Baltimore Disc Trip, Part 2 of 2: BALTIMORE PROPER

Yes, we saw the Baltimore row houses (read: projects). Hell, we even held a reading in the row houses.

Here's a photo of the artist Stephanie Barber and the poet/publisher Adam Robinson (of Publishing Genius). They are introducing the reading. Mark and I rocked the words and beers and some sweet-ass wine, oh my. I encouraged the writer Mike Young to repeatedly leap into the air. This he did.

We also saw the Baltimore crab cakes, by visiting the lively Faidley's Fish Market. This place was full of character (and characters). A man with a rolling cart tried to sell us socks. We decided on crab cakes and beer.

 

Mark and I thought about oysters, but Mark said you should only eat them in 'R' months. Faidley's also sells muskrats and racoons, if you are interested. Though this seems like a tourist "shock" thing, I did some research. They do indeed sell muskrats and raccoons.

But let's get to the disc: Druid Hill Park. Mark and I would play this course for two days. We were going to hit one other course outside Baltimore, but had things to do and would have lost time finding our way. Also, I don't trust Mark's GPS and we really liked Druid Hill.

Friday, after resting following our Black Course beat down (see earlier post), we met up at the course with Adam, the novelist Michael Kimball, and the artist, Joseph Young. The sun was dappling, a light breeze, perfect. I dropped some Diagram discs on Adam and Michael as a thank you for hosting us in Baltimore.

Diagram disc in the house

We would play off and on with these writers, with Mark and I putting in more rounds/holes than the rest (As Jags, we take this D golf thing a tad bit serious). I'd summarize these individual players this way:

Adam: Obviously a novice, but very eager to learn the rules and get better at the game. Enthusiastic. He needs to get another driver besides a 150 Leopard. He'll obviously keep improving as he plays. Putts very solid for a beginner. An aggressive putter. Gets the disc to the hole; most beginners do not.

Michael: A natural athlete. Has played less than a year and can par most holes on this course. Needs a greater understanding of shot selection and individual disc characteristics, but obviously that will come with time. Michael will most likely evolve into a very good (he's already good) disc golfer, if he maintains his current interest.

Kimball in the evergreens

Joseph: Joseph doesn't really have a game, but this is no criticism. He appears to view disc golf as a meandering, and that's just fine. The beauty of the sport is you can play with your own perspective. He clearly enjoys the camaraderie of a casual round. Joseph uses one disc, and that one he borrows from someone nearby.

The one thing that impressed me about Adam and Michael is their attitude and round play. Usually, they intuited where to be, where not to be (in people's lines, etc.), when to talk, when to not talk, the basics of etiquette. For new disc golfers, they had a good sense of the flow of a round. I'd also say they both have good mental games. Neither gets too flustered when things go badly, but both care enough to really want to get better.

Let's move on to the course. THE SCORES?

Fri:  Druid Hill [missing first round] (I think it was Sean even and Mark +3)
Druid Hill Second round (M. Kimball played half): Sean -1, Mark +1

Sat: Druid Hill Third round (long tees) Sean +3, Mark +7
Druid Hill Fourth round (with 6 "X" holes): Sean +3, Mark +6

As you can see, we really mixed it up during these four rounds. We played short and long tees. We played some of the gnarly "X" course. We played with others and sometimes just us two. This made for some chaotic disc golf, but also kept things interesting.

Hole 1 is 221 (these distances from the short tees) and a pretty simple hyzer with a mid-range or lay-off driver. We buzzed this hole repeatedly with ace runs. Behind the hole is a gated cemetery, adding character. It is also on a hill with stunty evergreens. I say this to give you a feel of the course. Lots of rolling hills. Lots of 'catchy' trees in your way.

Hole 2 is very interesting. 323, but with massive R to L dogleg, the basket tucked way-ass under overwhelming evergreen canopy. A real thinking man's hole. You need a quality turnover/forehand, then real skill on how to play that second shot.

