What Rain?

Michigan Disc Deluge

The silver Subaru meet at Rolling Hills. The skies gray soap and a bit low. The Jag contingent? A bit giddy/high, as in high on about-to-play-D-golf.

Rob shows up, shakes hands, and bombs a 100+ foot putt on hole #1 for birdie. Apparently, Rob doesn't need any warm-up. Kudos, sir.

Hey Rob, is that a hammer?


Another highlight is when we are in the techy stretch. A blind shot through a tree-tunnel. I throw the trusty (ace X 2 disc) Stingray and it slither-flies, turns over the rise, then chains, chains, chains--I run after! My heart goes modem! Then I stumble and slow. It's a kick-out. Sitting there like a neon cow patty.

If you click on the pic you'll see an orange/yellow disc right of the pin. That was indeed my drive.

On we go...

Rolling Hills is, naturally, rolling hills, then techy shots, then big-ass long techy shots, then some motherfuckers! My favorite holes were probably 14 and 15. 14 was a long straight drive down a chute, then a 45 degree right turn up a hill. Andy actually has a par putt on this hole. None of us par the hole. We will take our bogeys.

Another great hole is 15, a R to L major DROPOFF, huge elevation change, amazing hole.

Wow. This hole is so steep that it has a rope assist-line thing on the L side, to hold onto as you descend the hill. Dat be wicked. The cool thing about holes 14-18 on this course is how many strokes competitors could exchange. I mean the course leaps up and fangs you on this stretch. Smart design.


Patented Andy flick on I think hole 5 or something. Basket tucked under that tree. Andy had that forehand pretty grooved.

Sean -2 Mark + 2 Rob + 7 Andy +7

Then rain. Big buckets of fat cold drops of rain. Suck-ass rain. 99 red balloons of rain. The type of rain that makes you squishy and scaly and cursing and shiver. We go get lunch. Ann arbor Noodle shop. I ate the penis of a crab, in some form of fish broth. Wasn't too bad, actually.

What in the fuck kind of place is Cass Benton?

(It's raining hard now. Steady and really fucking cold. I feel like a slug. Fuck it. We play.)

Here are some reviews of Cass:

Poorly respected by the people there to put it simply. Each tee is surrounded by a mound of cigarette butts and bottle caps. A ton of hole signs are missing.

Some people smoking the magic tobacco openly, people please smoke it before or after your game. i watched as a dog ran up and stole some guys disc.

Douchebag circus kind of covers it. From over-privileged kiddie punks to obnoxious adults to vagabond rapist-looking weirdos who seem to wander from time to time, there' s a little of everything. Also besides the human trash, there's the trash on the ground. Litter is everywhere, and vandalism rampant.

OK...

Well here's what the trails look like:

Honestly, this place scared me. We were very fortunate to play in a cold rain, since this kept most people away. The holes were shredded, tagged with paint (who tags trees?), vandalized, and giant trees had fallen all over the place. Giant Tinker Toys. Shards of glass. Smoldering piles of burnt earth (I'm not kidding). Stagnant pools of black. Powerline poles bent and knocked over, with lines on the ground. No one seemed to care about multiple power lines on the ground. I mean it looked like King Kong made a visit, drunk. What happened at this course?

However...the disc golf was actually glow.

There were open bombs:


Then long impossible-techy holes, big-ass trees, little trees, spindly trees, culverts, power lines, creeks, picnic tables in creeks, major elevation changes, party people, chutes (even a thread-the-needle hole), litter, litter, litter.

Is this techy enough for you?


Or this? There is no fairway. Where is Ander and his axe when you need him?


On hole one we let these douche bag circus kids play through (both looked like wet rats). One kid just stood talking on a cellphone on the tee. He looked dazed. I was thinking animal tranquilizer. He mumbled into the phone, "Come on out. It's just a drizzle." This was a brave lie.

They asked us to join them. We, uh, declined.

I later saw the same kid perched atop a tree. Mark almost knocked him out of the tree. I'm not joking. Then the kids vanished. I imagine many people vanish at this park. Bye.

Vastly interesting disc golf. Variety, all the shots. Oddly, it's good disc golf, just in a bizarre setting. Rain, rain, rain--cold. My skin shriveled up and my teeth actually chattered. It sucked. But it was fun. Especially for Mark.

Mark + 3 Sean + 6 Rob + 6 (yep, Rob tied me) Andy + 13

Well, the Cleveland crew bailed on us. Man. Well. Well, it was wet as fuck, I'll give them that. But come on, Jags! So they drive away, and guess what--it stops raining.

WTF?

Mark and I play another round.

Mark + 1
Sean + 6

This round Mark threw a disc sort of near (though not really) a group of two women/two men huddled over something (use your imagination) and one woman kept yelling at Mark, "You didn't say fore! You didn't say fore!"

You didn't say fore!

You didn't say fore!

Whatever. It was funny how Mark handled the situation. He just totally ignored her, like she was a chattering squirrel. And really, wasn't she?

