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.
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
1 comment:
Awesome post. Eagerly awaiting part two. Congrats on the aces, Mark.
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