Peoria Jags 2013

Strange trip indeed. Did we play disc golf, or did disc golf play us? These were walloping winds (+25 MPH for much of Saturday), a lot of Jag rust, a variety of new holes for many of us, but the real stars of the weekend were the courses. I had forgotten the quality and the tenacity. These courses are significantly more difficult than Madison, which is good or bad, I suppose. But their sheer acuity of design and stark beauty are undeniable. 

Example, Hole 5, Northwood.

Or the always epic hole 18

Or Lake Eureka, hole 4. Interestingly, we had a wild Jag moment here. I had just established a relatively strong CTP candidate. Matt and I, with backs turned to the tee pad, were discussing how to mark such disc...WHAM! Leonard drove and hit Matt in the ass. Possibly the first Jag-on-Jag violence of the tournament's history?

McNaughton was fairway tunnels, intense penalties for straying from these tunnels, very high scores. Hole 18, Matt made like a 100+ bomb.
Northwood was woods, wind, woods, WIND. Hole 18 I think I saw several uses of an abacus.
Lake Eureka was woods. Woods. Woods. WIND. Woods. Tree-thumps throughout the forest on this day.

Interestingly, all three courses sort of lure you in, then attack you, then, 16-18, lead you to your fucking doom. As I was commenting to the suddenly MANY Jag runners, these courses are not so unlike the experience of a marathon. You run along, and, oh, this is pretty good, nice crowd, etc...then you hit the stretch where all the sudden, you know what, your legs and lungs just noticed they are running a long way, then you cross mile 20 and, well, hello, goodbye, welcome to absolute hell.

The Sunday course didn't let us down. VERY technical. It didn't have the teeth of the others, but that was OK. At this point, we were sort of frayed.

Some holes were shadow-lit cathedrals of pine.

Can you find Eric?

 But no matter the sweetness of the D golf venues, we bitterly missed those Jags who could not attend. We played in your honors, kind folks. For example, for Rob, I threw a titanic hammer shot directly into a creek:

 

  

 Mark often putted like Ander:



Matt and T-Town reflected on Andy and tossed BOTH their drives down a massive ravine:

For Aaron, We frightened away two deer

and Matt decided to throw left-handed



and Eric ordered a Shepherd's Pie with mashed potatoes and gravy as whipped cream and icing topping:

Other details included Matt sleeping atop 14 blankets on the floor. Eric Impaling a disc on thorns high up in a tree, Leonard climbing said tree, blood.

and Mark pulled one of these

I pulled several of these

T-Town seemed much improved (check the sweet follow through)

 

 

 

 

 

as did Eric's drive...

and Matt pulled one of these (I'm sure his screenwriting classes will enjoy the Jennifer Lopex oeuvre)

 

 

 

while Matt v Eric, Leonard v Mark engaged in an epic final round battle

On and on...5's, 6's, 7's, other such skyward scoring. Eric will send the "hard data" out soon, as is his way. Enjoyed it all, Jags, both those present and present in spirit. I hope everyone felt the same. I think we all need to focus next time around, and try to get the ranks up to the glory of former years. Life happens, like a disc in the wind, ups and down, lefts and rights, but we don't want to set a precedent here--we want 2013 to be an outlier: "Remember the year..." We want 2014 to be back to normal. Every D golfer, clanking shrubbery and trees and baskets, jagging it up, as one.

Arizona style

I arose early this morning to get in a round or two of disc to prepare for JagFest Peoria this weekend. Early means around 5:45, since the weather in Tucson has taken a turn toward the hot, and if you want to play, you'd best avoid the times from 10am to 6pm, because it's just scorching (though not too bad today, actually). Plus the heat begets crazy winds which are not amenable to disc. The other problem is, of course, the people. The course I play most often (Groves) gets mobbed with league play on Saturdays and Sundays, and with gangs of amateurs who play in groups of 9 or something, which as we all know is known to fill one with rage.

