I first met Juliana Bower (now, Juliana Korver PDGA #7438) in 1998 at the Fountain Hills Thrills disc golf tournament held at Fountain Hills, Arizona, directed by Dan Ginnelly.
Between rounds on the first day as lunch was being served, I spotted her and said hello. I knew who she was – the 1998 Women’s Disc Golf Professional World Champion (later, to win that title 5 times) – and she was kind enough to sit with myself and a friend, Mike Milne, to eat and talk.
Fast forward to the year 2000. I was at the ‘Toboggan’ disc golf course at Kensington Metro Park, in Milford, Michigan, a newly designed course created to accommodate a large field of players registered for the upcoming 2000 PDGA Disc Golf World Championships.
A random draw doubles event was scheduled, which, to my surprise, was hosted by none other than Juliana Bower. As I recall, she had just switched sponsors from Innova to Discraft and was in the area to promote the tournament.
I drew Mark Ellis as a teammate and the two of us played well enough to win a prize disc each, as payout. I selected a chartreuse colored, maximum weight 176 gram Discraft “Cyclone”. It had a double-stamp, featuring the Discraft Doubles Series logo printed twice; once in blue sparkle, with a full-spectrum stamp offset on top
Given that this was a doubles event, and that my prize disc read “Discraft Doubles Series” – and was a double-stamp, I asked Juliana if she would sign it twice. She smiled, and laughed as she signed her second autograph on my souvenir.
The disc remains in mint condition after nearly seventeen years of storage in a plastic bag.
