The PDGA Amateur World Disc Golf Championships got off to a flying start Tuesday, at Tiffin and five other courses.
"Razor" Ray Misser of Virginia Beach, Va., aced the ninth hole at Hedges-Boyer Park in the 8 a.m. round on his way to a 46 (12-under par) from the front tees, and tied for the lowest round recorded at any course Tuesday.
Misser leads the advanced grandmaster division (age 50-older), which played the course at Upper Sandusky's Reservoir Park in the afternoon. He is at 17-under, one stroke better than John Schenger.
Every division in the tournament will play six rounds through Friday afternoon, with the semifinals and finals slated for Saturday.
Perhaps the most impressive round from Tuesday came from David Wiggins Jr. of North Carolina, who shot a 10-under 48 in the afternoon at Alum Creek State Park, acknowledged by some to be toughest of the tournament courses. Wiggins, the second-highest rated player of the 513 registered for the tournament, is tied atop the open advanced division after two round. He and Chris Vandagriff of Houston each shot 14-under par.
In the pool of open advanced players who only played Hedges-Boyer, Sandy Redd of Massachusetts shot a 7-under 51 from the back tees to lead the way.
Wiggins and fellow North Carolinian Andrew Coggin won Sunday's junior doubles competition (age 19-under), which consisted of a best-disc round in Tiffin and an alternate-shot round in Upper Sandusky. They shot 14-under par over the two rounds for their fourth world title in a row. Coggin is in second place after two rounds in the age 16-under junior division, shooting 10-under to trail Finland's Seppo Paju by a stroke.
Richard Wysocki of Medina leads all juniors with a two-round total of 12-under.
COURSE APPROVAL: In the open advanced division at Hedges-Boyer, David Hartung (Lansing, Mich.), Rod Queen (Melbourne, Fla.) and Ian Vance (Columbus) were the first group to finish play. All had good things to say about the Tiffin course, and only Vance had played it before Tuesday.
"It's pretty well-maintained," Vance said. "You go to some other courses and they don't have concrete tees - they just have dirt - and there's signs with distances that are accurate."
Queen said he likes the course's openness, even if there are plenty out-of-bounds points.
"There's good risk-reward holes here," he said.
Triston Covington of Arizona should also remember Tiffin well, after he aced No. 13 during Sunday's junior doubles competition.
NO PUTT NEEDED: Besides Misser, aces came Tuesday from Shawn Aschilman (No. 6 at Upper Sandusky), Ken Glassman (No. 18 at Delaware State Park) and Scott McIntyre (No. 12 at Upper Sandusky).
INTERNATIONAL FLAVOR: The same division included a player from Finland and, for the first time, two from Russia. One of the Russians, Iosif Yusim, hails from St. Petersburg. Disc golf courses are sparse in Russia, so Yusim plays in a Finnish league, he said.
Pawel Hanczaruk and Ania Knapinska, who reside in Florida but hail from Poland, won Sunday's mixed doubles competition.
Canada, Denmark, France, Japan and Germany also are represented somewhere in the tournament field.