I figure that if I'm out there by 7am (9am time in Peoria, still after our likely start time there) I can play pleasantly. So I go out. There's only one other car in the lot. Turns out to be the car of this dude Corey, whose name I always forget, but who always remembers my name. Because apparently I can't be bothered, or maybe because I'm just not good at names/faces, I'm always impressed with those who are. This is the one nonnegotiable skill of a successful politician, which I am also not. Anyhow, he's a very pleasant guy, and a good player to boot, so I'm happy to play along with him. Weirdly, he drives righty but putts and approaches lefty. We're chatting. He's excited because a new course just got the green light to go in at a local ball golf course. It won't play alongside the ball golfers, thankfully, because those courses always suck, but will play on another part of the grounds. There will also be a bar (!), small greens fees, and a pro shop. And it's on the east side, which is good, because I am on the east side. My favorite course, Marana, is an hour drive. Groves isn't my favorite course: in fact it only has nine baskets, which you play to two ways, back and forth, so it's 18 holes, but it is challenging, and fairly interesting. They have three different tees for every hole. The A tees are short and generally easy and boring, very much inside the groomed park. I shot personal bests of -13 and -14 on them a month or so ago. The B tees are far harder, much longer, and difficult. Many shoot from outside the park—up on a ridge or out in the cacti—and so are substantially more interesting. My best on those is -5. The C tees I don't often play. They're different, some harder, some easier than the Bs.

Groves is also 10 minutes from my house. So I always have to choose to trade off good disc golf for convenient disc golf, which I don't like to do, but which I almost always do. This is why I'm excited about another course going in.

Corey says something about how he just won a homemade basket in New Mexico and how he's going to install it out in the desert. He asks if I've played the homemade ones out there? No, though I've played a tournament that had several baskets out in the desert, so I've probably played a couple of the holes. He says there are four or five holes now with baskets in the desert, so we try those out.

They're excellent little holes, with some different looks (a short forehand shot to a covered basket, a 315' hole down and across an arroyo and up to the other side, another 230' hole back across a wash, and so on). They add some elevation change and a substantial amount of scenic pop to this course. And at least as of now, they're all crazy little homemade baskets. I include photos below because each is ingenious.

One of the benefits of the homemade is that they're less likely to be vandalized (they don't seem new, so they aren't as obviously fuck-with-able), and they're easier to patch together if they are. Vandalism is a problem in this course, unfortunately. It abuts an elementary school that's closing in a month, and that surely won't help.

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Needless to say not all of these are regulation, but there's a kind of genius in it. I missed a photo of one of them, which was even skinnier than this. Makes for tough putting. But the DIY nature of these is super cool and somehow very Tucson.

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The shot below is my favorite of the new holes, the 320' out and across an arroyo and up to a slightly elevated basket. Corey throws a nice flat stable shot under an overhang which carries to about 40' away. I'm debating that shot, but it seems a little tight for me, so I throw a beat-up Katana up and left with a little turnover on it. First time driving here, and, hey, that looks pretty good, and then: ching. Right in, dead center, but spits out. High fives, even though it didn't stick. There's a reason for that, this being a homemade basket, and one that's pretty wonky. As you can see below, Corey's trying to fix it after I chained out. I can't really tell what the rubber basket part is, but it was at about a 45 degree angle, not conducive to holding a disc. Anyhow, I'm happy, even if it's not my first ace in a year. There's always this weekend...

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Next hole's another fav, just a roc/buzz/glide shot away, down and up from the wash. And check out this crazy-ass basket:

 

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or maybe check out the close-up: that's wood, homes! Like a dreamcatcher or something. Gotta admire this bit of ingenuity, even if it will tinkle pleasantly in the evening wind. My putt clunks out. Corey's doesn't. The wood's actually not bad.

 

A lovely surprise of a morning: you go out just wanting to disc a bit, find someone you like to play with, play pretty well, and discover five new holes with weirdo handmade baskets. All of a sudden the world is filled with possibility...

Poetpalooza Indian Springs Blue Heron Disc Golf

How did we get here? Blue duct tape, PVC pipe? That's hole 3, of the trajestic (tragic majesty) Indian Springs D golf course, Trafalgar, IN, wherein Disc Golf Review gives it a 3.2 disc rating, wherein Disc Golf Review is conniving and treacherous (like all Internet reviews [the bastards give quirky Old Farm a 2.8]), wherein this course is built on an ignored and scraggly 9 hole ball course, wherein the pins and baskets (or whatever they are) are just planted in the fairways with no consideration to D golf, wherein you huck the disc, wherein monotony, wherein tedium, wherein sometimes over 1400 feet (hole 4), wherein you walk, wherein you walk some more, wherein I suppose it's cool to see a disc juxtaposed on a green, wherein I suppose.

