This is the 1999 Discraft Great Lakes Open final 9, which took place at Hudson Mills Metropark in Dexter, MI. Competing for the tournament and skins are Ken Climo, Ron Russell, Scott Stokely, and Shawn Sinclair.
At the time, this event had the highest skins payout in the history of the sport.
Also notable about this period of time, Ken Climo was still the reigning 9-time world champion. This tournament was held one month before the 1999 worlds, and here you see some foreshadowing of the upcoming battle between Ken Climo and Ron Russell at that worlds.
The layout for the final 9:
Hudson Mills Original #1, #2, #4, hybrid #5 tee to #3 basket, #6, #18…Hudson Mills Monster #1 (played from the original out-in-the-open tee for the benefit of fans although the wooded tunnel was brand new that year; I remember playing it on the Am-1 side of the tournament…on David Feldberg’s card who was just about to turn pro!), #2, and #18.
The Toboggan course at Kensington Metropark is still a year away, made ready for the upcoming 2000 Pro-Am Worlds in the greater Ann Arbor area.
The emcee for the event, megaphone and skins cash in hand, is the ever-present Mark Ellis, aka the Lizard Lawyer. See if you can spot International Frisbee Hall of Fame member, 1970’s Guts phenomenon and Lansing regular Mark Banghart too.
This is home video footage from a VHS camera six full years before YouTube even existed, but I think I did a decent job this time around. There were a couple of holes where the crowd was so thick near the basket I was not able to even get near enough to film the putts. DGLO was a big freakin’ deal even back in these days!
If you enjoy this, check out my channel for the 1998 final 9 as well with Ken Climo, Scott Stokely, Mike Moser, and both Rico brothers Bamba and Steve competing in the same format. I also have a few minutes of Juliana Korver playing in the 1999 In-Flight Open.
I wish I had more footage of pros playing back then, but this concludes all the footage I know I have. I do have old footage of my friends and I playing some Michigan courses in this era that I might get around to uploading in the future (likely just the footage of me playing because I haven’t seen some of these people in 20 years and I doubt they’d want me to show them playing publicly like this) but obviously seeing a 930-rated player won’t be remotely as cool as these DGLO videos and the J.K. snippet. I won’t be rushing those out anytime soon but maybe they’ll be up down the road.
