When the sun’s rays broke over the mountains and kissed Lake Tahoe’s splendor this morning it was a glorious crisp 37 degrees.  After 49 straight days of over 90 degrees in Georgia, this newly transplanted Georgia boy was in heaven.  By time the 107 competitors at the King of the Lake National Tour Elite Series teed off at 9:00am, it was in the low 50s with a faint breeze under glorious blue skies with the occasional cottony cloud drifting by.

With no available space to setup the PDGA tent and media center, I opted to head to the top of the mountain at Zephyr Cove Park to try and get photos of the competitors against the backdrop of Lake Tahoe and the surrounding snow-capped mountains.  So with the able assistance of tournament staffer Mike Frey as Sherpa guide and Alan in tow, I headed up the mountain with the camera around my neck.  Somewhere over 6000 ft of elevation Mike stopped us at the tee of Hole 10 and if hoofing it up the mountain in the rarified air wasn’t enough to take my breath away, the view certainly was.

Speaking of rarified air, the players who aren’t used to higher altitudes have had to redesign their bags as they find all their discs become much more stable in the thinner air at this altitude.  I chatted with Jay “Yeti” Reading who said he was putting away his overstable discs like the Boss and was using a 165 Vulcan as his go-to driver.

The MPO division started their day at the Turtle Rock course and first round leader Nick Gagne continued to throw well with a 56 at Turtle Rock and a 49 at Zephyr Cove to end up at -20 through three rounds and still in the lead.  Devan Owens shot the hot round of 46 at Zephyr Cove to also reach 20 under par and tie Nick as co-leader.  Shasta Criss is in third place two strokes back at -18, and Ricky Wysocki and Tim Skellenger are tied for fourth at -17.  Other players within 5 strokes of the leaders are Steve Rico at -16 and Greg Barsby and Jere Eshelman both at -15.

Sarah Hokom’s hot round of 55 at Zephyr Cove puts her at +7 keeping her two strokes in the lead of the FPO division over Catrina Allen who had the hot round of 64 in the morning’s round at Turtle Rock to temporarily tie Sarah for the lead.   Des Reading is in third place at +17, and Kathryn Manley is in fourth place at +15.

The talented Pro Masters division has no intention of being overshadowed by the MPO division, and is matching the Open players throw-for-throw.  First-day leader Jay Reading, along with Mike Loya, lead the MPM division after two days at the same -20 as the MPO leaders.   Patrick Brown is in third at -19, and in fourth place at -10 is Robert Ryan.

With two hot round scores under his belt, Doug Werner is leading the Pro Grandmaster division at -4.  Second in MPG are Jeff Stoops and Ken Halvorson at +4, with Jeff Fiedler in fourth place at +8.

Tomorrow will be an exciting day at Bijou Park as the competitors battle it out to determine who will be King of the Lake.  Tee offs start at 8am PDST, be sure to follow live scoring as it is brought to you at www.pdga.com cheer on your favorite players.

For full scores see: King of the Lake

For photos see: PDGA Flickr


Andrew “Big Dog” Sweeton