Big Break Disney Golf Blog

I have never been a fan of car racing, NASCAR or otherwise. But then again, I had never seen a race car (or a racetrack) in person before. When I went to the Walt Disney World Speedway for the first time to test the challenge, I had the incredible experience of seeing one of those incredible machines up close and personal. There is no way for me to describe the raw power harnessed under the hood of a NASCAR, but if you ever get the chance, I highly recommend it.

The racetrack challenge was a particular favorite of mine. When testing this challenge, it became apparent it was not going to be as easy as it might appear at first. Ok, fine, hitting a 400-yard drive might never seem easy. But the real obstacle on pit road was the definite “break” to the right, which meant that any ball that landed to the right of center without some degree of draw on it was going to bounce out of bounds. This became very evident when the players hit their shots. For me, the biggest surprise in this challenge (besides Kevin winning) was how many players came up less than ten yards short of the finish line. I guess next time we’ll make it a 390-yard driving challenge.  

The look on Mike’s face when his brother Pat pulled up was priceless. And the interesting part was that it was actually Pat who called us about coming on the show. Obviously, it was great having him on, but the real surprise was when he showed up to the Magnolia course with his good friend and Tampa Bay Rays star Left Fielder Pat Burrell. It was a treat for everyone to have them on the set.

It’s interesting how some shows just seem to have all the right pieces fall into place. For this show, it was pretty much a forgone conclusion that Andrew was going to elimination. All the players wanted to see him go, and so when everyone ganged up on him during the B-R-E-A-K challenge, we all knew it was time to see how he would react under the pressure of elimination.

The biggest challenge we had with the elimination challenge turned out to be weather. All the shots were tested, and we determined each location was very fair given the size of the circle and the obstacles faced by the players. However, in between the fourth and fifth location, a huge downpour moved through the golf course and soaked the green. So after re-chalking the circle, we resumed the competition. As Vincent soon found out, the green was now very soft, and the players had a hard time controlling the spin from the 125-yard location. But of course, they were able to adjust by the next spot.

We are now over half-way through the season, and there is still some great golf left to be played. Thanks for watching!

And the winners are…Tony and Gipper.

Tune in Thursday, November 12 (the week of the Children’s Miracle Network) to watch a live match between the Finau brothers. The winner will receive a VIP Children’s Miracle Network Prize Package featuring everything from Disney park tickets to VIP tournament tickets. It has everything a quality Disney Golf trip should have.

What will be interesting is who the winner will bring back to the 2010 tournament. Both these guys want to be playing in the 2010 event and not visiting it, but I know the brothers are excited to compete live. Golf Channel will be featuring Tony and Gipper’s 1-hole match on Golf Central on Thursday, November 12.

Anytime Big Breakers team up, it can be a recipe for disaster, drama and excitement. The emotions abound when these guys are paired up. In previous series, we’ve allowed captains to choose teams, but mostly we’ve had a random draw. That said, for Big Break Disney Golf, we really wanted to switch it up. That’s why we wanted these guys to go back to their roots, back to when they were kids, and so we told them, “you choose.”

What we, the producers, didn’t expect was for the pairing to finish so quickly. It happened in 23 seconds. We thought maybe a minute or two, perhaps a little longer. But these guys knew exactly who they wanted on their side when it came down to hitting shots under pressure. (As a side note, I was not surprised to see Kevin and Andrew last to be picked.)

Insight from the Interviews: Facts all contestants had in common

1. Everyone knew Tony and Gipper were going to team up together. (Damn, I was hoping to see them go head to head.)

2. No one wanted to have Kevin on his team.

3. Everyone mentioned at least once that they wouldn’t mind having Tony on his team.

4. Andrew Giuliani was not going to be paired with Blake.

5. Andrew Giuliani was not going to be paired with Mike.

Every Big Break series provides amazing shots that are so good that they seem to define a player later on in the series. Kim (Ka’anapali) could not miss-hit her driver throughout the challenges and in one challenge she blasted one that went 333 yards. Haymes and Bernie (Michigan) dominated in the same alternate shot challenge we had in this show. Derek (Prince Edward Island) hit two wedge shots that ended up touching each other!

