I went to check out the future site of the 2010 World Disc Golf Championships. It's Lemon Lake County Park near Crown Point, Indiana. I arrived eagerly at the course at 6:30 am just as the sun was rising, only to find a gate blocking my way. "Park opens at 7:00 am." A guy let me in ten minutes early. Cold. Frost on the ground. Trees bare.

This place has 81 holes. There's a "White" course billed as "Beginner" level. 18 holes. Mostly short (200-350 foot holes). Many technical holes through trees. Some over a creek. Some boring and in the open. I played about 6 holes on this course and walked through several others. Pretty decent.

The "Red" and "Blue" courses are billed as "Advanced" level. 18 holes each. I played the Red course in its entirety. Shot a 67. Some holes are marked as par 4 and a couple rightly so. Most holes were in the 275-375 foot range. A few over 400 feet. A couple in the 500-600 foot range. Only a few holes in the open, and even then they bordered trees and had pins tucked somewhere. Most of the course was very technical through the trees. Some minor elevation changes (one significantly downhill hole). A creek comes into play on a few holes. Nice tees, signs, pins. Good mix of left-to-right and right-to-left holes. Probably plays much harder in the summer.

The Blue course was similar to the red course. I played about 6 holes of it and walked through several more holes. Actually, I liked the Blue course a little better. A couple of the holes were very unique.

Unfortunatly, I never made it to the "Silver/Gold" course which was billed as "Championship" level. Local signs say the course has 27 holes (websites aren't updated and say 18). The shorter tees are the silver tees, the longer ones the gold tees. Supposedly big ravines and a creek come into play.

The park was very well kept. Good signs, tees, pins, benches, and trash cans. A couple of the holes were missing signs, though. Every hole has two pin placements and some of the holes have two tees. I expect more work will be done on the courses to get ready for Worlds. The 2009 Worlds was played on nine 18-hole courses, I believe. So, I'm wondering if the place is big enough or if there are other nearby courses they'll play at. Anyway, I plan to be there in August to watch.

Some pictures of the "Red" course:

A tough long fairway:




Hole 14 was awesome:



All the pins seemed to be in the "B" position when I played, which made the course significantly harder, I'd guess.

This is a look from basket 14 back up to the tee:



Some fairways were just a bitch:




I played the long tees when they had them:

Mark and Sean go Ice Disc Wind

This is up there with my top 5 worst conditions disc golf ever. #1 is still one day Ander took me out in Michigan (when I was pretty new to D golf, certainly serious D golf, but Ander is crazy) and the temp hovering around 4 degrees and my beer froze in the bottle and I started mumbling because my jaw locked up and went all wider/wider/wider white eyes.

I remember I said, "Ander, I can't talk. I mean actually form words. We need to go."



Also in my top 5 was the Madison Jags Baraboo round where it rained ice/sleet and the wind was maybe Dee Dee Ramone's ass all up in my grill. I just remember being in pair of socks 5 and cold. That round, uh, sucked. (As you all know)

Today in Muncie we had snow, sleety rain, and WIND at a steady 37 mph, gusting up to 50 (via Weather Channel). The temp was 25 during the round, with the wind, 7 degrees.

God I wish I had had my Dig Cam. At one point Mark was huddled up against a tree trying to keep out of the gale. This huge sneeze of snow blizzard wind behind him. I had a putt into the wind come back 40 feet AT ME. Like that.

We kept laughing out loud at ourselves, so that was fun.

Ever threw a disc into 40 mph wind? The "funniest" shot (not ha-ha funny) was Mark's drive that curled down into the ground, bounced in the air, caught in the wind straight up, bounced, bounced, shot across a street (all of this on its EDGE, you get it?) OB, kept bouncing.

We shot +9 and +10 and we were happy. And glad to be done. So.



S