Florida retiree shocked by $100,000 Fantasy Fishing win
Former athletic director of Florida School for the Deaf and Blind enters FLW Fantasy Fishing for first time, wins $100,000 by only 27 points
MINNEAPOLIS – Bruce Curtis recently thought he might have to get his hearing checked, because when he was informed that he had won the second FLW Fantasy Fishing tournament and its $100,000 first-place prize, he was simply dumbfounded.
Or shocked, to be more exact.
It just seemed too unbelievable to the 68-year-old St. Augustine, Fla., resident, who retired three years ago from the Florida School for the Deaf and the Blind, where he had been athletic director for 13 years. That’s because Curtis had just entered FLW Fantasy Fishing for the first time not more than a couple weeks ago at the urging of his son, Biff Curtis, a resident of Bon Aqua, Tenn. Curtis edged out Steve Nentwick, a 28-year-old resident of Winchester, Ky., by just 27 points to claim the $100,000 cash prize for his first-place finish. For his efforts, runner-up Nentwick won a $5,000 Walmart gift card.
“I thought it was a scam at first,” said Curtis. “I had just entered! It’s unbelievable. My wife couldn’t believe it. And the first words out of my son’s mouth were, `You’ve got to be kidding me.’ I was tossing and turning all night long after I received word from FLW Fantasy Fishing.”
The reaction Curtis received may be due in part to the fact that he didn’t tell anyone at home that he had entered. His wife of 29 years, Barbara, who coordinates interpreter services for the Florida School for the Deaf and Blind, didn’t know, and she thought he was being scammed. And though Curtis’ son Biff, with whom Curtis had fished for a number of years in local bass tournaments, had encouraged him to enter, Curtis said he did not share his picks with his son.
An avid angler and golfer, Curtis picked 10 bass pros from among a field of 157 that competed in the second tournament of the Walmart FLW Tour, professional bass fishing’s largest and most prestigious tournament circuit. Curtis accumulated points based on the performance of his 10 professional bass anglers. Established by Irwin Jacobs, the creator of FLW Outdoors and the Forrest Wood Cup, FLW Fantasy Fishing is rapidly growing in popularity. There is no entry fee to enter, but for an added edge, participants can purchase Player’s Advantage for only $10 to assist them in trying to win a $1 million guaranteed payday, plus six $100,000 payouts, one for each qualifying tournament.
“This is great. We’re going to use our winnings to pay down the mortgage on our home, which will be really helpful when Barbara decides to retire someday,” Curtis said.
To win the second FLW Fantasy Fishing tournament, Curtis earned 7,630 points based on the performance of the pro bass anglers who fished the FLW Tour’s second four-day tournament of the season on Table Rock Lake near Branson, Mo. The tournament was won by Chevy bass pro Anthony Gagliardi, a resident of Prosperity, S.C. Gagliardi won $125,000 by catching 10 bass in the final round that weighed a total of 28 pounds, 14 ounces.
Curtis picked three exactas (pros finishing in the same place he predicted), earning him additional points on top of the points he accumulated based on the fishing performance of each of his individual fantasy team members. He picked Gagliardi to finish in first place, BP pro David Walker, who finished fifth, and BP pro Shinichi Fukae, who finished in 10th place. He also selected Febreeze pro Michael Bennett and Folgers pro Scott Suggs, who both finished in the tournament’s top 10 finishers. Curtis’ bass pro picks, in the order he thought they would finish, included:
1. Anthony Gagliardi
2. Luke Clausen
3. Stetson Blaylock
4. Gary Yamamoto
5. David Walker
6. Dave LeFebre
7. David Fritts
8. Scott Suggs
9. Michael Bennett
10. Shinichi Fukae
Now Curtis is setting his sights on the $1 million grand prize that will be awarded to the FLW Fantasy Fishing player who accumulates the most points over six tournaments. Curtis, like many FLW Fantasy Fishing players, will enhance his chances of winning with Player’s Advantage, an online subscription available for only $10, which provides powerful research tools and information to help players select their fantasy fishing team.
North Dakotan grabs lead position in overall standings
With the completion of the second FLW Fantasy Fishing tournament, the hunt for the $1 million grand prize continues to intensify. Terry Moberly, a resident of Berea, Ky., who won the first FLW Fantasy Fishing tournament of 2009, dropped to second place, with 15,431 points in the overall standings. Terry Weaver, a resident of Bismarck, N.D., grabbed the overall lead in the six-tournament FLW Fantasy Fishing series with a total of 16,137 points. Robert Jennings, a resident of San Antonio, Tex., currently holds third place with 15,323 points.
