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...

Minneapolis Chapter of the Order Hosts Leonard

The Minneapolis Chapter of the Order of the Jags hosted a mini-disc event this week, with Leonard “I’ve-been-spending-an-hour-a-day-average-on-disc-since-Madison” (actual quote) Blackburn in town on vacation and Prospective Jag Mark Ehling always eager and at the ready to join in.

On Wednesday afternoon Leonard, Mark, and Eric (no T-Town on this one) played Bryant Lake Park in Eden Prairie, which has become the go-to course of the summer for Mark and Eric (playing it about 6 or 7 times thus far).

No photos of note (see past blog on this course for hole-by-hole visuals and analysis), but here is a Cliff’s Notes of how the round shaped up.

* Leonard had the fewest number of double bogeys (1). Mark and Eric had two.
* Leonard also had the only birdie of the day (Hole 10).

However, Leonard never led at any point during the round, and, after 9 holes, it was Mark at +5, Eric at +6, and Leonard at +7.

Eric then cruised to 5 straight pars to take the lead by one through 14 holes, with Mark up to +7 and Leonard at +9.

Eric had already lost two rounds to Mark this year at Hole 18 and the last four holes have given him fits generally all summer.

Sure enough, Mark ended with two pars and two bogeys, Leonard with four bogeys, and Eric with three bogeys and one double for a final score of:

Mark: +9
Eric: +11
Leonard: +13

Overall, this was one of the 2 or 3 worst rounds Leonard has played in the past 3 years. His drives were off (on several occasions Eric outdrove him, which is not normal). However, Leonard did have some impressive long putts, a few from the PBS (Patented Blackburn Stance) in the woods, that clanked metal but didn’t ring in.

Mark, as always, was very solid putting and throwing pretty long drives in general, with the occasional 1 in 8 that shanked far right on him...though still traveling quite far.

One note: Eric had by far the worst shot of the week (Rob: No, you still hold the Gigli Title for '09). It happened on the drive at Hole 17, the glorious 542 foot “cliff hole.” Basically, any drive can go 250-300 feet from this hole….assuming you don’t hit the ground first. Which Eric did at the edge of this teebox:


The disc shot up in the air 20+ feet, and, fortunate for Eric, rolled down approximately 85% of the hill (which has 114 steps), to enable him to save double and only lose one stroke on Mark and Leonard who missed their par putts.

On Thursday, the Jags cruised out to Cottage Grove to play Oakwood Park, which is T-Town’s home course, about 1.5 miles from his house.

Note: T-Town had only played one round thus far in 2009.

Eric estimates Leonard had played this course about 3 or 4 times prior, while Leonard claims only once or twice. Eric's records indicate Leonard last played it in on September 14, 2002.

Ander has played this course a good 4 or 5 times, and Mark Neely, T-Town, and Eric got in a round at the onset of Neely’s resurgence in August 2007.

Things did not get off to a good start for Leonard at Oakwood – testing out one of his news discs (a Surge?) that got caught up in a tree, which he tried to retrieve with his Gatorade bottle.

With no official, handsome Ander scorecards for the course we made do with some nifty graph paper Mark happened to have in a notepad in his bag.

Leonard’s bad luck continued at Hole 1, an easy birdie hole that none of us birdied, with Leonard getting a double and the rest of us getting par.


Hole 2 reverses course with the pin straight ahead. The last time Ander played this course it may have been pre-shrub/tall grass/tree cutting. It’s now a simple shot, playing a bit longer than the previous downhill hole.


Hole 3 we jagged up – having previously played the pin that is for Hole 18 the last 5+ years by mistake after they revamped the course around 2003/2004. We decided to play it at the end of the round so as not to get behind a stampede of other Jag Quartets that were piling up behind us.

Hole 4 is one of the longest on the course. The pin is straight ahead, well past the big round beautiful tree on the right of the fairway. The woods on the left is treacherous. Mark had a crazy long drive and saved par while T-Town and Eric had their first bogeys of the day (T’s actually a double).


Mark continued his great play by notching a birdie on Hole 5, which is a straight shot up into the woods, slightly complicated by a few bushes in the middle of the fairway. T-Town got back the stroke he lost to Leonard on hole 4 in the early battle for 3rd place as Leonard’s drive sailed right in the woods for a bogey.


Now, the woods.

