Nothing could thwart the disc golfers’ commitment to the game – not even the torrential rain and flooding that added natural water hazards (think lakes of mud) to their hilly, wooded course.

The second annual Throw the Distance Triples Tournament at the Doc Cramer disc golf course on Saturday was not a washout. Rather, it was a testament to 126 players’ fortitude and the community’s heart. The tagline is “helping families fight cancer” because the event raised over $9,500 for David’s Dream and Believe Cancer Foundation.

“Disc golfers are unique,” Tournament Director Paul Lovas said. “Rain or shine.”

“They’re ‘strong in the storm,’” his wife, Barbette Lovas, added. “That was (Cecily’s) motto.”

The tournament is played in memory of the Lovases’ daughter, Cecily, who battled a form of brain cancer called medulloblastoma from November 2018 until her death in April 2022, just a couple of months before the inaugural event.

“She was so grateful for DDBCF and wanted to do something to help give back to them,” Lovas explained. For the player packs, local outdoor lifestyle apparel brand Jetty donated event T-shirts, and Dynamic Discs provided discs foil-stamped with the crescent moon logo of Cecily’s “Live, Love, Lovas” initiative.

Paul Lovas designed, set up and ran the single-round, 21-hole, XC-tier triples event, which brought out 42 teams of three across all divisions. Lovas is a special education science teacher at Southern Regional High School. He was introduced to disc golf around 2014 by his colleague and fellow volleyball coach Ryan Frederickson, who was one of the original builders of the Doc Cramer course in Manahawkin. Originally it had nine holes, later expanded to 18, and for Saturday it was modified to 21, plus added obstacles and challenges.

The Lovases’ event is unique among disc golf tournaments as a charity/unrated round (for standing in the Professional Disc Golf Association). View results at pdga.com/tour/event/64834.

As a triples format, each three-man team plays best shot, meaning after all three throw, they play from the best lie, by consensus.

Changes were made to the holes this year, including “mandos” or mandatory conditions, OBs or out-of-bounds,…