Chris Deitzel - PDGA # 14036
Vibram in the bagVibram Summit X-link
I use the Summit as my putter and as an approach disc. I have 5 of them that I practice with. They are all around 170 grams and are all the X-link material. I usually carry 2 of them during a round of golf. Vibram Ridge X-link I have just started using the Ridge recently. It is a great disc with more glide than the Summit. It is also more over-stable than the Summit. It is a very reliable approach disc in the wind. I have also been experimenting with it for long-range putts and have been having quite a bit of success with it. With a bit more usage, this may become my main approach disc. Vibram Ridge X-link Soft I was using the X-link soft Ridge during the winter this year. It is a great disc for the snow as it does not seem to get snow buildup in the rim of the discs. The soft material also feels great in the cold weather. When this disc hits the chains its stays in. I prefer the X-link material during the warmer months, but during the sold winter months, this is the perfect disc for me. Vibram Ascent X-link The Ascent is a great disc for my game. I throw mostly sidearm for my drives and this a great stable disc for me. It can be used for straight shots as well as slight turnovers. I use this disc for 250 - 300 foot shots. The softness of this X-link Ascent is nice as it does not seem to skip much on landing which is nice for sticking my drives closer to the pin. Vibram Ascent X-link Firm I use this the same as I would my other Ascent. It is just slightly stiffer and has a little more stability than my other Ascent. | Stats:
Aces: 23
Year Born: 1977 Year Started Discing: 1994 Year Turned Pro: 2002 Disc golf tips and adviceWhen playing tournaments, remember to have fun. You can always play like an idiot, but don't act like one on the course. Remember that your attitude and demeanor affects the whole group that you are playing with. Tournaments are a great place to make life-long friendships with people from all around the world. Tournaments are over quickly, so just remember to have fun, try to play to the best of your ability, but if you fall short don't get all bent out of shape about it.
Favorite disc golf coursesMoraine State Park - Portersville, PA. I helped design and build this course, and after 5+ years of playing here, I am still amazed at how well this course turned out. A great place to be able to play over and over.
Maple Hill - One of the nicest places to play disc golf out there. Great piece of land, challenging course that is well thought out. It doesn't get much better than this. The Grange - This is one of the must-play courses out there. Take your tent and plan to spend a weekend at this disc golf paradise. Favorite tournamentsVibram Open
Pittsburgh Flying Disc Open West Virginia Open Pleasant Valley Disc Golf Classic The Grange Open (formerly The Virginia Open) Can-am Cup |
| DEITZEL SHOOTS COURSE RECORD!
Team
Vibram player Chris Deitzel takes first place at the 2nd Annual Frozen Finger
Fairway Charity Tour!
Playing against a field of 15 Pro Open players, Deitzel not only set a course record, but ended up winning by 3 strokes with a score of 97 after 2 rounds. This charity event raised over $400 for the Cleveland Food Bank. When asked about the performance of his discs, Deitzel replied, “The summit was money all day. It found the chains nearly every time it left my hand.” |
Favorite Disc Golf Story
Perhaps you all remember Hurricane Ivan back in September of 2004. I'm pretty sure I won't ever forget it. I was living beside Wolf Creek in Slippery Rock, PA. It was Wednesday September 15, 2004 and the rain started early in the day. It continued to rain non-stop until Friday night at about 8:00 PM. The creek that I lived beside was so flooded that it went from 5 feet wide to well over 100 feet wide. No worries though as my house was way up on the hill. So...
The 2004 Ohio River Bear Open was to be held on September 18-19 and I had been to every ORBO since the inception back in 2000. With all the rain that had fallen in the last 48 hours I figured I might not make it to the event and started to accept that fact that I would not make it to the ORBO. The rain stopped at about 8:00pm Friday night and it was about a 4 hour drive to the tournament. I made a quick decision and decided that I was going to hop into my S-10 pickup and drive to Reedsville, OH to play in the Ohio River Open.
