Columbus, Ohio, 9/21-22, 2008

Gentlemen: Saturday morning, 10am, at the Brent Hambrick / Hoover Dam (Columbus, OH) disc golf course, I met the following: Andy Segedi, Rob Hays, and we waited about a half hour for Sean Lovelace and Mark Neely to arrive before teeing off on hole one of this excellent 27-hole course. It is quite solid, probably the best (I declare) in the Columbus area, though I haven't played them all. It has great variety, about 9-10 openish holes, including the one below, a 290 foot shot down towards a basket with the "Hoover Dam," as they refer to it, behind it, just enough to make you think seriously about overthrowing your shot. It's a gorgeous vista, ruined somewhat by the presence of Mr. Lovelace and Mr. Segedi.

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Hole 6 (?) is a one of the strongest holes on the course, a 295' shot to a dropoff on the right and a basket on a pedestal about fifteen feet down from the fairway:

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I don't remember which holes this is, probably on our first round, where Mark is trying to salvage a mediocre drive. On the day neither Sean nor Ander was putting all that well. It left some space for the others to make their move...

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Segedi putting downhill towards a basket that recedes towards OB:

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This was an excellent course, played pretty well, collectively by us. I don't have any shots of the 9 in the woods, very nicely laid out but birdieable, or the 9 in the deep deep woods, supertechnical holes, where we racked up some bogies. Round one had Ander as the winner at -3, Sean at +3, Andy at +7 (I think), Rob at +7 (I think), and Mark bringing up the back at +12.

We took a break to eat lunch at a preppy sort of place with the red-hat ladies brigade on display. Rob entertained them with his regurgitation act. Segedi offered to strip.

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The second round (featuring Rob's signature hammer throw, brought to you by the letter G and the Great Lakes Oktoberfest beer) was warmer, afternoon by now.

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Also you can find Andy Segedi in the wild:

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One of the final holes (#15?) plays left to right along a road (on or over which is OB), and it's a nasty little hole. Ander went OB both times, not helping his cause. This is obviously a popular hole since the following (along with "DICK" and other sundry quality terms) were spray painted on the road, perhaps out of anger or frustration?

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Pensively, Sean often wondered if Mark could hold onto his lead midway through the round:

This was one of the woods (but not crazy technical woods) holes featuring either 1> a huge high hyzer shot over trees, or else 2> a hyzer skip shot along the fairway that doglegged about 60 degrees to the basket. Ander deuced this both rounds, a highlight of his round.

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Round two, Mark showed the hell up, turning in a score of -1, winning (!), and improving by 13 strokes, proving something to all of us, especially Sean. Ander ended up +1, Sean +2, Andy and Rob at +7. Interesting, we thought. Mark led most of the latter half of the round and kept hitting putt after clutch putt, drives in the fairway. A solid performance. Sean began to steam.

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We drove over to Lobdell Preserve (20 minutes east, in Alexandria, OH) and put in 18 holes on this (also difficult) course. This one's most obvious feature is its length and open, rolling fairways. It's in the midst of Deliverance-seeming country but is very nicely maintained (though they could use some signage pointing the way from hole to hole). We had planned on maybe doing 36 but it was a bit of a bear, particularly since the hurricane winds had done some damage to the holes here. One of the better holes would have been hole 7, but as you can see the HUGE tree made this a...challenging...shot. It's downhill to begin with, featuring a low ceiling, and if you tried to throw a turnover at it, you might well carry, as Rob and Mark did, 150' down the hill:

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This is a shot of Sean in his natural state of fearfulness, on the other side of the fallen tree, by the basket:


If he doesn't move for a long time he slowly becomes invisible.

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An action shot of Rob driving on one of the intermediary technical holes. These provided a very nice break from the longer open holes, and played through a huge ravine. There were very few bugs, shockingly. I didn't photograph the open holes since they're not as interesting compositionally.

This was a fun round. We were all clustered within 2 strokes the majority of the round, perhaps because the holes were long enough that there were few deuces, but open enough that there were few bogeys (though Ander found his way to a couple of those at unfortunate times). One of the best holes is #17, which is a long hole (400'?) a bit of a left to right bend, but the fairway sloped to the left, making the shot quite difficult to keep in bounds. We were pretty close by this point. Sean threw the shot of the round, setting himself up for an easy par. Andy dropped a stroke (he was leading by 2 at this point) with a bogey. Ander and Mark shanked it in the left woods, not knowing that there was also a huge bonus dropoff into a ravine. That made par a difficulty...

With one to play, hole 18 is a great finisher. Birdieable but nearly blind, a 280 footer down about 70 feet to the green. Sean put his 40 feet from the basket. Andy missed but got par. Rob shot par. Mark had a long birdie putt but also missed. Ander nearly aced it and settled for a drop-in birdie, but too little. Too late. Andy managed to hold onto his lead and carried the day with a +1. Sean ended at +2, tied with Ander. Mark ended at +3, and Rob, tiring, shot +8. Impressive day for Andy and Mark! Unimpressive for Sean in particular, who not only did not register a win, but he was beaten by Mark (4th time historically) and Andy (first time). Rob was certainly in the hunt on this course. All this is to say that the global superpowers have receded and everyone, it appears, is vulnerable. Rob, it may soon be your day.

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Sean and Mark and Ander retired to the inn. Rob and Andy drove back to Cleveland. The next morning Sean and Mark headed back to Muncie. Ander stuck around and tried another course, to wit, Griggs Reservoir (Columbus, OH):

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This is the only photo I took because it's an underwhelming course. Beautiful park along some river in downtown Columbus just west of OSU. The river allegedly "comes into play on at least three holes" which is not accurate. Unless you seriously munged a shot there is no way the river is in any way in play. The course is okay, but kind of samey. The average hole is 250-280 feet, open, or with one tree in the way, flat, back and forth along the park beside the river. The fact that the sign says "park/frisbee information" should tell you something about the design of the course. It's a good place to bring your kids and dogs. Maybe have a picnic lunch. If they'd taken advantage of some of the real rougher stuff back from the mowed areas this could be a good course, or if they'd moved some of the baskets up next to the water so you'd have to reckon with it, it would be worth the trouble of playing twice. I shot -1, playing quite poorly. Didn't stick around for another round. Drove down, dejected, to Columbus Brewing Company, which was closed (eh.). Ate lunch and posted this at a good breakfast/lunch joing in the "German Village" area by the Brewing District. Retired to the hotel. Ready to put in another round someplace along the way to my next stop (Earlham college) tomorrow. As always, enjoyed playing disc with those who made the trip down to join.

Capsule report: Columbus has 2 excellent courses and one mediocre one. I'd give Brent Hambrick a 3.35/4.0, Lobdell a 3.0, and Griggs Reservoir a 2.4. The PDGA site shows they have a bunch more courses. Perhaps worth another rendezvous...?