O Kaposia!

So Eric O and Mark E and I played some disc today at Kaposia, still one of my very favorite courses, in south St. Paul. I'm up in Minneapolis for early Thanksgiving for a couple reasons, one of them being disc golf. Overall I think I prefer Thanksgiving to Christmas pretty much all around, not having kids. There's the weather situation, too, to think about. You can pretty much guarantee that we'll be playing in snow, if at all, if I'm up for Christmas. But Thanksgiving is anyone's guess. Maybe, maybe not. The Cities are on an epic drought, so it was all dry, though evidently snow is forecast for tomorrow. Low of 34, high of 50. Light wind, often seemingly in our face, whichever way we turned. Very pleasant weather.

Kaposia is one of four epic courses in the Minneapolis area, along with a few other good ones. Kaposia is the big daddy of the region, though, surely the first pro course in the area. It's 24 holes now, after its original 18 had to be pulled back to 9 because of (according to Leonard?) somebody finding toxic waste on the back 9. The new 24 is excellent--I remember the original 18 well, and have played a version of this 24 before, but not this exact 24. 2 holes from the old back 9 have never been brought back, sadly, most famously the hill-to-hill hole, which I once 9ed. (You threw from a high elevated tee across a valley to an elevated green with a ton of possibilities to roll discs away.) At any rate, 2 pleasant rounds.

My iPhone died pretty early into the round so I have few photos. Here are 2:

 

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Round 1: Ander +11, Mark +20, Eric +32. As you can see this is not an easy course. Admittedly it's maybe not quite as hard as that. I 5ed hole 24 to end poorly on an otherwise solid round (several of these holes are legitimate par 4s; the +s are not from par, but from 3s). Eric's worst round, he said, in several years. 

Mark had to head out to Important Bidness, but not before we had lunch at a random little burger joint that was hilarious and delicious. Ostermeier and I went back to attempt the beast again.

Round 2: Ander +15, Eric + 24. Not exactly a barnburner of a round there, though Eric and I were close through 9, then we started separating. 

Highest score per hole: 6 (all of us threw at least one 6). Lowest: 2. Total birdies by the group, round 1: 1 (Ander, on the first hole). Total birdies by the group, round 2: 2 (both Ander, holes 17 and 18, both part of--sort of--the original 18). No discs lost but one forgets about the leaves. We don't really have those in Arizona.

Makin love--out of nothin at all.

Overdue report from Ames, Iowa

 

Good times from Ames, Iowa! This is the course that Andy and I used to play tons with friends like "No-ho-ho" Matt Vadnais, "Goat Horns" Josh Borgmann, "Doing Dishes" Victor Streeby (I hope you enjoy your name popping up on google, old friends! drop me a line!) and of course the soil geologist Jeff Homburg whose game was unbelievable, though he was a bit of a talker. Leonard played this course at least once too. Anyhow, last October I was back in Iowa for a conference, so I flew into Des Moines and drove up to Ames (not really on the way) to get in a round on the old course before heading over to Iowa City (itself the site of several excellent courses--one of which Mark and I played like maniacs 3--? years ago) to the conference where I would play a couple courses after I did my thing. Plane touched down, and I got up here around 5, just as the light was thinking about going. Only time for 18. So let's do it, Carroll Marty.

Hole 1 starts big. 300' or so downhill, left to right, around that rather large set of trees. Good turnover hole which I should park but in the way of things I do not:

Hole 2 is an easy birdie, with the exception of the death ditch that runs very close to the basket. You may or may not find your disc if you leave it to the right. Not that photogenic. I do deuce. This ditch--ravine rather--runs throughout the course. Carroll Marty is built on an old ball golf course, and has quite a bit of good elevation change, playing up and down the rim of the valley.

