2020 Rocky Rumble – The Revenge, February 15, 2020

 

The most anticipated rematch of the Perth disc golf calendar was held at Fantasy Park disc golf course in Waikiki on February 15, 2020. The question on everyone’s mind was could any other gang pluck the Turkeys’ feathers and send them to thanksgiving dinner as the main course?

You’d think that with a senior Turkey as tournament director there’d be no chance of the Turkeys losing but give credit where it’s due.  Paul Noesen as TD introduced a very fair system for limiting gang size for the total scoring and thus avoiding the branch stacking claims that were rumoured from last year’s event.   The 6 gangs and a few lone wolves totalled 48 players, 10 Open and 38 Amateurs, including 6 women and one junior player.

After 2 keenly contested rounds played under grey and at times gloomy weather, albeit far less windy than the 2019 event, it was still a rafter of Turkeys that came out on top of the roost.  The old timers in the 78s Disc Golf Cartel came second with the gang from Mandurah just squeezing in to third place.

For those that love statistics click here for all the scores

Full individual stroke results can be found here: https://www.pdga.com/tour/event/43765

Did anyone mention the very impressive array of prizes, including discs, disc vouchers and entertainment vouchers? Thanks to Portal Disc Sports and Pirate Bar for the goodies Paul Noesen’s marketing skills and promotion of the event secured cash sponsorship from Linden Tech, a local IT firm.  The Open cash prize pool topped $1000AUD and was gladly received by the top four of Jordan Wheeler, Chris van Maanen, Dave Bandy and Robert Lim respectively.

Return of GUTS!

But the real contest was during the lunch break, but not for the food (of which there was almost too much but still really appreciated).  The main event was surely the return of competitive guts to Australian soil for the first time in possibly 40 years!  Who better but our resident bard Steve Manning to describe the spectacle of the guts event:

The year was 1988, the location Leuven, Belgium. A bunch of eager twenty somethings take to the field representing Australia for the first time at the World Guts Championship.

Fast forward more years than I care acknowledge and the Guts Gauntlet was again laid down by the 78s Disc Golf Cartel at the Rocky Rumble. Suddenly all the rampant gobbling turned into lots clucking and head shaking. After lots of coercion a team of challengers finally emerged from the rabble.

The team consisted of Fingers, Ringles, Jordie, Rueben and Connor and they took to the line with a fair degree of trepidation. A brief discussion of the rules was held, they can be condensed to the following statement: Team A attempts to throw the disc as hard as possible and Team B attempts to catch said disc with one hand. For all the rule nerds out there, you can find the full list of rules here http://www.wfdf.org/sports/guts

The unwritten rules state that you truly haven’t played Guts and only played Catch if you can’t show the bruises a couple of days after.