Since IFPA sanctioned events could not be held yet in July, we had a “just for fun” tournament as a way to ease back into league activities. It took the form of a six-hole mini pingolf tournament, using games that had been with the league the longest as the theme. Joseph and I chose the objectives together. Some had been used in previous pingolf tournaments, and some were new, but we thought they were all on the easy side. In fact, my concern was that the experienced players would find them too simple.
As Joseph likes to say, “A pingolf objective can never be too easy.” Everyone was happy to see old league friends again, and also very angry at pinball. I had expected several of the top players to get identical low scores on the course, so I made plans to have a final only among the people tied for first. Joseph contributed a great idea for having an unusual pingolf finals format which I was really looking forward to implementing. Unfortunately, the rules I made said that finals would be played between “everyone tied for first” which I assumed would be at least two to three people. Pingolf with three balls usually ends up with a lot of ties.
Instead, the scores on the course were mostly not very good, except for Joseph’s. As the evening wore on I started realizing Joseph was probably going to win outright without a finals because no one was going to tie his score of 13. When past league champion Chris, who made a surprise appearance, turned in a score of 19, I knew Joseph probably had it sewn up and I actually started giving him a hard time for winning because I was worried everyone would be disappointed. It was closer than I realized at first, because Derik and Danny were only one point behind (or ahead), but the rules of the tournament resulted in Joseph going home with the plaque without any playoffs. In retrospect, I should have had a guaranteed playoff. I will revise that if we ever do a mini pingolf tournament again.
I think it did end up being about the right amount of pinball for our first night back together, even if some people did probably hate me for the pingolf objectives. Medieval Madness (start any three-ball multiball) proved the easy objective overall, based on the number of people receiving 4 (worst score) versus 1. The hardest was Tales of the Arabian Nights (six Tiger Loops): 11 people got a 4, and no one got a 1. Next was Indiana Jones (collect Dogfight hurryup) with 11 people getting 4 and one person getting 1. Monster Bash (start Mosh Pit Multiball) also had no holes-in-one.
Final scores for Silver Balls in July are below.
- Joseph (13)
- Danny C. (14)
- Derik (14)
- Jason (16)
- Russell (17)
- Josh (18)
- Chris (19)
- Donny (20)
- Joe (20)
- Mike (20)
- Heather (21)
- Travis (22)
- Bryan (23)
- Dan N. (23)
- Maribeth (24)
- Shylia (24)
We will be having our Zen Tournament mid-season for a change, in order to try to catch up and finish Season 14 as soon as we can. We were going to have it in July since it doesn’t need to be sanctioned anyway, but there was an emergency that resulted in The Avenue being closed on our intended date. We will instead be having the Zen Tournament tomorrow, August 3, at 7 pm. Season 14 will resume regular play on August 10.
I hope to see you there!