I drove all night passing very few people on the highway. It was a beautiful drive. Weather was warm and there was no rain at all the entire drive. Later I found out that Ohio did not get hit as hard by the rain as we did in the Pittsburgh area. Everything was good until I got to Marietta, Ohio which is located right along the Ohio River. I came up to a Road Closed High Water sign, so I made a detour. Looking out into the dark I could see some areas of water, and then I saw even more water. I did manage to get through the area and kept moving on. At about 2:00am I was within 2 miles of Forked Run State Park, the site of the Ohio River Bear Open, when I come to a little dip in the road. First you must understand that Forked Run is located beside the Ohio River. OK. Well this little dip was flooded by a small creek that was about 15 feet wide and the water was about half-way up the guard rail. Tired and just ready to be at the course I decided to drive through it. Halfway through the lights in the S-10 start to flicker and the car sputters. I start rolling down the window and grab the dog in case I get swept away by the water, push the gas all the way down and amazingly sputter through the water to the other side. PHEW!!!
I pull into the park to see a bunch of people camping out down by the tournament headquarters in the lower camping area. Ahhhh. Back again. Well I also notice that I cannot drive up to the upper camping level because the road in the park is flooded and from what I could see looked like some of the course was flooded. Whatever, I just go to bed and am glad to be there.
When I wake up in the morning I see that we cannot get from Hole 5 to the rest of the course. There was a lake where the course usually was. Apparently they set up some temp holes on Friday since some of the holes were unplayable. But to get to these holes and the other holes that were blocked by this lake, we had to take a canoe over to them. So the TD would row groups from Hole 5 to Hole 6, and then back from 14 to 15. It was crazy. The TD rowed people back-and-forth all day long. It was quite a site.
So we play the first 9 and have an absolute blast. 38 of us told stories of how we got to the park which apparently was crazy for everyone. My drive through the water was nothing compared to some of the stories that I heard. Just goes to show how much we love this event. We play the round and finish for lunch. All day long you could see the water rising and getting closer to TD headquarters. By the time the first round was over you could no longer get to the campground without walking through a few feet of water. Water was getting closer in all directions. So what do we do? We start the 2nd round.
I started on Hole 2 or 3. Finished hole 5 and headed over to the canoe. Now it was about a 200 yard canoe journey compared to the 100 yard journey we had the first round. Water is getting closer to some of the baskets. Holes that were a thousand feet from the water were now within a 100 feet. We are having more fun than you could ever imagine. The canoe ride is a blast. Especially for my dog. Oh yeah, Frisbee my dog came from Forked Run State Park. She was found during the Ohio River Bear Open in 2001.
Well, when we get to Hole 7 we overheard some people saying that if we don't leave now that we are going to be stuck here. We were all confused and didn't really know what was going on and just continued to play. We finish our round and turn our cards in. Noticing that the water was getting very close to us in all directions. And we learn that we can no longer leave the park as the roads leaving the park are completely flooded. A few people managed to make it out during the 2nd round. James Porter tried leaving and his car ended up getting swept away by the water. He came walking back eventually telling us of the story. Not only were we stuck at the park, but none of us had any food! So eventually some of the locals get in touch with some people and meet us in the upper back end of the park. A few people canoe off to get us food. A few hours later they come back with a bunch of food. And let the Lord of the Flies begin. People eating 5 hamburgers, acting crazy, freaking out, eating all the food right away. While some of us are thinking that maybe we will be stuck here a few days??
Darkness falls and water is getting closer. I'm hanging out with Johnny Sias, Brad Schick and some other friends just talking about how crazy this is. It gets later and people start falling asleep. I awake to flashlights and people screaming. We all wake up. They tell us we have to leave now! First they tell us to drive our cars to this little mound and park them on top. We then hop into a boat and take off down the road which is now a river. They drop us off and we get in an ambulance with some locals in the area that are being evacuated as well. My dog makes a bed in the stretcher. This is all so crazy to us. They take us up some crazy backroad and eventually take us to the local church. We ended up spending the night at the church. None of us can get to our cars. It ended up being over a week until the waters receded enough to see if our cars even made it. I was lucky enough to have a friend nearby that picked me up and I spent the week at his house. Others spent the week in the little town with locals that were willing to help out. It was crazy. It ended up being the biggest flood in over 100 years on the Ohio River.
The 2004 Ohio River Bear Open was to be held on September 18-19 and I had been to every ORBO since the inception back in 2000. With all the rain that had fallen in the last 48 hours I figured I might not make it to the event and started to accept that fact that I would not make it to the ORBO. The rain stopped at about 8:00pm Friday night and it was about a 4 hour drive to the tournament. I made a quick decision and decided that I was going to hop into my S-10 pickup and drive to Reedsville, OH to play in the Ohio River Open.