Hole 3 (pro tee pictured above) is a bitch from the pro tees. It should always be a bitch from the pro tees. It's a deuce hole from the am tee, but the pro tees on this course make everything much, much harder. You have to shoot across the ravine, probably a skip shot because of the lowish ceiling, hyzering about 300' to the basket, which is of course protected. It is a deucable hole, but you can also lose it in the ravine. Then we go into the woods for a while. Hole 4 is an old school tech hole with about a thousand trees that you have to thread the needle, in the way of good courses. It's uphill a bit, and easy to bogey or double if you get off the fairway. Very reminiscent of certain holes in Madison, and certainly of most holes at Lake Eureka and the front 9 of Northwood Park. Hole 5 is an easy one from the short tees, a must-deuce. But from the long tee, which is about 100' downhill and behind the am tee, you will be lucky to get it up the hill and in the fairway to have a shot at par. Play the long tees here if you can.

What goes up must eventually do something else from what I hear. This is one of the best holes on the course: super deuceable (like hole 4 on Northwoods, actually, except sans water), but don't miss wide. I do not miss wide and just miss the basket low. Sweet. The first image below is from the am tee; the second is from the pro tee, which is considerably harder:

Finally we're back to the bottom for hole 7, a little turnover or forehand shot to the right with a low canopy:



and as you can see, the basket backs up on the ravine. There's enough space to go for my long putt, which I hit like a kickin' chicken.

Beware of this course when the wind gets up, since it swirls down in the bowl like a bastard and is super-tough to read. My experiences on this course include playing in a green tornado sky (well, we just had to finish our round), playing in total blackness (for some reason that eludes me), hitting an 80' putt totally blind in said total blackness, and watching (or wanting to watch) Andy take his undergraduate students out to the course to administer the "final." I also learned quite a bit about alluvial planes and my own inadequacies as a chess player, disc player, and human. Anyhow, for hole 8 we take you to a lovely longish (280'?) shot across the ravine and the fairway into a protected green. Do not hit the trees over the ravine:

The basket is pleasantly behind a wooden wall that repels half-assed upshots:

Hole 9 brings you, in true links style, back up to the parking lot if you're such a chump that you want to play only 9. But obviously you should continue on. It's an uphill tee box to an uphill shot that falls away to the right, with a low canopy, and shit on either side, but especially the right. Not easy, but definitely deuceable with the right execution.

The steps are there partly because this course gets muddy as hell. Here's the shot once you get up the hill: as you can see it opens out nicely to pay off a good drive. But it's a long ways to carry once you clear that smallish gap.

Hole 10 is a super fun hole, 200' down an alleyway to a basket that is super aceable, but if you miss, say goodbye to your disc skipping into the next hole somewhere. Nice risk/reward combo. As I believe Andy can attest (or maybe Matt), I aced this hole hitting the tree on your left (which is no more than 10' off the tee box), ricocheting into two other trees further down and spinning into the basket in front of a crowd of about 30 cub scouts. You might as well go for this one, because there's no real stopping the disc down there by the basket.

Hole 11 seems easy, except that it's a big turnover usually into a stiff wind, and you throw from a tee box slanted to the left, away from the direction you're supposed to play, if you're a righty. It's a doable birdie, but much harder than you thought it would be most of the time. I remember watching Juliana Bowers/Juliana Korver destroy this hole with an awesome drive. Thanks, Juliana, and Sean, for wishing me good luck getting par someday. I'm tryin' real hard.

Usually the woods on the right are super thatchy, and on the left they let the rough get very high, so you'll be looking. This weekend the leaves are mostly gone, and the rough is mowed, so it's an easy deuce:

I think the thing I like best about Carroll Marty is how holes seem easy until you get a closer look. Here's 12: you throw from a nice tee box about 310' across an open field... into a 10' gap...

where it drops down to a green with a flowing stream behind in the ravine. A really nice hole. The straight shot is what you want, but you've got to stop it. Hyzer or anhyzer will almost never work, but fuck, you never know, right? Sometimes they do.

