d have a huge smile on his face, shadowed by his silly cowboy hat. Because that’s the way Pete was; He loved his Disc Golf with an amazing passion; and although he’s gone, I can still hear his voice on the course he loved to play.

So long buddy.