Here is where the game began to change, although our spirits did not. Even though he began the wooded excursion by chopping his first 3 shots on this short hyzer hole (following the path, below), Mark remarked that this was a course in which the holes in the woods all had a point to them – lots of character etc. Leonard was the only jag to par Hole 6 and Mark doubled.


Hole 7 is a not too long slight anhyzer, with the pin about 35-40 feet up the slight hill in the background. Mark, the Woodsman of the round, chopped his way to a 4, while the rest of us got par.

Hole 8 is a doozy – VERY long with a very narrow fairway (it is straight back, but not really visible from the tee). It is this hole, some seven or so years ago, where T-Town had hit his disc golf peak, but then lost his favorite driver in the (now dried up) swamp in the foreground. I don’t know if he ever replaced the driver, but his game has never quite been the same since. Mark impressed on this one, getting the only non-double among the bunch (4).


Hole 9 is very birdie-friendly hole, but only Mark achieved this feat. (With Mark it seemed to be feast or famine in the woods).


Through Hole 9 (though remember we skipped Hole 3), the scores were:

Mark: +2
Eric: +4
Leonard: +6
T-Town: +6

Not amazing scores, and the tough holes were yet to come.

Eric got on the board with a birdie at Hole 10, a short and straight hole, but with enough trees to make it interesting.


Hole 11 is pretty tough, though Mark had the best anhyzer of the bunch. The pin follows the path, up a hill to the right, and then sits about 70 feet down the base of the hill on the other side. T-Town was up one stroke on Leonard at this point in the match (Leonard and Eric doubled this hole).


Hole 12 has a lot of trees for your chopping pleasure. Eric took the right path, though the pin is basically straight ahead of the left path. This is one of the few holes (of the summer) where Mark’s putter failed him, ending up with a double, and Leonard’s par was the best of the group.


Hole 13 is probably the third or fourth hardest hole on the course, and quite long. The pin is at the very end of the path, slightly to the left, but the fairway is pretty narrow throughout. Our average score for the group was 5.0 on this hole, with T-Town providing the triple and Mark impressive with a long putt for bogey.


We’re back out of the woods for a brief moment on Hole 14 – the pin is tucked away on the left near the end of the group of trees. Eric got his second birdie of the day here (first ever in his career on this hole), with Mark and Leonard notching a par. T-Town continued to fade after a valiant effort through 11 holes with a bogey.


Hole 15 requires a very straight drive, which Eric and Leonard were able to pull off and sink short par putts at the pin at the top of the hill back inside the woods. T-Town and Mark bogeyed.


Heading into the Hole of Death, the scores were:

Eric: +7
Mark: +8
Leonard: +10
T-Town: +13

Hole 16 is indeed the Hole of Death. Eric has probably averaged over 6 strokes on this hole over the 10+ rounds he has played this course. The average for our group today was 5.5, with three doubles and a quadruple bogey courtesy of T-Town. You basically need to just follow the path straight ahead, but there is a notable slope to the fairway, and enough trees to make this one just plain nasty.


As you can see, neither T-Town (shades) nor Mark (towel) wanted to show their face on this hole…


Hole 17 brings us back out into the open, with a longish hole and the pin sitting just beyond the 3-4 small bushes straight ahead. Leonard continued his feverish march towards the top of the pack with the only par in the quartet. But was it going to be too little too late?


We used to play Hole 18, as Ander may recall, to a pin straight at the top of a steep hill, just off the parking lot. Turns out that is the pin for Hole 3, and Hole 18 is on a slope over to the right a bit. We averaged 5.33 collectively on this hole, with Mark trying to make do with a drive that sailed a long, long way right, essentially playing the fairway on Hole 4 on his way to a triple, while the rest of us doubled.


Our return to Hole 3 was anti-climactic, with three pars among the leaders.


And thus, the final scores read:

Eric: +12
Mark: +14
Leonard: +14
T-Town: +22

Though Eric doesn’t look all that happy, for some reason, even though this was only his 4th win in 19 attempts against Mark this year.


Also, for the record, 2009 marked Eric’s best yearly winning percentage against Leonard dating back to our first rounds in 1998. By year:

1998: 2.0% (1-49)
1999: 11.4% (5-39)
2000: 0.0% (0-9)
2001: 11.1% (2-16)
2002: 0.0% (0-12)
2003: 31.0% (9-20)
2004: 0.0% (0-4)
2005: 0.0% (0-5)
2006: did not play
2007: 14.3% (1-5-1)
2008: 12.5% (1-6-1)
2009: 36.4% (4-7)