So I just returned from a week of disc golf in Austin , Tx. The wife and I looked at this also as a vacation opportunity and we quickly learned that… yah… Austin is in pretty bad shape. Compared to Fort Wort or Dallas, our state capital is pretty drab. Some good fishing opportunities but the wife will not be accompanying me on any disc golf extravaganzas in Austin anytime soon.
In my last post I mentioned this tournament was going to be a deciding point for me if I play any of the bigger tournaments in 2026. I’ve struggled pretty much at every large tournament this year. Granted… earlier this year I did win one of the larger local tournaments, but in the majority of events I’ve played this year I’ve struggled with mental anxiety, putting yips, etc, etc, that just becomes so frustrating. Missing putts from 5ft out, can’t throw the disc 100ft, etc, etc. Just ridiculous and so…..frustrating.
Actually out of the 47 events I’ve played this year, I’ve come in 1st place 20 times. So it hasn’t been a total failure. But I’ve also lost several due to mistakes being made at the very end of the tournament. ugh…
So I ended up playing a total of 5 rounds of competitive disc golf while I was in Austin, Tx. I played a 1 round flex start warm up tournament, and then the 4 rounds of disc golf in the main NADGT tournament. That’s 5 rounds of stats, data, etc, that I can look back and really try to understand what is happening.
So the first round I played there was no pressure, I just wanted to do a warm up round before the main event. I had played a few 1 round tournaments recently to help get my mind ready for some competitive play. Something interested happened….
That first round I won my division and shot my best rated round of the year.
So yah, I felt pretty good going into the main event. I’ll spare the details of the tournament because from this point on nothing great happened. After two rounds I was only 3 strokes out of 1st place. Even with mediocre play I was very much in this thing to win it!
Rounds 3 and 4 were on the same course I had just shot my best round of the year so I was feeling pretty good. But long story short… the nerves kicked in and I could never really recover. I couldn’t drive well, I was missing putts, etc, etc. But… it wasn’t as bad as some of the other tournaments I played in earlier in the year. (That Glass Blown Open tournament is going to haunt me for a long….time.)
I still ended up shooting over my rating for the entire 5 rounds I played in Austin. I came in 9th place out of 39 players in my division in the main event. My minimum goal was to place 15 or better, so in that respect I did…meh…ok. A top 10 finish is not that bad… but it feels bad because it was in my grasp to place a lot higher. dang….
I ended up playing with the 1st and 2nd players (both higher rated than me) a couple of rounds during the tournament. The only difference was the usual… they were more consistent than me on the course. They didn’t let anything bother them, they kept a calm cool head the entire time.
This was the first time in quite a while that my wife was able to watch me play a lot of competitive disc golf. It was hard for her to understand how I could play so good one round and then seem to forget how to play the game the next round. Of course she knows about my mental struggles, but to go from playing so good to playing so bad, yah.. she felt sorry for me. After the tournament we talked for a quite a while, she did make me realize something…. I need to lower my expectations and minimize my mental reactions.
So that’s what I’m going to be working on for a while. Trying to mentally adjust my mindset to not have such high expectations for myself which in turn… should help me overall chill tf out when playing disc golf.
I fully admit to thinking about the entire tournament results while I was playing. Instead I need to get back to thinking of each hole, one at a time.
Overall was their at least some improvements in this tournament? Yes.. I never did fully collapse. I played just at my rating in the 4 round tournament. Which is…meh… ok.
I’m going to play in the final 3 big local tournaments of the year. I’m going to try to go into these tournaments with a refined mental outlook. No expectations, just play one hole at a time, the best I can do and move on.
My problem is… I hate being just…. meh… ok. It’s boring….
So have I decided to play the larger big national events next year? Yah… I’m going to play at least 2 of them. Glass Blown Open and Worlds. I would like revenge at the Glass Blown Open and I really want to compete at least one time at PDGA Worlds. Worlds will be the biggest tournament I will ever play in, I want to experience it at least once. 🙂
November 3, 2025