13 is super open, 300' straight ahead, the most aceable hole of the bunch if you've got the distance. Not worth photographing unless the rough is high and sculpted, which it's not in the fall, apparently. So 14 is straightforward, a tough little shot through a sizeable gap...

to a basket close to a 30' drop into the ravine. Don't miss right. There's also usually a left-to-right crosswind:

15 is open and uphill until it becomes much less open around the green. About a 350' drive from the longs, shorter from the shorts, hence the name. A very fun little hole. Plenty to roll away from into the shit on the right or the left.

16 is the payback, a sprawling downhill hole, but first enjoy the sistine chapelish mosaic on the way to the 16th tee:

And now to the tee shot. This is easily 330' I'd say, but plays way shorter. A good roc or buzz is a strong decision in the wind that's usually up. Points for the nice pathways they've built all over this course:

17 is a little unremarkable and unphotogenic, if not easy. It's either a weird little anhyzer hole that you have to throw into a small gap that slants left, so that there's no real shot except the scooby upside-down shot that skips on its back uphill to the right on the fairway (or maybe a bomb hammer). But the long pin position, which it's in today, is a bit ole bomb anhyzer, 330', around that green and the cabbage to a nicely tucked away green. Not too shabby.

And 18, since we're down, is all uphill, all the time. I don't know how long this is. It's driveable, but you really have to launch. It's way uphill, from a flat teebox. A big hammer might work, but it's hard to get much on it. I'd say it plays like 350' but is probably only 275'. Thatch on the left and thatch on the right, and I think there's an alluvial plane here somewhere. If only someone could tell us where it was...

And then I'm out, to drive 2 hours to Iowa City, where I'll meet my friend Nicole and have drinks, and get utterly destroyed by alcohol, apparently, not being able to leave my hotel room the next day until 2pm to barely make it to a reading I really wanted to see and barely hold it together to wander back, thus toasting my whole plan of discing Iowa City that day. However, the reading was killer, Alison Bechdel's. See also her killer graphic memoir (best one out there) Fun Home or her comic strip Dykes to Watch Out For.

They've since built another 18 hole course in Ames, which is good, because this was always packed, which I don't get the chance to play. Next time, Ames. Next time, Iowa City. Next time I'll stay sober and par this one out for my old school cyclone homies.

Well, 0-2, this week, but 3'39" this week

Well met, Mark Ehling, Eric Ostermeier. We met up in Minneapolis this last week where I was up to do a signing, a reading, some sweet disc golf, and a marathon. We met at 9am at Bryant Lake Park, in Edina, Minnesota. It's a pay-to-play that was, I believe, previously blogged on this site. Please revisit that post, because you should, because you should play this course. With a caveat. We played this course. Good times were had by all. First, some scores, to alleviate the drama:

Round one: Mark +6, Ander +8, Eric +14. Round two: Mark +7, Ander +8, Eric + 10. As you can see both rounds were close (particularly the second). Mark played well. Eric played well. Ander played, ah, maybe not so well. Some evaluations later. But photos first. I'm way overdue on blogging. I played a couple rounds at Blue Ribbon Pines with these same chaps in December that were quite a lot of snowbound fun. They resulted in my dead batteries in the camera, so not good blogging there. I have a few photos from Sean and my rounds in Denver in April which will get some quality blogging in the future.

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Warming up the putters. Feeling pretty good. It's true I've not been playing much during the best part of the year down in Tucson. Been other things looming. Thus:

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Here's Mark driving on hole 2, which is a pretty excellent hole. This course is generally very, very well groomed. It's lovely, cut like the open holes on Hiestand Park in Madison, groomed, mowed fairways. Not a ton of big foliage, but well put together. And great elevation change. Not this hole, but you'll see:

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He finds some foliage, as you can see, but shoots out of it:

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Hole 4 is one of my favorites. The area on the right below the railing is a large drop off, apparently referred to as "jail." You can see why if you're down there. Mark's shot leans right and ends up...:

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in jail. He recovers for par this time.