However, FLW Fantasy Fishing is loaded with lots of twists and turns throughout the season. In fact, last year’s $1 million grand prize winner, Michael Thompson, a resident of St. Michael, Minn., a suburb of Minneapolis, never won more than a $50 Walmart gift card throughout the entire 2008 season until all the points had been tallied.
Winners from Maldives, Germany, Japan, Australia
Even though Ali Ibrahim came in 70th place in the second FLW Fantasy Fishing tournament, he may very well earn the honor for the Fantasy Fishing player the farthest distance away from a tournament lake. That’s because Ibrahim hails from the island nation of the Republic of Maldives, which consists of 26 islands in the middle of the Indian Ocean. For his efforts, Ibrahim won a BP replica die-cast bass boat model, worth about $55 in the United States.
Other international winners included Edith Berari, who came in 54th place, winning a (U.S.) $100 BP gas card; Kumagai Hidenori, a resident of Hokkaido, Japan, who came in 117th place, winning a (U.S.) $50 Walmart gift card; and Leigh McKenzie, a resident of Claremont, Tasmania, the island state south of Australia, who came in 282nd to win a Berkley fishing package, valued at about (U.S.) $20.
$1 million grand prize to be awarded Aug. 1 in Pittsburgh
FLW Fantasy Fishing is sponsored by FLW Outdoors, which brings the world’s richest bass-fishing tournament, the Forrest Wood Cup, to Pittsburgh this summer from July 30-Aug. 2. The Forrest Wood Cup is the final event in the Walmart FLW Tour, and just like fantasy football and fantasy baseball, you can follow the leading money winners on the FLW Tour all season long and win America’s richest fantasy event when the Fantasy Fishing winners for 2009 are announced in Pittsburgh on Aug. 1, 2009. Highlights from each FLW Tour tournament are broadcast to nearly 80 million households weekly on the “FLW Outdoors” television program, which will premiere April 5 on Versus. “FLW Outdoors,” hosted by Jason Harper, is also broadcast internationally through agreements with World Fishing Network (WFN) and Matchroom Sport to more than 500 million households in such countries as Canada, Germany, China, South Africa, Australia, Malaysia, Russia, Hungary and the United Kingdom, making it the most widely distributed weekly outdoor sports TV show in the world.
In addition to the $1 million grand prize and the six $100,000 tournament prizes, FLW Fantasy Fishing players are eligible to win prizes such as a $54,000 Ranger boat, a brand new Chevy vehicle, a $25,000 gift card or one of more than 1,800 additional prizes. Fantasy Fishing also offers $3 million and $5 million exacta bonus games, available by correctly ranking the top five finishers in the Forrest Wood Cup or the top seven finishers in a tournament.
FLW Fantasy Fishing players can increase their chances of winning the $1 million grand prize by entering all FLW Fantasy Fishing tournaments throughout the season and accumulating a greater amount of points leading up to the Forrest Wood Cup. The next tournaments on the FLW Tour professional bass circuit include:
Tournament 3: Lake Norman, Charlotte, N.C., April 23-26 (National Guard Open)
Tournament 4: Beaver Lake, Rogers, Ark., May 14-17 (Walmart Open)
Tournament 5: Kentucky-Barkley lakes, Benton, Ky., June 11-14
Tournament 6: Lake Champlain, Plattsburgh, N.Y., July 9-12
$1 million grand prize announcement: Forrest Wood Cup, Pittsburgh, Aug. 1
The richest fantasy sports game
In its first season, FLW Fantasy Fishing took the fantasy sports world by surprise, offering the first $1 million guaranteed grand prize for a fantasy sports game. And with that announcement, FLW Fantasy Fishing soared to the top of the fantasy sports world, gaining fans from 123 countries attracted to the game’s $7.3 million in overall cash and prizes, the highest payout of any fantasy sports game in the world.
This year, FLW Fantasy Fishing once again set a new standard, offering a $1 million grand prize again along with 1,800 other prizes for a total of $10 million in overall cash and prizes, the highest payout of any fantasy sports game in the world.
About FLW Outdoors
FLW Outdoors, named after Forrest L. Wood, the legendary founder of Ranger Boats, is the largest fishing-tournament organization in the world and is offering anglers the chance to win more than $33 million through 231 tournaments in 2009. FLW Outdoors also is taking fishing mainstream with FLW Fantasy Fishing, offering the largest awards possible in the history of fantasy sports: $10 million in cash and prizes. Sign up for Player’s Advantage for only $10 to get your edge and win.
For more information about FLW Outdoors and its tournaments, browse FLWOutdoors.com or call (270) 252-1000. For more information about FLW Fantasy Fishing and Player’s Advantage, along with a complete list of rules and prizes, visit FantasyFishing.com.