A typical hole 2 putt

Hole 3 played 365, with a giant OB road on your right. Designed to lure you into trying for a bomb and losing it over the OB.

Hole 4 was a tight drive through shafts between trees. Pretty ordinary, yet still asking for shot-making ability.

Hole 5 was a wonderful hole, only 249 but massively uphill and a shaped shot around many trees.

See the basket way up there?

Hole 6 was one of the signature holes. A 384 foot downhill turnover OVER two separate OB roads. There was a bench there and the locals said, "This is where everyone smokes pot." The next round we passed 6 players, on the bench, smoking pot. Behind hole 6 is a narrow trail-way entering into a dense curtain of woods, leading to...The X COURSE.

Ander, remember the Blair Witch holes in Denver? Yeh, like that...

This is actually one of the more groomed holes of the X Course. I might have taken more photos if I wasn't crawling through underbrush the entire X round. I took a 6 on this hole, BTW. Many of the X Holes back up into the Baltimore Zoo. At one point I saw an antelope watching Adam putt. OK.

Once you leave the X Course (actually the first 6 holes of--long story), you return to hole # 7 of the regular course. Uphill, over OB roads, basket tucked in an OB cove. Tough hole.

I'm driving hole 7 here. Note the giant road tee pad. All tee pads at Druid are long, flat, perfect.

Hole # 8 gives you options. You can under a big-ass tree or play a big-ass hyzer around. Would like to see how the Jags would have handled this hole.

Hole # 9 you throw over a road. In the road is a taxi cab, driver's side doors open. The owner of the cab is inside sleeping. The cab is full of garbage. Welcome to Baltimore...

Kimball, driving over the top of a cab.

You have now finished 9 holes. Back to the cars (good design). Get a beer, water, and prepare. The back 9 is considerably rougher than the front.

Hole 10 is a 261 wonderful D golf hole. A LONG and SEVERE R to L turnover, with a huge dropoff behind the basket. Just a great, great hole. Your disc wants to roll and roll. All around the basket is a road, more rolling...

Adam, under yet another tree

Hole # 11 a tight, tight L to R turnover or tricky forehand. Again, long and techy.

Hole # 12 is a 288 downhill, with OB behind basket. How do you stop a driver here? Mostly, you don't. The back 9 is clearly more thinking, more long AND accurate shot-making. The course has picked up intensity. There are 3 more X holes somewhere back in here, but we didn't play them or really understand where they were. Next time?

Hole # 13 is a quirky, tech upshot, with marble slabs in the fairway. Short, but we never play it well. The basket is on a roadway rise and discs roll and roll. A weird shot, a blind techy thing.

Adam, on headstone slabs

Hole # 14 is a tight canopy shot to a tucked basket on the side of a hill. Pretty typical for this back 9.

Holes # 15-17 play pretty similar (see above) with some quirks. Like hole # 15, where you have to drop your head or undergo a concussion while driving. You actually have to duck in your follow-through.

Note the giant limb, propped up by a post!

Hole # 16 has a busy road and Mark pulled a classic grip-lock Gigli shot, sailing his Glide ACROSS the busy road and into a thicket. Holy shit.

Hmm. What is Mark doing over there across the road?

Speaking of asphalt, Hole # 18 was a seriously cool idea. You could play a true island green, surrounded by road OB.

Now that's an island.

At 360 feet, you must place your drive perfectly to even attempt this up-shot. Check it out, Jags, as I park a little par over trouble:



Word.

S

Baltimore Disc Trip, Part 1 of 2: WEST VIRGINIA

(WARNING: This post will contain a motherfucking ace...)

Hi. Here's a mildly inappropriate photo of Brooklyn Decker. I'm using it solely for structural integrity. This disc golf post will end with a Decker reference. So bear with me and quit staring at Brooklyn Decker. She looks sort of nuts, a little carnival behind the eyes, but they probably directed her. The photographer said, "Show me crazy, Brook! Show me rude!" She's married to Andy Roddick so stop staring or he will kick your ass (after he's 'upset' in yet another second round tennis match) or something. Actually, Andy Roddick couldn't kick your ass (the man is 1-43 in career Grand Slams). So keep staring, I suppose.