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Eric hits a long birdie putt (props), self-awards candy. This is deserved. Eric misses something like 8 putts from the 30-40' range these two rounds by a total of maybe 2 feet. His action is on. Not 100% on, but on:

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And here's Mark in round two, again in jail, contemplating his fate, after a muxed drive and a muxed upshot. This time he bogeys:

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Here is hole 7, another favorite. It's 416' from the long tee (of course we play the long tees. Are we not men?) to an elevated green, nicely built up on levels. Eric about to tee:

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My drive on the first round is excellent and I par. My drive on the second round leaves me with this wack-ass lie:

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On hole 9 or 10, I believe (I could be messing up the numbers), here's me about to tee off. It's a lovely downhill hole, easily driveable. 300', it drops off about 60 feet to the left. Super aceable. Of course if you miss the ace, which you do, then you're in deep trouble. The first round I throw a driver. Second time I wise up and just throw a buzz. None of us deuces this either time, though we have a total of something like 5 birdie putts. Ehhhhh. But I do look fine about to throw. All potential energy, not yet kinetic (also: nice pants):

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A little later, this is an easyish left to right downhill hole, maybe 13? Here's Ehling about to throw a shitty forehand. Shortly thereafter I will throw a shitty forehand. We will both par. Eric throws good drives both times, but being without a forehand, he'll have 30-40' putts for birdie which he will clank. Man, I hope we'll play better in Madison. We might need a forehand...:

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At least my camera is rocking with the disc-in-air action shots. Both rounds are back and forth quite a bit, swings in lead. We all birdie. We all bogey. Or double bogey. Or, in my case, triple bogey. This course has teeth if you don't play it smart. My camera is so good, in fact, that I get a double-shot of Ehling putting on maybe hole 15:

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Huh. Double up. Hunh. Hunh:

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I gotta say: these boys be playin. Ehling hits some big-ass putts this round. His drive is long. And strong. He got his friction on. Sorry for the preponderance of Sir Mix-A-Lot references in this post, but you know what baby got... Hole 16, I think, is a nice tight downhill groove. There's a big ole rock on the left, but there's quite a bit to thread here. Eric takes his shot:

and ends up someplace in the cabbage. I throw a lovely little slipper down the center, barely missing some crap, and end up with the following lie (which is also the lie for my par putt on the second round):

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Inevitably I miss my putt. Turns out I need to practice the blind over-massive-rock putts. Luckily I live in Tucson. Look out, assholes, in Madison.

And here is my favorite hole, hole 17, 542 feet downhill over a ton of crap onto a lovely fairway. We bomb some shots here because we are men. Did I mention we were men? Thus: 

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Mark and I are 1 or 2 strokes apart going into the upshot on 17. I am sitting on a great drive, maybe 100 to the basket, uphill. Mark is way off, going to be a nearly impossible par.

However, when we get to the bottom of the hill we meet up with a park cop, who spends a solid half hour entirely reducing our collective golfing mojo to rubble. This story goes on for a while, but the long and short is that we are each given $65 tickets for not paying the greens fees. Now this pisses me off. I came to this course fully prepared to pay the greens fee, and tried to pay it at the park entrance. It was closed. At no point did I see a sign indicating how I was supposed to pay the park fee. Apparently you were supposed to drop it in an envelope somewhere, which in retrospect we should have seen, sure. Needless to say we are irritated, but there's no way to argue with petty dictators. Though he did talk to us for a long time about suicide and the stresses of his job. 

Chance I pay the ticket: 20%.

Level of irritation: high.

Number of minutes lost while waiting to receive our tickets: approx. 30:

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After our delay, here's a shot of the slightly elevated and nicely-built-up green. I have an easy upshot for par which I shank. We both bogey. Irritation.

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18 is a good finishing hole, uphill, long, 434' uphill. But a pretty little fairway. Ehling does not wilt. I don't wilt enough for Eric to catch me (we were close the last round especially, as the scores suggest). Here's Mark driving, prettily:

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So, what lessons to take away? Eric's putting: improved. Ehling's putting: much improved. Ehling's play: improved. My play: not improved. We all left quite a few strokes out there. This puts me 1-3 versus Ehling in the last 4 rounds we've played. Too bad he won't be able to make it to Madison to put it on the line, since I think he'd compete well against everyone. I go home flushed with another good day of disc, do a snazzy reading at Magers & Quinn (cool bookstore in uptown Mpls), wonder what this portends for Madison. 