I drove all night passing very few people on the highway. It was a beautiful drive. Weather was warm and there was no rain at all the entire drive. Later I found out that Ohio did not get hit as hard by the rain as we did in the Pittsburgh area. Everything was good until I got to Marietta, Ohio which is located right along the Ohio River. I came up to a Road Closed High Water sign, so I made a detour. Looking out into the dark I could see some areas of water, and then I saw even more water. I did manage to get through the area and kept moving on. At about 2:00am I was within 2 miles of Forked Run State Park, the site of the Ohio River Bear Open, when I come to a little dip in the road. First you must understand that Forked Run is located beside the Ohio River. OK. Well this little dip was flooded by a small creek that was about 15 feet wide and the water was about half-way up the guard rail. Tired and just ready to be at the course I decided to drive through it. Halfway through the lights in the S-10 start to flicker and the car sputters. I start rolling down the window and grab the dog in case I get swept away by the water, push the gas all the way down and amazingly sputter through the water to the other side. PHEW!!!
I pull into the park to see a bunch of people camping out down by the tournament headquarters in the lower camping area. Ahhhh. Back again. Well I also notice that I cannot drive up to the upper camping level because the road in the park is flooded and from what I could see looked like some of the course was flooded. Whatever, I just go to bed and am glad to be there.
When I wake up in the morning I see that we cannot get from Hole 5 to the rest of the course. There was a lake where the course usually was. Apparently they set up some temp holes on Friday since some of the holes were unplayable. But to get to these holes and the other holes that were blocked by this lake, we had to take a canoe over to them. So the TD would row groups from Hole 5 to Hole 6, and then back from 14 to 15. It was crazy. The TD rowed people back-and-forth all day long. It was quite a site.
So we play the first 9 and have an absolute blast. 38 of us told stories of how we got to the park which apparently was crazy for everyone. My drive through the water was nothing compared to some of the stories that I heard. Just goes to show how much we love this event. We play the round and finish for lunch. All day long you could see the water rising and getting closer to TD headquarters. By the time the first round was over you could no longer get to the campground without walking through a few feet of water. Water was getting closer in all directions. So what do we do? We start the 2nd round.
I started on Hole 2 or 3. Finished hole 5 and headed over to the canoe. Now it was about a 200 yard canoe journey compared to the 100 yard journey we had the first round. Water is getting closer to some of the baskets. Holes that were a thousand feet from the water were now within a 100 feet. We are having more fun than you could ever imagine. The canoe ride is a blast. Especially for my dog. Oh yeah, Frisbee my dog came from Forked Run State Park. She was found during the Ohio River Bear Open in 2001.
Well, when we get to Hole 7 we overheard some people saying that if we don't leave now that we are going to be stuck here. We were all confused and didn't really know what was going on and just continued to play. We finish our round and turn our cards in. Noticing that the water was getting very close to us in all directions. And we learn that we can no longer leave the park as the roads leaving the park are completely flooded. A few people managed to make it out during the 2nd round. James Porter tried leaving and his car ended up getting swept away by the water. He came walking back eventually telling us of the story. Not only were we stuck at the park, but none of us had any food! So eventually some of the locals get in touch with some people and meet us in the upper back end of the park. A few people canoe off to get us food. A few hours later they come back with a bunch of food. And let the Lord of the Flies begin. People eating 5 hamburgers, acting crazy, freaking out, eating all the food right away. While some of us are thinking that maybe we will be stuck here a few days??
Darkness falls and water is getting closer. I'm hanging out with Johnny Sias, Brad Schick and some other friends just talking about how crazy this is. It gets later and people start falling asleep. I awake to flashlights and people screaming. We all wake up. They tell us we have to leave now! First they tell us to drive our cars to this little mound and park them on top. We then hop into a boat and take off down the road which is now a river. They drop us off and we get in an ambulance with some locals in the area that are being evacuated as well. My dog makes a bed in the stretcher. This is all so crazy to us. They take us up some crazy backroad and eventually take us to the local church. We ended up spending the night at the church. None of us can get to our cars. It ended up being over a week until the waters receded enough to see if our cars even made it. I was lucky enough to have a friend nearby that picked me up and I spent the week at his house. Others spent the week in the little town with locals that were willing to help out. It was crazy. It ended up being the biggest flood in over 100 years on the Ohio River.