Some courses are destinations. You have to play them, to notch them on your disc golf bikini, to be there, to experience, to see. Example: The Black Course, West Virginia

Um, it's 9304 feet long. It's on a mountain. Typical comments from players include

...potential monster ready to consume all who dare enter its realm.

and

Quite simply there is no other course built to such a massive scale on this planet.

and

It has the ability to either boost your ego or destroy it. 

and

...after a while I stopped keeping score.

You get the point. Here's a photo to warm your brain-meat. This is hole # 1 and # 18. Hole # 1 is way ass down there on the left, by the barn. There is also a 'yellow course' down in the valley, a little 18 spread around, but Mark and I didn't come to some crazy-ass town in West Virginia to play the "yellow" course. No. We're here for the big boy. Let's focus on the point of this photo, hole # 18. See that basket in the fairway down there, right in front of the large shrubbery, right of the red barn? That's hole 18. Hole 18? Oh, it's 1008 feet long and about 400 feet downhill, across an OB road to the fairway, a forest on the right, barns and thickets and outhouses and caterwhomps on the left. It looks like this here photo and it is wonderful:

(You're going to see a video of Mark driving this hole later)

You see a hole like this and you think, "My God, Ander Monson would be pissing his breathable pants right now." Everything about this hole (and course) would have made Ander have a claptrap seizure. Ander, you must find your way to this course! Well, Mark and I did find our way. We played two rounds on the Black Course. Want to hear about it? Yes, yes you do. What an oblivious question to ask a Jag.

Mark and I wake early Thursday, last week. We drive to Moundsville, WV, specifically for this experience. We get a tad bit lost, talk to some locals, visit Burger Kings and liquor stores, find ourselves on a mountain. There are chickens, trailers, curving roads, then we round a corner and see a warning sign:

CAUTION. FLYING DISCS.

A good sign, in all its connotations. The car grinds uphill. We see the barn! We have arrived! Holy shit the Prius almost fell into a pothole of gravel. The meteorologist iPhone app/whoop-DE-whoop predicted sunny and warm so naturally the weather is cold, rainy, winds swirling and hurling. "Mountain weather," Mark says to me. OK. Then the sun would appear, duck behind clouds, rain, then laughs of warmth, tornado sirens way off down in the town (wtf?), then calm and sunny, then HUGE winds, then...Well, mountain weather. Mark and I dressed in layers, because we are smart that way. As we played, we'd add layers, shed layers of clothing, etc.



Here's a course map. I also took one home with me as a keepsake. As Ander knows, I'll steal a course map on your ass. (Then again, Ander once stole a scorecard from a tournament before the actual scores were tallied.)

Note: The way I'm blogging is NOT score by round, hole to hole, because I don't even have the scorecards as I write this. I think Mark has them. He probably burned the damn things.  I'll just go hole to hole, blending my memories and impressions. So a combo of BOTH rounds, but you'll get a peek at each hole. Did I mention scores? We might as well get the overall scores out of the way. Are you ready to cringe? Oh God.

Round 1: Sean +26, Mark +33 
Round 2: Sean +22, Mark +23

Let's move on. Seriously.

Hole # 1 is a curious thing. You stand next to a barn, on a gravel tee-pad. Do NOT enter the nearby bathroom. It is full of disaster. Wait, let's discuss the tee pads. The only downer was the tee pads. (And the grounds people--see later) The pads were boxes full of gravel, often with a horizontal wooden cross bar that destroyed foot work. We didn't get it. Mark postulated maybe they were actually forms to be filled in with concrete at a later date. Maybe? Well, anyway, why complain? Most everything else about the course was over the top epic.