Now, this Big Break certainly has many fantastic shots, however Andrew’s fairway bunker shot that lead to his team’s immunity is (so far) his defining shot. Now, I’m not saying this could lead to his dominance in the series or that this could lead him to victory, but when he hit that shot, I jotted down the phrase “Defining Shot” in the margin of my notes that day. Those palm trees are 25-30 feet high, and Andrew was only 30 yards behind them. He had to hit that ball straight up with a little cut to get around a looming palm tree directly in his line of flight. He picked it cleanly, and I’ll tell you something, he silenced all his critics on the cast.

So, I think it’s official: Giuliani is now a favorite and a contender in Big Break Disney Golf.

Elimination Notes:

Note: How come Mike Perez can hit his 3 wood more accurately than his 9 iron? 

Fact: Mike hit his 3 wood on the 14^th hole of Disney’s Palm Course to a distance of 28 feet. His 9-iron distance he miss-hit in his match against Blake for 25 yards.

Note: Vince Johnson likes his 9 iron. 

Fact: The footage was edited to ensure we could accommodate everything in the show. Vince and J.R. actually played the 16^th hole three times but only two were seen in the show. Vince’s three distances (I walked them off myself) on his three approach shots from 155 yards are as follows:

1^st shot: 5’6”
2^nd shot: 8’11” (viewers didn’t see this hole –J.R. and Vince tied with par)
3^rd shot: 11’

Note: Mike pulls his 3 wood before J.R. gets to his ball. 

Fact: Because Mike teed off first, he was first to reach his ball in the left rough. As Mike wheeled up to his ball, he looked back at J.R. and pulled his 3 wood to signify he’s going for the green in two. Seconds later, J.R. finally wheels his pull cart to his ball. Mike knew he was going for it and showed just how aggressive the Perez’s are on the golf course. Mike Perez may be the most aggressive player on the cast. But how about when he is compared next to Gipper?

Note: One of the sexiest 3-woods I’ve ever seen. 

Fact:  The 3-wood Mike hit to seal J.R.’s fate took off on a perfect line with a 10-yard draw and never left the flagstick. This shot displayed to the other contestants why he played on the Nationwide Tour for four years. Earlier, I talked about defining shots so far through this series; I’d have to say that this could be Mike’s defining shot.

In a Big Break Disney Golf episode that began on Main Street U.S.A., Sean Kalin’s (Delray Beach, Fla.) dream of winning the series came to an end.

Kalin lost to Blake Moore (Monrovia, Calif.) in a playoff after tying in the elimination challenge to become the fourth player eliminated from the 10-week series. The two competed in a three-location, stroke-play challenge (greenside flop shot/ 130-yard shot/275-yard shot) on the eighth hole at Disney’s Oak Trail Course. Tied at 11 strokes after the third location, Kalin pulled his playoff tee shot left from 275 yards, while Moore hit the green. Unable to match Moore’s three point total, Kalin exited the series.

“Everyone’s goal is to win,” Kalin said. “Realistically, you can’t win in everything you do. Sometimes you have to lose to learn how to win. My kids and family will be proud to see me get this far.”

Considering his past, playing in Big Break Disney Golf was an accomplishment. A talented junior golfer, his future took a drastic turn at the age of 10. He was abducted by his mom and stepfather, who took him to their home in Florida. After several days, he escaped and returned to his home in New York.

What he lost was his desire to play golf.

“After it happened, I decided to stop playing, because in my mind, I believed that I was kidnapped because of the game of golf,” he explained.

Kalin didn’t touch a golf club for more than 10 years, and when he did, in his early 20’s, he only played a few times. On Aug. 19, 2008, his birthday, he played again and immediately decided to pursue professional golf. To reach his goal, he started working with an instructor in the hopes of playing in the 2010 PGA TOUR Qualifying Tournament.

“My goal when I first started was to give myself three years to get to the Nationwide or PGA TOUR,” Kalin said. “I am almost at the one-year point and have accomplished more than I thought I could. I don’t have a backup plan, because you can’t plan on failure. You can just plan on succeeding.”

While his plan failed in Big Break Disney Golf, merely returning to golf has been a successful venture.

I stated in my first blog that I grew up in Central Florida, so it was definitely weird to be taping this edition of Big Break at the Walt Disney World Resort. Disney has such a mystique around this area, so when you get to see some of—but not all of—the behind-the-scenes goings on at Disney, you feel like you have been let in on government secrets.