But, then I have my year's goal to get to on Saturday up in Duluth, Minnesota, along Lake Superior, which is the lake as far as I'm concerned (sorry, Erie & Michigan). Tons of people up there for Grandma's Marathon. This is not a running blog so I will not post at length about it except to say that it is very hard, even when you think you are prepared for it. The last 6.2 miles are a new level of pain and awareness. Yet you persevere. Props to the AC/DC cover band around mile 17: you guys were good, but you need to hook up with the bagpiper on mile 12 for the long bagpipe solo on the (glorious) "It's a Long Way to the Top (if You Want to Rock and Roll)" if you want to be serious about it. Maybe not the best bet to drink the half a Miller High Life at Mile 10, but at least I turned down the bloody mary at the halfway point, knowing what that would have done. Not sure about the string quartet. Not really pump up music, but at the same time, there's only so many jock jams you want to hear. A pretty awesome, as in inspiring-awe, experience, really. I had hoped to run 3'30"-3'45". I am on pace with the 3'30" pace team for the first half, and then I realize gradually that it's not going to happen, so my new goal is to avoid getting caught by the 3'40" pace team. No fucking WAY they're getting me. Actually for a while in the mile 21 area I am not completely sure that I'm going to finish, if I'm being honest, or if I might finish in 4'00"+. A number of outcomes are forseeable. I realize in retrospect that it might have been smarter to draft behind the 3'30" pace dude, since there were some substantial winds in our face most of the time. Anyhow, I do not let the 3'40" pace team get me, and I finish in 3'39". Am close to puking for a while, but don't. Recover, sort of. Still recovering. Nachos, per our own Sean Lovelace, are applied liberally with beer.

Turns out when I get back to my wife's folks' house in Minneapolis they saved a copy of the Star-Tribune's special Marathon section:

And who's that bastard on the front cover in the white shirt and blue shorts wiping his face like a fool? That be your correspondent. The 3'40" pace team is about 30 seconds behind me--the guy with balloons on the right. Well, time to put disc back up where it belongs on the list of priorities. When I can walk without pain, that is. Congrats to Mark for his wins, and to Eric and Mark for their improved games. I'm a fan of more competition pretty much always. And the future looks like that...

Holler in the Motherfucking HILLS

Y'all will soon see the official blogpost for the jag meetup in Cleveland, minus, sadly, one Andy Segedi, who contracted some kind of crazy staph infection in a suspicious way from his work at unnamed insurance company X (who, predictably, will certainly try to weasel out of responsibility). So he stuck at home, sad, thinking good thoughts for his homies, who showed well in Cincinnati. Rock.

So I figured I'd try out this course that's been getting crary reviews on the dgcoursereview site, Holler in the Hills. It's in the middle of nowhere. Took me about an hour to get to, though it's sort of close to Bowling Green, KY, which, uh, has the Corvette Museum, and that is about all. And a crap holiday Inn where I'm staying that is also hosting the Kentucky Sheriffs' Association's yearly convention so there are a lot of big dudes in cop cars, which, though I haven't feared the cops in years at this point, still makes me nervous.

Holler is hard to find. Very easy to miss turns. I end up some woman's yard, and she comes out with a shotgun and an angry spaniel. I kid about the shotgun only. I eventually find it. You have to call first. I call. No one is there. It's $5 to play all day. Players have to sign a waiver to play. They have score cards and a handy 3-page handout that tells you all about the holes. 

