FlingGolf Tournament Tour Launched, Destined for New England

AMESBURY – The World League of FlingGolf (WLF) chose San Diego as the site for the first of five major tournaments for 2023 because of the extensive network of flingers in southern California and because of the city’s famous good weather.
John Pruellage, president of New Swarm FlingGolf, which is headquartered in Amesbury, said each year the city has 320 days of sunshine. But not this year.
The passionate competitors from California and 14 other states showed up for the FlingGolf tournament. But atmospheric rivers also arrived, pounding the Golden State with snow and rain for weeks. Torrential rains almost washed out the tournament in San Diego.
Scrambling at the last minute, the WLF team moved the competition to a different course when the scheduled club was flooded and moved the first day of the event from Saturday to Sunday, which forced some players to drop out.
“We were disappointed,” Pruellage said.
But all the competition was played at JC Resorts’ courses at Twin Oaks and The Welk, named for Lawrence Welk, whose land the golf course is on.
Most important, the cameras rolled between rainstorms, capturing most of the event for broadcast next August by ESPN-TV. It is the second year the sports network has shown the eight-year-old sport to the world.
Hosting major tournaments on the tour and regional events is a critical strategy for the FlingGolf brain trust that includes Alex Van Alen, founder and CEO of New Swarm, Pruellage and Steve Bloom, vice president of New Swarm, which is headquartered in CIWorks here.
The San Diego tournament will again be part of the ESPN8 or Acho event that showcases a variety of new and under-viewed sports, including cliff diving, dodgeball, and the National Pickleball Championship. The network also rebroadcasts the FlingGolf tournament several times during the year.
FlingGolf combines aspects of lacrosse, baseball and hockey with golf. It is played on golf courses and follows golf rules. But unlike traditional golf, players need only one FlingStick to play, not a bag of clubs. The FlingStick replaces the driver, irons and woods, wedges and putter.
The two main events were the single players competition and a team event where players paired up. In both, as in golf, the lowest score wins.
FlingGolf attracts passionate players among men and women, particularly young adults, who find golf too slow.
The men’s division was won by Sam “Scranton” Scannell, director of athletics at Durham Nativity in North Carolina. The women’s division was won by Krysta “Birdie of Prey” Smith, a financial analyst in Earie, PA.
The team event was won by Austin “Showtime” Ebersole, a golf and FlingGolf professional at the American Golf Course in Lewes, DE, who paired with Scannell.
The best new player was Brian “Doc” Sanders, vice president of instruction at Columbia College in California. And the best military veteran was Mike “The Maine Event” DeRusha, a supervisor for the state of Maine Department of Transportation.
There will be several regional events, including one in West Virginia, during the year. The main tour events this year after San Diego are at Lewes, DE, in May; Colorado in July, New England at a site yet to be determined in September and Virginia in October.