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It was only 10 a.m. on Thursday, September 18, 2003 at the office of the Windy City Darters,
but things were already in full swing.
A dedicated group of Board members and volunteers were loading standards along with everything else it takes to run a tournament. They then made the short journey to the Ramada Plaza Chicago North Shore. It was a pleasant warm day for the time of year in Chicago. After 27 years, we have this down pat. At the hotel, more volunteers joined to set up before the evenings Draw Doubles was scheduled to begin.
As the day progressed at the hotel, I was pleased to see some of the "Big Boys"
were already in town. I was excited and relived to see Roger Carter, Roland Scholten and Mick Manning among others who were committed to play in the next
evening’s Pro-Am event.
The local darters started arriving after work to join in the Draw Doubles. The reality started to kick in that we had again managed to plan one of the biggest, best and oldest tournaments in the country.
The Draw Doubles started as scheduled without a hitch.
The finals came down to Ed Baranek and Liz Tynan against Bill Trapp and Roger Carter. Bill and Roger came out the winners. We closed the hall for the evening so some of us could get the only rest we were probably going to get until Monday, even though some of the darters wanted a second draw.
Friday morning came too fast for me.
Although the boards and stage were set up there was some tweaking that still needed to be done before the evening’s events started. I was down in the tournament hall most of the day doing a laundry list of last minute things. I was happy every time someone would come down and say, "Peter Manley’s here or we just saw John Part in the Lobby."
I was stressed about our Pros for the Pro-Am event that kicks off the
tournament. The Pro-Am event partners one of our brass, nickel and tungsten rated players together during a series of qualifying shoots held during the
summer.
At an invitation only reception, those teams are partnered with the best of the best in the world to play in a special event before the Blind Draw. The time for the reception came, one of the Pros declined to shoot, and a last minute replacement was found. Denis Ovens agreed to fill the vacant spot. All Pros then picked their teams. They then left the reception to shoot. The finals came down to Denis Oven, Mike Fautsch, Darren Wills and Mark Choske against Dan Olsen, Carla Raymond, Eric Madland and Isen Veljic. The Ovens team was victorious. The interesting thing about that team is it consisted of two alternate Windy City players and Denis Ovens. Needless to say, Denis was very happy he had hung around to see if I was short Pros. On behalf of the Windy City Darters, thank you to all the Pros that participated and those that help us to contact them.
The Blind Draw started with 230 players.
The finals came down to our own Tony Booth and his partner JR Koenigs against Tony Payne, a name very familiar to Windy City, and his partner Les Cohen. It resulted in the Payne/Cohen team topping the Booth/Koenigs team. It was indeed good to see Tony after being absent for quite a few years.
Cut to Saturday, it was early but the hall was already busy at nine in the morning.
In conjunction with the Open, Windy City holds a Brass/Nickel only tournament giving our own players an opportunity to play people within their classifications. People were going up and down the stairs near registration greeting us. It was a joy to see all the familiar faces that we only see at tournament time. My place at tournaments is registration and payouts. At sometime over the weekend I get to see and talk to almost everyone. I even get to give them money, so they are always happy to see me. It was awesome to see so many new faces along with our old friends. We aim to please and this weekend was no different.
The first event of the day was Men’s Doubles 501 the finals came down to Team Canada, John
Darth Maple Part and Dan Olsen against Roland The Tripod Scholten and Roger (got an extra arm?) Carter. Ask Roger about the arm thing it’s amusing.
Our neighbors to the North came out on top.
The Women’s Doubles 501 was next up. Stacy Bromberg and her partner Jennifer Daggy fought through to be matched against Heather Draper and Jan Robbins. In the end, Bromberg and Daggy won top honors. The next event was Men’s Singles Cricket.
The finals pitted...
Continued...
The conclusion to this Windy City article, photos, and a great interview with 2003 Windy City Open Pro-Am Shooter, Carla Raymond, is available to our print subscribers on pages 33 – 36 of the January/February 2004 print edition.
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