Rocky Rumble Roundup 2019

The 24^th of February saw Rocky Rumble take place at Fantasy Park in Rockingham.  This event was put forward to celebrate the number of different social groups and gangs that have organically sprung up in recent years (and not so recent – I’m looking at you 78s).  The event hosted 59 participants, spread (a little unevenly) over 8 different gangs. There were some challenges on the day; namely, the number of participants and the weather. However, with the help of numerous supporters, the day ran quite smoothly. The event was a sanctioned PDGA event that used raw scores and gang affiliations to generate team scores.

There were eight gangs representing at the Rocky Rumble. These teams represented a large cross section of the Perth disc golf community. They included:

• The 78s – made up of disc golfers old and older. They were among the pioneers of flying disc sports in Perth and we are very grateful that so many of them have come back to the sport.
• The Estonian Mafia – a motley crew of Estonian expats and a coffee shop owner.
• The Mundy Mob – the group of disc golfers that prefer throwing up and down mountain sides at 200m+ pin placements. Included among them was Chris Finn who, with RAD, was behind the design and installation of the course we played on.
• SOS – members of a small secretive group of players that gather for high stakes skins matches and were early favourites in this tournament.
• The Rocky/Mandurah Crew – A mash up of significantly southern disc golfers who once upon a time only had the Mandurah course to play at locally. I’m sure they were thrilled to show their wares on their brand new coveted course. Some significantly high finishes demonstrated their dedication to taming this course.
• CFWA – a group of casual frolfers that usually show disdain to these formal events. They came out in force and let the Turkeys know early that they were hunting them.
• The Rockytiers – a splinter cell of the Rocky/Mandurah Crew. Among these players were James Fawcett, Andrew Crocker and Michael Morton whose badgering of the local council did much to get this course put in the ground.
• The Golden Frolfin’ Turkeys – a hodge podge collection of lovable misfits who hark from all over Perth but have a strong density around the northern suburbs Chichester course.

There were some significant challenges on the day; namely the large number of players that embraced the competition. With nine baskets to throw at and a standard four players per card, a cap of 36 was blown out of the water very quickly.  In the interests of catering for the large number of people that were keen to play with and for their gangs, a few levers were pulled.  Firstly, two extra holes were added. Secondly we upped the number of players on most cards to five. Lastly, we added two ghost cards.  With adopting these changes, all 59 players were able to play with minimal flow issues.  While this meant that there wasn’t much waiting between holes, the two rounds did take significantly longer than expected.

Over lunch each team put forward two champions of putting to represent in the putting league.  After a dominant performance in the round robin, The Golden Frolfin’ Turkeys’ Paul Noesen and Boat McQuade were found wanting when up against the Mundy Mob in the final represented by Jason Browne and Chris Finn.  The Mundy Mob took home the $100 Dan Murphy’s voucher for their efforts.

All of the results and ratings can be found here.

Top three in each division were:

The scores for the team aspect of this competition were worked out by adding the five best scores per team.  An additional layer was taking a stroke off your score for every member of your gang that participated. For example, the Turkeys had 16 members so while their best five scores added up to 679, their adjusted score was 663 (679 -16=663).

Top five members for each gang, places and overall scores:

A big thank you to everyone that came to the event and helped support it.  I hope that this becomes a regular fixture in the Perth disc golf calendar and look forward to everyone representing their gangs next year.

None of this could have taken place without the efforts of a remarkably large number of volunteers. These volunteers that have not asked for compensation but gave their time willingly and enthusiastically and without them, the tournament could not have happened. So, thankyou:

Kingsley Flett (Kinga): for helping create the concept of this competition, all the help with photos and making the promotions for this event work.

Paul Noesen (Noisy): for getting the Pirate Bar on board as a sponsor and your work behind the scenes with scoring.

Chris Himing (Himbo): your knowledge of effectively TDing tournaments is matched only by your pedantic focus on the particulars.  Thanks for all your ideas on helping the event run smoothly.

Dave Briggs (Big Rig): for helping with all the scores and getting the second round cards out in a jiffy.

Brad Curran (Swampy): for saving my bacon on the day (no one needs to know how) and leading pack up teams after the second round.

Al Robertson (Cheesemonkey): for supporting the idea of this tournament and doing a lot of the heavy lifting (literally and figuratively) with equipment organisation.

Keenan and George Vellios: for arriving at the crack of dawn with all the equipment and helping set up and guarding the cash tins with your lives.

My Turkey brothers: thanks for your help with set up and pack away. Set up jobs that I had presumed would take an hour were finished in less than 25 minutes. I couldn’t imagine a better group of people to be playing this game with.

I look forward to seeing you all at tournaments throughout the year.

Karl Voloczi (Rokk)

Photos courtesy of @kingsleyflett