The second annual Durango Big Picture Classic disc golf tournament – a fundraiser for Durango Big Picture High School – nearly doubled its turnout from last year, with twice the number of athletes, two days of competition and $2,000 in funds raised for the school. The event was recognized as the largest disc golf tournament that the Durango area has ever hosted.
The same two directors from last spring, Dreher Robertson, now the assistant principal at Big Picture, and Dynamic Discs tour promoter Jonathan Ray, organized the tournament. After a successful 2017 debut, both directors expressed high hopes for this year’s event.
“Obviously, we had a lot more time to plan this year’s event,” Ray said after the final round on May 20. “It’s been great. Lots of great people came out to compete and have fun, and you can’t beat this environment.”
The two-day competition, a Professional Disc Golf Association-sanctioned B-Tier event, was held May 19-20 and included three rounds at Colorado Timberline Academy, a non-traditional, secondary boarding school for high school students located about 13 miles north of Durango. The grounds at CTA provide enough acreage to support a premier 18-hole disc golf course, which was updated with new tee boxes and maps by event organizers and volunteers.
“A big difference from last year is that the tournament went from C-Tier to B-Tier, which requires an additional $500 for the pros,” Robertson said. “It had something to do with the turnout.”
Registration was $60 per participant, and 13 divisions were offered. The tournament sold out at 90 players, which included 25 sponsored professionals, about a month before it was held. Disc golfers traveled from all over Colorado and the Four Corners, and one Dynamic Discs athlete even flew all the way from Memphis, Tennessee.
Disc golf is scored the same as golf and the object is to throw the disc into a metal basket from a tee box. Each hole at CTA is par-3, which means a player has to land their disc in the basket in three shots to maintain an even score, or par. For one 18-hole round, par is equal to a score of 54. For a three-round tournament, such as the Big Picture Classic, a score of 162 is even with par. Like golf, the goal is to finish a round in as few shots as possible.
A handful of athletes had outstanding performances during the tournament.
“It was a clawing match,” Taylor Kahn, a member of the Flying Eagle Disc Society from Avon, said after the final round. “There were three people tied for third place for most of today.”
J.C. Kester, a Team Discraft pro who lives in Palisade, took first in the open division with a score of 140 overall, or 22 shots under par. He won $400 and was presented a handmade trophy. Kester also tied CTA’s course record during the first round on Saturday with a phenomenal score of 44, or 10 under par.
Tanner Cumpton of Cortez, who is sponsored by Westside Discs and won last year’s tournament, recorded a score of 146 and took second. He was awarded $265 in prize money.
“I was battling with Tanner all day,” Kester said after the final round. “I was two shots ahead after Hole 5 and slowly pulled ahead of him. I finished six ahead by the end of the round.”
For the women’s division, Callie McMorran, a Dynamic Discs golfer from Memphis, took first with a score of 182. Second place went to J.C. Kester’s wife, Lindsay Kester, who scored 211.
Two players recorded holes-in-one that weekend, both during the third round. William Cantrell, a Fort Lewis College graduate who now lives in Westminster, aced No. 1 and Matthew Bonebrake, who lives in Telluride, had a miraculous ace on No. 14, which is a blind shot to the basket from the tee box. Bonebrake had headphones in his ears, listening to music, and threw a backhand drive from the tee box. His disc disappeared past the trees and, after a moment of silence, smashed the metal chains, landing in the basket. He had no idea it was an ace until the other players told him the good news.
Excluding the prize money awarded to tournament winners, proceeds from registrations, raffle entries, lunch, donations and sponsors, which totaled about $2,000, went directly to Big Picture High School to help fund project supplies, college textbooks and other school fees for the 2018-19 academic year. Robertson confirmed that the funds raised from last year’s event were used to support the school.
“I feel amazing about this year,” Robertson said. “The new assistant principal position added to the stress level of organizing the event, so having it be a success feels awesome. I want to thank my administrative assistant, Jessica Mariscal, for being such a huge help while we worked to organize the event.”
The high school was more involved in the event this year. Staff and students were in charge of selling lunch, and a former Big Picture student, J.D. Parsons, who now owns Contract Trucking Co. in Durango, donated and delivered the materials used to build the new tee boxes, Robertson said.
The disc golf course at CTA is open to the public on Sundays only and available for scheduled tournaments during the summer after the school year has ended. Permission to hold the tournament while school was still in session was granted again by CTA director Dan Coey.
To view the tournament results for all 13 divisions, visit www.pdga.com/tour/event/35022.
fstone@ durangoherald.com
