With a national disc golf tournament coming up in late October in Austin, which I really… want to do good at, I’m playing in as many local (bigger) tournaments as I can to help me deal with the excitement, stress and anxiety I get when I play these bigger competitive events.
Recently I blogged about how important it is for me to warm up before I start playing in a tournament. Not just to warm up the old muscles and tendons, but to burn off a bit of the built up adrenaline rush I always seem to have before teeing off at the first hole. lol.. I have to come to the conclusion that a solid 30 min warmup is really all I need. Some focused stretching, a bit of walking, a few throws and putts and I’m good to go!
This will be a quick post to recap this tournament for my personal viewing pleasure later, so I’ll keep it short and sweet. 😉
This was a 2 round tournament at one of the best disc golf courses in the DFW area, Old Man McCutcheon Disc Golf Course in Lewisville, Tx. I played a practice round here 2 days before the tournament and to my surprise I shot the best round ever at this course. In the past I’ve never really shot a decent round out here so I felt super confident going into the tournament.
I can’t tell you how many times my practice rounds before a tournament are frickin amazing! Why this happens…. yah…I know why… I’m relaxed, no stress, etc. If I could just get in that zen state during my actual tournaments! ugh…
Round 1 I come out swinging with a birdie on hole #1 and continue to get plenty of birdie ops the next several holes, but I’m not connecting with my putts. I’m getting a lot of pars which is great for this course (technical wooded holes) but I end up getting 2 bogies and after round 1 I’m 3 strokes off the lead. I shoot well over my rating in round 1, so far so good!
Round 2 I’m playing old man par golf, not being too aggressive. Trying to see if the other guys will make mistakes, but the leader is having a great day and now I’m struggling to stay in 2nd place. Watching 2 other players making all their putts for birdies was awesome, but at the same time I was feeling some pressure and things were getting to me. I lose focus on my goal for this tournament (just trying to stay relaxed and play decent golf) and start feeling some anxiety. I take a triple bogie on a hole and now I’m in 3rd place and things aren’t looking too good for my game.
With 9 holes left, I’m now struggling on every hole. My drives are not going anywhere close to where I want them to. My muscles have tightened up a bit and I’m shanking drive after drive. It was so depressing to see my game just fall apart. Clearly I was able to control my nerves, even though I tried to relax and just throw the disc, I kept struggling off the tee and relied on my upshot game to hopefully keep me in 3rd place.
Granted I was playing in the pro division against some players who were rated higher than me, but man… at least in round 1 they weren’t doing anything that I couldn’t do! But in reality the player who won just had a great day on the course. He was throwing straight drives, making all of his putts, dude deserved to win. I don’t care if I win or lose, I just want to be able to chill out and play decently.
I end up coming in 3rd place. I averaged over my rating so yah…. overall it was still a solid event for me, I’m just a bit bummed that I couldn’t pull it together when things started to go bad. I thought at least I could give 2nd place a run for his money. lol..
My big take from this event is, who cares if the other dudes start playing great, just chill tf out and play your game. Do the best you can on each hole and move on to the next! Sounds so easy…. right?
During this tournament I noticed my drives weren’t going as far as some of the other old dudes I was playing with. Typically I can drive as far (or further) than most players my age. For the past few years I’ve mainly been doing “stand still throws” off the tee. I started doing this due to having some knee issues. When the knee issues went away, I just kept throwing these stand still drives. I knew I wasn’t throwing as far as possible, but I could get decent control so I stuck with it. So the past few days I’ve been throwing with a full x-step to compare distance and yah… I still gain about another 30-50 ft, so I need to keep practicing the x-step in case I need some more distance, especially at some of these up and coming tournaments where distance will be a factor.
Health Update: Feeling pretty good lately! My heart definitely does it’s magic better when I’m physically active. Since around Covid (2020), I’ve been eating primarily one meal a day (intermittent fasting). There’s so many benefits to this I’ll spare the details for now. But since my hernia operation last year I’ve been dealing with some health issues I’ve never had before. I’m pretty sure my vagus nerve has been affected by the mesh(s) that were put in. Over the past year since my surgery I’ve had some heart issues that feel like they originating from my stomach. One of my many self diagnosis is the possibility I have a bit of “gastrocardiac syndrome” from having the hernia mesh put in.
I’m currently testing out eating 2 meals a day in an 8 hour window. The goal is to not put so much pressure on my stomach or hernia mesh, with the end result hopefully being less vagus nerve stimulation. I don’t mind my normal amount of daily skipped beats, PVCs, etc, but I’ve had some pretty crazy things happening the past year that never happened until after the hernia operation.
So far it seems to be going well. I do find myself being more hungry overall, but I’m sure that’s from my stomach not being stretched after that one big meal a day. lol.. I’m curious to see how I feel long term eating 2 meals a day. So far the results are encouraging! 🙂
September 18, 2025