Hole # 1 is short (228), easy, with only a mild bit of trouble behind. It is a joke. I mean a clever joke, a tease, a slight-of-hand, dry humor, etc. It is almost subversive. It is inviting you into the gates of hell by handing you a lollipop. Something. It is an odd opening hole for such a course. Mark and I either birdie or par hole # 1 every time we play the course.

Hole # 2 is WELCOME to the course. Now, we are about to play The Black Course. Did hole # 1 confuse you? Yes, it did. You are no longer confused. You are breathing hard and legs throbbing; you're trying to throw a disc up a fucking mountain; you are watching your disc roll away without any care but gravity; you are making a very high score. But you are no longer confused. Hole # 2 is 518 feet long and UPHILL. You must drive, and drive well, over OB to even get to the hole. It's a bitch (or is it beotch?)

Mark putting on hole # 2. Notice the wicked "black" baskets. The baskets were pretty dramatic, black, with flags and ribbons and arrows and artifacts on them. A bit much, but certainly adds flavor. Flaky? Or cool? I suppose that's subjective. As you can see, Mark's above hole # 2 here and if he misses, well, that putt will go right down the hill into the road, OB. He doesn't miss.

Did I mention the grounds crew? On hole # 2 we got to meet them. The grounds crew at this park gives little note to disc golfers in play. I thank them for their time and effort in grooming a great course, but how about actually recognizing we are playing? They seemed to misunderstand or ignore or maybe despise us. On this hole a guy on a mower barely missed mowing over my wonderful pink Wraith. He then proceeded to mow directly in front of my up-shot, blocking me from the basket. Odd. In most parks, the grounds crew actually defer to D golfers. Not here. Maybe I'm whining, but come on.

Hole # 3 is just decent at 358 feet. The drive was a bit sketchy since the locals were building a giant zip line and had wires all over the fairway. (You'd have to see it.) Both rounds, Mark and I pretty much handled hole # 3.

Hole # 4 is the first tech hole, a VERY long (518) and TIGHT hyzer. Tough hole. Easy to get into trouble, difficult to get out of trouble. I'm a little shocked we didn't lose a disc. This is where the "6's" start to appear on the score cards. We will have many, many 6. We will have 7. We will even have a snowman this day. It happens.

Hole # 5 is reasonable, only 258. It is through a tight, low tunnel. I might have birdied this hole, can't remember. I know I parked one. It's a narrow shaft tech hole. Fun.

 

narrow!

Hole # 6? It's called "The Bottleneck" (Yeh, as you could have predicted, they name their holes here.) It is a winding downhill to a narrow bottleneck of woods, copses, stickemups, all that, then a big uphill to the basket. It goes 578. We played it OK, nothing memorable.

Here's hole # 7. Not sure if you can tell on the video, but it is WAY uphill. It was 188 and we had to HUCK it to get the damn disc up there. Here, Mark overthrows and that thang bleeds away. I add color with my insightful analysis: "Oh boy, sit down!"



Hole 8 is an absolute gem. A truly great disc golf adventure. It's 818 feet, massively downhill, with OB on the left and bearish woods on the right. These woods fall off into a ravine. I mean fuck me. You know it's very hard to throw a turnover drive down such a dropoff. Check it out:

Mark and I took some pretty Jaggy scores on hole 8. Gnarly scores.

Now, hole 9. Let's pause a moment on hole 9. It's incredibly techy. It's 228 feet through a narrow shaft, canopy on top, and behind the hole? A massive dropoff ravine. Very steep. Very nasty. On the first round, Mark fell into the ravine, atop downed trees, and kicked off a rolling avalanche of timber. He basically busted his ass. He spazzed. But he redeemed himself. Second round, Mark stepped up, grabbed his new Glide, ripped a turnover down the tunnel...Could it be? Could it be?

AAAAAACCCCCCCCEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!

I mean what the hell? That's Mark's second ace in ONE WEEK, both on Thursdays. The man is in the zone, folks. Congrats to Mark. Here's to already having a great year.