Did I mention Mark slipped and busted his ass on a shot? Pretty cool. Usually I do that. I laughed.

It's getting all shadowy and blue. Darkness. We play on.

Clearly, Sean sucks at Cass Benton. And Mark seems to own the damn place. I mean WTF? I have noticed I lost my mind at Mississinewa when it was flooded. Now I lose my game during cold rain. Is that mental weakness? I wonder. I'd like to play well in ALL conditions. Who knows?

BTW, do you see anything funny about hole 15? Typical Cass...

Mark is laughing because that basket is as high as his waist. It's a midget basket. Note where the shaft of the pin is--buried feet into sand. Very odd.

Well. We leave. Get lost. Eat pizza. Go to sleep. Go play BLACK LOCUST!!


Wow, Black Locust. 27 wonderful, wonderful holes. 27! Damn. We pay huge fees, have to pay even more fees, drive to offices to get wrist bands, etc. OK. But I'm not complaining. This course is GaGa.


Including this early one, up a hill, over beautifully sculpted bonsai evergreens, a framed-up startle of a disc golf hole. You see these things and want to weep. (Or yelp with envy--this layout/topo made my home course look like a turd).

We keep seeing odd holes in Michigan. These courses have personality.

Yes, it is bolted into a tree stump.

Sean + 6 mark + 12

I can't explain this course. Like garden of Eden material. Just awe. Every shot needed. Every distance. Variations. R to L. L to R. BOMBS. Finesse. Up the hill, down the hill. Big serpentine turnover fairways. Narrow tech fairways. Beauty.

Wow.


Wow.

That's pretty much what I can say about Michigan D golf.

Wow.

Good to see u Cleveland jags! And good work, Mark. He beat me down at Cass.

Good to throw.

Glow.

S

Oh, postscript. On the way home we stopped for gas. Mark bought a publication made up entirely of Cass Benton local players.

I shit you not.



S

Happy Day in Muncie

Went out at 9am for a few rounds at McCulloch with Sean and our friend Matt. By 10am it's Africa hot with humidity like pea soup. We are sweating balls but throwing well. I think the first round Sean was -3 or -4, Mark -1, Matt +5.

Second round. Skies are darkening. Sean checks the weather on his i-phone and things look sketchy. We don't care. Earlier in the week Sean and I discussed a study that looked into the reason men get hit by lightning more than women. Results of that study: Men are stupid. More on that later.

Round two: Interesting front nine, including a hole where Matt says something bad about Catholicism, then has a beautiful long putt fall in the basket, sit there for a beat, then literally jump out of the basket onto the ground. Mysterious forces are definitely at work.

We roll up to hole #11.

The basket is 240 a bit uphill. There are two ways to go at this thing. A hyzer way up in the air that goes around the big tree on the right and feeds to the basket. Or a low straight shot right at the hole. Sean likes the big hyzer. I've seen him hit the basket twice in the last two weeks with this shot. Once he hit the top, once he hit the bottom. I figure he's going to ace this bad boy soon.

Lately I've been trying the low line drive. I pull out my beloved blue Glide and let it rip. Things look good. Behind me Sean says, "That's in," and a second later it gets inhaled by chains. I jump and yell and dance.


My second ace ever, and my first with witnesses. This smile stays on my face for some time.

At hole 14 it gets very dark. Big thunder. Sean checks the i-phone and the news isn't good. As we walk up the fairway on 15 the downpour starts. We play 16 and 17 in massive headwind and good-sized-hail. I have the idea that if we don't finish the round the ace doesn't count. We're completely drenched. My bag has an inch of water in the bottom. We're going to finish the damn round.

We do. I shake like a wet dog and drive on home.

How Jags Drive & Other Tidbits

No big blog post since we were all there. But here's how we drive Hole 1 Lustig:










This is a disc I found at Heistand:

Here is the giant turnover shot by L that continually buzzed the basket.



Here are we. See you next year, and looking forward to the stats!

Jags.

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...

Father's Day

Spending time with my daughter on Father's Day:

Ace Report: McCulloch Hole 10

I had 3 summer goals. One was to ace at McCulloch, my home course. It's been on the earth 3 years and I still had not aced the damn course. It was annoying. I mean this is my course. I helped put it in the ground.

Hole 10 is a turnover shot, about 240, uphill. Trees guarding the R side. I selected a Champion Sidewinder and threw it turnover high into a strong push (R to L) wind. It did the full S curve and fell right into the R side, no chains. Just right into the basket with a thunk.


This was my first ace without chains. This was also my first ace without witnesses. Aces are MUCH better with witness. I shouted and looked around, into nothing, just a parked blue Camaro, and this is a public park so I'm not approaching a parked blue Camaro.

Still, it felt good.

Summer goal # 2 is to beat my McCulloch course record (-5). The closest I have been is -3.

Summer goal # 3 is to have sex with Lady Gaga.