What you should understand immediately about this course is that this is some home-schooled, DIY disc golf experience. Shit is rough. Shit is country. This ain't no nice public park. Don't get me wrong, it's well-groomed (mostly), but the dudes who run it are perfectly happy to just make some crazy shit (see the school bus on hole 6) happen. All the baskets that are by the river are about 2 feet from the fucking river. There are baskets on 3 huge rocks. On one hole you throw from a huge rock to another huge rock. Anyhow. Needless to say I wore my long pants and long-sleeve shirt. The waiver freaked me out about the snakes and bugs and ticks and coon hounds and Burt Reynolds and you get the idea. Christ.

Hole 1 starts you out fairly easy:

or maybe that's just the sign going down to the tee. Here's the tee:

A nice little hyzer shot up a slight incline to the left. Throw it straight. 270' or so. But there's the deathwater on the right, which makes you think before you throw... and griplock into the weeds... and find-ah the Jesus-ah. Actually, I par this hole. No need for salvation yet.

Hole 2 is also pretty reasonable, except the basket is on the right, on the very edge before the thing drops off. It's very pretty. Clear shot.

Hole 2's basket, like Hole 3's, is right up against some brackish fricking water after a fifteen foot dropoff into the riverbed:

I play it too safe, and the putt scares me. Another par. Hole 3 is a great one. Probably one of the best on the course, and one of the only real long bombers. Witness:

Here's what you need to know. The hole is 740'. It's 320' to the gap on the right, which is the only gap in the huge wall of trees. It is also right against the water.

It is also a ditch:

So you can lose the hell out of your disc down there. Or you can try to bomb it over the wall, which is what I do. I do not succeed. I do manage to get enough through it so I have a shot out, but not one I can get anything on. Two shots and I'm 100' past the trees. Eh. Note where the basket is, another good huck (plus) and the approach to the hole is a solid 100' under the cover. Did I mention the water on the right?

Hmm. This is my sweet new Glide. Obviously I am getting it but it takes me a while. A random dog comes along to frolic but will not help. They have a nice 20' pole on the bank for this particular situation. I spend about ten minutes and nudge it to a place where I can get it. Apparently this hole is a pro par 5. I get a 6. Woulda been fine without the agua. So it goes.

Dude who runs the course comes over. He's mowing. I think his name's Howie (I also get to meet his son later). Nice dude. I'm very pleased with this course so far. Hole 4 is a 368' turnover shot over a little hill to the right:

I bomb a lovely drive on this one, pin high, 25' to the left, but I putt an inch short. Damn. Could've used the birdie. I have that 6 to work off.

Hole 5 you throw over water:

admittedly, it's a pretty mellow pond by comparison, and it's only a 270' shot, and the water is a little low right now. So that's good. But still it could certainly eat a disc. Throw a good shot and don't think about it. I put my Glide about 40' left of it, playing too safe. The basket's real close to the water so you can't really put a big hyzer on it. And the lip of the pool looks steep so don't expect to skip it.

I par. So far these aren't super technical, but there's a lot of obstacle to think about. Hole 6 is kind of my favorite just for the crazy taxi factor:

So you can see that this is a straightforwardish hole, a little hyzer through a smallish gap. But the fucking gap is made up by a weirdo shack on the right and a trashed-ass SCHOOL BUS on the left. "Be careful of barbed wire when retrieving disc" is what the tee sign says. INDEED. Here's a closer look:

The basket's in the field. I have a real good putt at this one since I miss the bus (eh heh) but it's another inch short. Wha? Did I mention it's now a solid 90 and I am completely soaked? Mostly from my trip down into the river, but it is not comfortable, adding to the experience. We're about to go into the woods and the rocks. But not yet. A lovely big fairway, hole 7, 320', but the gap and the basket are on the far right, with the rest of the woods poison ivy and so on (long pants, bitches: yes):

Guess where I end up.

