It’s called the Mider Cup.

Friday, September 24, 1999

It’s called the Mider Cup. It rhymes with golf’s Ryder Cup. The "M" stands for Minnesota. Why they didn’t spell Mider with a "Y" instead of an "I" is probably because disc golfers don’t pay much attention to their more aloof sibling.

Disc golfers have too much else on their minds, like, "How am I going to play the Todd Park 18 on Saturday now that they’ve lengthened the course and changed the positions of some baskets?"

"Shhh," said Debbie Huckaby. "We didn’t tell anybody else that."

Huckaby, Austin’s resident Pro Disc Golf Association (PDGA) tournament official, is looking for every advantage she can for the Southern Minnesota team, which includes players from Winona to Fairmont.

Northern Minnesota – St. Cloud to Brainerd – comes to Austin as the four-time defending champ. The two Twin Cities’ teams – East and West Metro – round out the roster.

Having the Mider Cup in Austin is akin to a coup, said Huckaby. That’s because a team gets a minimum of least one point for every participant. So numbers count in a big way and shorter travel distance should mean larger participation numbers for the South.

Huckaby has been told that a bus load of 50 players from St. Cloud is coming. But with the limited travel, Huckaby said the South team has a chance to unseat the defending champs.

"If we get 50 players from Austin," she said, "we might just win the thing."

Mider Cup registration is at 9:30 p.m. at the first pavilion at Todd Park. Round one begins with a shotgun start at around 10 a.m. Round two of the 36-hole tournament will follow a one-hour lunch break.

The Mider Cup is sponsored by the Minnesota Frisbee® Association, the oldest such group in the nation with its beginnings in the early 1970s.

Austin was selected as the 1999 Mider Cup site because St. Cloud – which has hosted the event for the past two years – had to pass off the tournament due to Mider Cup rules. (The defending champ hosts the event, but cannot host for more than two years running.)

The North team didn’t want the event in the Twin Cities, which would have virtually assured either the East or West Metro team a victory because of their populations.

So St. Cloud handed it to the South. Austin, with Todd Park’s 18 being one of the preeminent courses in the state, made it easy to select a site.

It hasn’t always been that way. Huckaby’s husband, Greg, has been playing disc golf since 1990.

"They used trees, telephone poles, water fountains," Huckaby said. "Then they discovered there was actually a sport called disc golf."

With the help of Austin Park and Rec, the disc golf boom in Austin followed shortly thereafter.

Huckaby hopes the Mider Cup rivals the SPAM®TOWN Open, which was heretofore the top disc golf draw to Austin with 69 players in 1999.

· It’s not to late to enter, for information call 433-4298.