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.