Setting up the flop wall in the Magic Kingdom was a thrill, but it came at a cost: losing sleep. The morning of the challenge, my editor, Trish, and I awoke at 2:45 a.m. and were in the hallowed grounds of the Magic Kingdom at 3:30 a.m.! I had three hours to get my props crew in and get the flop wall set up before the rest of the crew and the contestants arrived. Time was of the essence, because the Magic Kingdom waits for no one, not even Big Break; the park opens at 9 a.m. sharp, and if we were still taping by then, there would be major issues.

With that information firmly planted in my psyche, I pushed the prop crew to their limits to get the wall set up, while also directing the camera crew on where to set up and what exactly to shoot. When it was all said and done, the wall was up by 5:45 a.m., and when the contestants arrived at 6:30 a.m., they were presently surprised.

I am happy to say with all the efforts of Trish and I, the challenge was shot and the crew was packed up and out of the park by 7:38 a.m. It was an hour ahead of schedule, but we still had two more challenges and an elimination challenge to shoot before our day started to slow down. I want to give a quick thanks to Hatch for supplying the delicious rice cereal Mickey ears as a reward for getting out of the park ahead of schedule.

It was tough to see both Blake and Sean in elimination today. Both players are such good guys and have loads of talent. Sean is a great story of someone overcoming and turning a very traumatic event into a positive. When I first heard his story and then met him and his family, I was hooked. The world is a crazy place, and I am not surprised by anything that happens now. Sean is one of those contestants I am happy to have met and will never forget. Since taping the show, Sean has welcomed another member to his family, a baby boy named Jordan. Congrats!

Sporting a bold style of play to match a colorful wardrobe, Kevan Maxwell doesn’t back down.  It was his aggressive nature, though, that led to his elimination from Big Break Disney Golf.

Maxwell’s demise came at the hands of Kevin Erdman and Sean Kalin in an elimination challenge where the trio hit from three locations, all of which offered risk/reward scenarios that tested both course management and shot-making ability. The player recording the most strokes was eliminated.

The first location demanded contestants hit a 155-yard shot from the left rough and over water with a tree in the player’s sightline to the hole. Instead of playing safely to the right of the green or short to the fairway, Maxwell chose to go over the tree with hopes of hitting the green to apply pressure on his opponents. The bold plan backfired when his ball clipped the tree and landed in the water fronting the green. Maxwell posted a five, one more than Erdman and Kalin.

“I just caught it thin,” Maxwell said of his effort. “If I pull it off, it changes the story for the other guys. If you fail, you fail. You just can’t be afraid to fail.”

Playing aggressively on the remaining two locations while his opponents took the safe route, Maxwell was not able to make up ground and became the third player from the 12-man field eliminated from the 10-week series

The golf landscape is populated by players like Maxwell who posses the talent but not the means to pursue a professional career. Working at Kiawah Island Golf Resort by day and delivering pizza at night leaves him neither the time nor money to compete and develop his game. What he does have is a passion that seemingly has no expiration date.

“Anybody who knows me knows golf is what I want to do, and it is my heart’s desire,” said Maxwell. “I love to practice as much as I love to play. I know I could make it if I had more time to put into the game. When my time comes, I will be able to do it. I have to go back home and go to work to make some money to pay bills and play in tournaments.”

 

I stated in my first blog that I grew up in Central Florida, so it was definitely weird to be taping this edition of Big Break at the Walt Disney World Resort. Disney has such a mystique around this area, so when you get to see some of but not all of the behind-the-scenes goings on at Disney, you feel like you have been let in on government secrets.  Setting up the flop wall in the Magic Kingdom was a thrill, but it came at a cost, losing sleep.  The morning of the challenge, my editor, Trish, and myself awoke at 2:45 AM and were in the hallowed grounds of the Magic Kingdom at 3:30 AM!  I had three hours to get my props crew in and get the flop wall set up before the rest of the crew and the contestants arrived. Time was of the essence because the Magic Kingdom waits for no one, not even Big Break; the park opens at 9 AM sharp and if we were still taping by then there would be major issues.  With that information firmly planted in my psyche, I pushed the prop crew to their limits to get the wall set up, while also directing the camera crew on where to set up and what exactly to shoot.  When it was all said and done, the wall was up by 5:45 AM and when the contestants arrived at 6:30 AM, they were presently surprised.