I could mention the old guy who runs the place fell off the deck and busted up his ankle while we were there ("Guys, you caught me on the wrong day"), but I'm sort of done with Indian Springs. (I do hope his ankle is OK--it looked very much not OK. His son came along and took him to the doctor.) There were no springs at Indian Springs. The whole place was hot and unnerving, sort of like those moments right before you are about to go on stage at a poetry festival in Madison, IN, and you have no idea what you'll read...

But earlier in the day, Mark and I did indeed play disc golf. (Matt met us at the poetry festival...)

Hi! Would you guys like to hear me talk about the moon and pomegranates and tendrils and birds and gossamer wings? No? OK, good, fuck the poetry. Let's move onto an actual disc golf course.

Enter the Blue Heron. 

Franklin, IN. Water, water everywhere...been a while since I've played a real "water" course. Maybe since my GR days, good old Riverside.  

Right behind this basket is a soupy, dank pond full of fishing line, glass, condoms, geese shit. I've waded into it many, many times. Back in the day.

Onto Blue Heron, where you are immediately introduced to water, a short hole one, with a lake directly behind, and the basket ingeniously placed on the crown of a rise. Thus errant shots roll or skip out. Into the water. Mark and I walk up to tee one with RUST. We haven't been playing disc, due to work and winter and life. But today is sunny and warm, the day is good, and anyway Mark birdies this hole every time we play (X2). I bogey every time we play. Here is the hole:

Here is my disc:

The front 9 meanders through fields and brushy woodlots, with occasional water holes thrown in, many of them risk/reward and fun to play. Though this is a public park, some of the actual lakes border a private suburb, and they don't seem that disc friendly:

Seems like you have the right to retrieve a disc, but whatever.

I found the back 9 is where the course really shined. Impressive design, well aware of the wind and shot-sculpting. Most likely designed by someone who knows the sport. Also: lakes, rivers, and an actual blue heron.

Yep, that's a heron.

Here is a seemingly innocuous hole 9, under 200 feet, but note the wood-line and OB directly behind.

Mark and I had to play over massive exposure--often 90% of the disc flight was OVER open water. Many of the holes were "thought" holes. What to do?

Check out hole 12! Get your head around this hole, 324 feet, but wait. Click on the pic and blow this up. You have several bad options. Attempt a bomb right at the hole, but that won't work. Huge, grabby trees on your right eliminate the hyzer and it's too far, really, and everything bleeds to the lake. Oh, as you can see, there's no real fairway, either. It does open up on the right, past those trees and that's where I played to, with a forehand. Mark? Um, he left a disc for the herons.

After 12, things enter a river bottom and get very technical. River bottoms are great, since they have massive trees and all those weird flood things, brambles, horizontal tree clumps, mounds, holes, weird rolls.

Also dogs in the fairway and oblivious dog owners, but I won't focus on the negatives, because Blue Heron is a good course. I would return, and you should visit. I really appreciated the water, the shot-making required, the way most holes were set up for an errant shot to find trouble. There was disc-thought to the course, always greatly appreciated.

A fine day.

As for scores? I'm sure you jags are curious. Both rounds, Mark and I tied.

Global Warming Ace 2013!

So. It was high 50+ degrees on Friday, Jan 11. Today it is 22 degrees. But such are the vagaries of melting glaciers and sea ice, shifting precipitation patterns, hurricanes, cats chasing dogs, Brent Musberger's lasciviousness, etc.

We played at our Yorktown, often-techy course. Sloppy day, since snow was melting. The pins are in alt positions, improving most of the holes. Or maybe we think they are improved because we are conditioned to the old setup? Either way, we admire the alt pins.

Mark threw his disc into the water. So did I. Matt LOST his putter. How do you lose a putter? Well, you need a massively elevated green (hole # 9) over a running stream and swamp. You then need to miss your putt, have the putter roll blindly down the hillside behind the basket, and then--I suppose (we didn't actually see it)--the putter enters the rushing, snowmelt stream and is now resting in the throat of the disc golf gods. Goodbye, putter.

Another highlight is I threw in an ACE!!

Hole 13, a basically 90 degree forehand, techy and short (under 200 feet), coasted it down a falling fairway (the disc golf review site labels it a "valley") and let gravity unspool it right into the chains. Thank gods for the spider baskets, since it was clattering in the basket. But the chains held! Also, thanks to global warming. I can't really throw forehands in cold weather.

2013 might be a good disc year. Never had a January ace, fer sure.

Fling on.

S