Hole # 10 is 538 feet. Uphill. I don't remember much, except a major sloped green and some local dude said it was iced over in the winter and he made a 16 on the hole. OK. He (local dude) kept talking to us. I thought he might jump on our round and Jag up our flow but he said he had a "meeting," whatever that means.

Hole # 11 is 488 and the entire hole on the side of a hill. No biggie; we mostly par this hole all day.

Hole # 12 is weird. Double mandos.

You have to drive to an EXACT location, then try to thread two huge Mando trees. Interesting design and added a spark to an already long hole. Mandos are always a thoughtful concept. This one was done well.

I hated hole # 13. I just found it long, not interesting and long. It was punishing. 848 feet and basically uphill the entire way. Mark and I felt very Sisyphus here. We threw the driver and threw the driver and threw...tiring. We took massive scores on this hole. Once again, the grounds crew arrived, directly in the fairway. Some dude just stood there with earmuffs and a weed-eater. He wouldn't notice us or move. Nothing. In response, Mark waited and waited, then shanked a drive down the mountain and into a forest ravine area.

Hole # 14 was "Johnny's Jail" and had a ton of character. Very techy. It is basically a 248 quickly downhill and massively tucked hole. Behind the hole (an obvious bailout for poor shots) was awful thickets and tall grass. It reminded me of how Jack Nicklaus designs ball golf holes--he predicts your errors and crushes you for them. The basket is surrounded by walls of saplings. That's the jail, get it? The hole is surrounded by bars! Who the fuck is Johnny? Not my problem. I go at it with a forehand.



But even better is this video. You really get the 'jail' quality and, as a bonus, I get to see Mark missing a putt on video.



Hole # 15 is a bomb at 728, with a twisting mando up a hill. Again, lots of character, trees on R, trouble all over. The mando here is useless. I mean to say no one would play the area the mando is trying to get you away from. Weird.

Hole # 16 was the best example of the attitude of the grounds crew. Hello. There's a fucking mower parked directly in front of the tee pad. You could park anywhere, right? But no. You park in front of our tee pad. So then we can't use the tee pad, now can we?

This photo really shows the tee pad design problem, BTW. See that crossbar? It catches your feet on an X step. Not cool.

17 was epic. A GIANT uphill huck, only 288 but good luck. You had to throw it hard across OB and hope it landed and didn't roll on a severe grade. A great penultimate hole.

Let's now head to the gem. Check out this video of 18. Can you hear the wind howling? The clouds strapping along. The sheer majesty of the thing? Can you see the 1008 feet of badass-ness we faced? What a hole! What a life! This hole breathed life! This is disc golf. This is it, people.

(Just realized mark almost rocked a car ace here)



Damn, what a day. Exhausted, humbled, we finally left the course and drove to our hotel. But Mark and I, we don't quit. We hit the local West Virginia casino. Our cab driver? Wow. Ever seen a West Virginia cab driver? I could go on but then this post would be a novel. A Cormac McCarthy/Dorothy Allison/Harry Crews novel. Wow.

Poker anyone? First video poker and a few drinks at the bar. OK, yes, Mark had an ace on the D golf course, but I was dealt four more aces...

 Actually I'd prefer a D golf ace...Then we moved to human beings. Green felt. Cards. Hold Em.

Mark, with beer and chips. Yes, we arrived with poker chips and full beers.

 Note to self: Never play poker with sober locals. Never. Ever. Goodbye chips.

COMING SOON, PART 2!!!!

the saga continues...We enter Baltimore!!

Men sleeping in taxi cabs. An island disc golf green! Famous authors on the course! (not us, we're infamous, not famous) Muskrat for sale! Druid Hills and the infamous "X Course." Mark throws a disc where??

I'll end this post with your daily moment of Zen. Our hero casually drives by a disc basket while listening to Dan Patrick interview Brooklyn Decker on the radio...Here you go.



S