 

I am happy to say with all the efforts of Trish and I, the challenge was shot and crew packed up and out of the park by 7:38 AM and hour ahead of schedule, but we still had two more challenges and an elimination challenge to shoot before our day started to slow down.   A quick thanks to Hatch for the delicious rice-krispie Mickey ears as a reward for getting out of the park ahead of schedule.

 

It was tough to see both Blake and Sean in elimination today, both are such good guys and have loads of talent.  Sean is a great story of someone overcoming and turning a very traumatic event into a positive.  When I first heard his story and then met him and his family, I was hooked.  The world is a crazy place and I am not surprised by anything that happens now.  Sean is one of those contestants I am happy to have met and will never forget.  Since taping the show, Sean has welcomed another member to his family, a baby boy named Jordan, congrats!

Show 3 started out with one of the signature Big Break challenges. We have done the Glass Break Challenge in a variety of different ways. But no matter what the format, it's always a thrill seeing the players’ eyes light up when they pop that glass. But perhaps even more satisfying is the look on their faces when we are able to successfully surprise the players. As they pulled up to the challenge and saw PGA TOUR winner J.B. Holmes there hitting balls, it was very exciting for everyone.

Logistically trying to sneak a PGA TOUR player out on a golf course can sometimes be equivalent to sneaking candy into the movie theatre. But from a production standpoint, it was important that we get a realistic reaction when the players saw J.B. for the first time. Fortunately this time we were able to pull it off, and the guys had no clue when they came around the corner and J.B. was hitting balls in front of them. Then, when J.B. broke the glass (on cue, in one swing by the way) and they heard that sound in real life, the excitement level was definitely raised.

The elimination challenge certainly took a very unexpected turn early on. When we tested shots at the first location from 154 yards behind the tree, there was plenty of green visible to the right of the tree. The pin was not accessible by design, but a draw 9 or 8 iron was what we expected the players to hit to safely get on the playing surface. What we didn't expect was KMAX trying to go right over the tree and totally changing the dynamic of the challenge. But if there is one thing I have learned on my 8 seasons of Big Break, it's to always expect the unexpected.

- Kevan Maxwell

Wow! It was an early morning! Breakfast was good, but one less person was there. It was different. But you know what, it’s how it is. When we entered the bus, we were like, “wow, what an upgrade in transportation!” Ha! Then, when we saw Disney Wide World of Sports, I was still clueless, because I have never been to Disney.

 

As we walked towards the stadium, I was still wondering what the heck we were doing here and the relevance of it to golf. When they opened the gates, I was like a little kid again. Then I started to connect the dots. We were playing a home run derby. I was just hoping to hit one, but I ended up with four. I'm not the longest driver of the golf ball in the group, so I knew I would have to look forward to the next challenge. It was awesome to watch the others pound it out of the park. Tony had 22. I didn't think anyone would catch him. But when Vince got up to 16 or so, I was thinking he can catch him, but he didn’t. Congrats to Tony. Damn it. I need that 5G's (ha)!

 

Going into the next challenge, we are getting to hit the bunker shot that Lucas Glover holed to win his first PGA TOUR Event. We all drew names, and I got selected by Gipper. I was like, “Sweet! Let's go!” I'm not intimidated by anyone! My short game is my 1B as my strength in my game with my mental game. When Gipper got up to hit, I was thinking, ok, I'm going to put it close anyways, so it doesn't matter where he goes. When he chunked his shot into the fringe, I was shocked. So when I bent down to get my clubs, I pumped my fists to get myself geared up. I got in, and I told myself just to keep my chest moving, and I’ll be good. Boom! Two feet! Tap in! And when Gipper missed his putt I knew it was over! On the next show!

 

Now what wasn't shown was the guys asking me about the fist pump. I told them it wasn't out of disrespect for Gipper’s poor shot. I never wish bad things on anyone. I expect everyone to succeed, so that I don't get surprised and get caught off guard. Everyone was cool. They didn't think I was like that. They just wanted to make sure.