You guessed well in the woods? Indeed. I find a gap for a hammer and save par because I am so far in the woods that I'm on the pathway to the next tee. Here's how it's meant to be played: very doable... for some players:

A nice little hole with a mando, hole 8:

You have to play this one on the right fairway (or rethrow from the short tee on the right if you miss it). It's super doable, and reminiscent of a hole on Cottage Grove up in Minnesota which I like. Only 227'. I throw a nice shot, but miss my putt. Fie! Now on to the forest:

Note the homemade wooden platform (a nice touch: they have some building skill on this course since they build all kinds of wooden steps etc. on the hills throughout the course). It's a big ole uphill shot to a gap that then floats down to the left:

Sweet. Hole 10, now that we've climbed the hill, plays across it, 340', hyzer into the woods. They like the into the woods shot. Isn't there a musical about this? So:

This is actually a shot from the fairway, since you can't really see the gap from the tee. Fun hole. I have a good drive, clunk the putt, it rolls. Make the comeback. Good times. This ain't a great round, but it's way better than my round on Lincoln Ridge/Banklick on Sunday, soon to be blogged, I'm sure.

Back to the uphill, I see, for hole 11, though a pretty easy (if fun, technical) one, only 170', hit the gap, don't give it too much, and let it settle in for a deuce to pay back your 6 from earlier:

And hole 12 is a big-ass uphill hole (only 260' but it plays like 400') that culminates in this sweet little pin position:

As you may imagine, it's way harder than you'd imagine to get it up there and have it stick. Best bet is to hit the putt. Which I do not. Bogey, y'all. I realize at this point that I won't have enough memory on my camera to take all the photos I want to, which blows. I skip shooting 13, which is nice, 270', straight and a little bend to the left at the end. Birdie this one.

14, however, is birdieable, but hilarious. You climb the fucking huge boulder to tee off (though the tee sign notes you can shoot from the base of it if you want to, but really, climb the fucking boulder; how many times do you get to throw from the boulder to a hugely elevated basket on another boulder? Not often. Possibly the shot is a little easier from the ground than the boulder:

It's actually tough to get a good shot of this to give you the real scope of the hole. Anyhow, I toss a good drive, leaving:

Then:

Chung! sweet deuce. Happy with this one. I'm starting to rack up some score on the back 9, which are all entertaining and very doable (excepting maybe a couple of the big ole uphill holes which are tough 3s). Hole 15 is a gorgeous anhyzer or forehand, not a real long one, probably 220' or so to this lovely basket situation (don't leave it short or you won't have anything because of the rocky outcropping, reminiscent of Dover, and don't throw it long or you have problems too):

I bogey this hole because I have a decent shot right at the basket, and I just run the hell out of it, figuring, what the crap, backstop of the gods, and then, no, it wings off the rock and rolls 80'. Great.

Hole 16 is a beautiful 350' but very drivable downhill hole that I don't have a photo of. If you go long it drops off into a massive ravine, and it's real easy to go long, yo. I par, playing it safe on the putt, which is good because the ravine is much deeper than it appears. "You will be mountain climbing," sez the tee sign. Indeed.

17's an awesome one, reminiscent of Tuscaloosa. Actually this whole course has aspects of Tuscaloosa, particularly the part where you have to do a lot of it yourself. This hole plays from elevated tee to elevated green with a huge valley in the middle, and trees of course on all sides. "Plays 315'. Be careful.":

I deuce it cause that is how I roll. Lovely hole, like one on Kaposia, which has handed me 9s before. This one you could definitely fuck up.

18's another downhill hole, out of the woods this time, and super-ace-able. 310' way downhill, OB behind the basket, water on the left. Throw a roc, try to make your putt:

Guess what? I do not make my putt. Shot a 55 on the course, which is below course "pro" par, but you could definitely go low on this course if you avoid screwing up the really hard holes, and convert the (many) potential birdie holes.

We'll end with "America: Fuck Yeah!":

 

which sums this experience up quite well. They play a Halloween tournament. Indeed.

I'd rate this course 3.7/4.0 on the whole. It's an impressive job with this pretty gnarly space. Lots of interesting rough edges on the course, but it's well-groomed considering (dude was on the riding mower when I was playing). Lots of interesting constructions. Much danger to be had here, which I appreciate. And there's a real sense you could be actually injured here. And that elevates the stakes. Highly recommend a trip to this course. $5 to play. I gave him $20.