Fountain Hills (Jan), Las Cruces, NM (Jan), Marana Rock (Jan)

So I don't know about y'all (Rob esp.) but I've been playing some quality...ish...disc.

Erik Sather and I got a couple rounds in 2 weeks ago (the date of the AZ Cardinals taking down the Philadelphia Eagles in Tempe, no less) at Fountain Hills sweet course in Fountain Hills, AZ. Perhaps Erik will post some photos? He has a much better camera than I do. He is a better, bigger man with more discs than me. Or, well, he had more discs than I did. He put at least 4 into the water these two rounds. In his defense, this course is hard. Water is in play on probably 12 at least of the 18 holes, and is always in view, so you have to think about it. I lost my best driver on hole 11. It sucked. My sweet 172 gram beast. O Beast, where hast thou gone? The water. The deep deep water that is hard to penetrate with our sad vision. So this round was a lot of fun (beautiful, sunny, but about 1000 people trolling around making you think about hitting them with every drive. Also a problem).

First up is Erik approaching on 16 (maybe 18).

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Erik driving in Tales-From-the-Darkside-Vision on hole, maybe, 7:

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I actually got very few shots of him actually in the water. I guess I lack the killer instinct that great documentary photographers have, or so I hear. Here's one of him coming out of the water, though:

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Erik, however, has a photo of me inching my way out on a concrete wall to try to get my disc on hole 1, but I can't seem to find it. It's so sexy.

This course is very good. Really bitchy with the water. A lot of holes are very well designed, especially considering the landscape of the course (aside from the water and the 300' fountain) is not very interesting. I'd give this course a 3.2/4.0.

In case you're interested, the only other really worthwhile course in the Phoenix area is Buffalo Ridge. Erik and I met to play there a month or so back and it's stellar. The opposite of Fountain Hills in that it's very wild, desert-tastic, with lots of elevation change and blind holes. These two can make a pretty good day of disc golf. No photos yet however.

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So a week or two later I'm reading at New Mexico State University in Las Cruces, NM, and I bring my discs because I read online that NMSU has a course with 18 baskets. It lists the major obstacles as "wind" and "length." There's a good pizza joint in downtown Las Cruces and not so much else really happening there. But I show up on Saturday morning at 9:30 to play a couple rounds. It's hard to find your way around, but it's nice landscape, if a touch samey. A crapload of creosote bushes and then a good bunch of yuccas. Big sky here. Lots of space. Lots of light so the first photo is bizarrely dark:

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One thing you realize very quickly on this course is that all the holes are extremely long. Many you can't see from the tee box—they just disappear into the distance. It's tough to find your way around if you haven't played it before, but if you work at it, you'll find holes sooner or later. There are a number of nice touches, like arrows made from scrap metal on the ground showing you the way to the next tee. I like that. Could have used more of them. It takes me 2 hours to play a round and so I don't have time to play the second round, which is too bad. I have to look for probably 9 baskets, so I double back and walk a long way. But some holes are very pretty:

I throw my sky blue orc a lot on this course because I lost my sweet beast. O beast, again. I will have to buy more of you.

So after I finish up my round, I realize there are maybe 2 holes less than 300 feet. I look again at the listing on the PDGA course directory, and here's the numbers: # of holes < than 300 feet: 0. # 300-400 feet: 7. # 400+ feet: 11. Total course length: 8353 feet. That's pretty insane. An average good course is maybe 5500 feet. This course is bomb after bomb. It gets a little samey. Luckily holes 16 and 17 both involve some elevation change, a welcome break from the bomb shots. 16 is a 250 footer (I'm pretty sure) that is blind: you throw from an elevated tee more or less into a crevice on the left that leads down to the basket. It's a lovely little hole. More like this would have been great. There's space for it (this hole was on the edge of a huge crater). I'm not sure why they don't use it more. Maybe for the future? Or maybe this is just designed by huge arms. I don't know if you can see in the image, but here's a shot from the armpit of the crevice down to the basket. My drive rests about 2 feet from the basket on the right:

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Just past the basket, on the way to the next tee, we see what disc golfers make of Ms. Blige:

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Overall, this is a decent course. 2.4/4.0. It could easily be made into a 3.0+ course with more variety and less reliance on distance. Admittedly when you throw in a huge field of yucca and creosote, there's only so much you can do. Worth a play if you're in the area. Wear long pants. Not a lot of thorns, I thought, but lots of bushes. And when I changed shoes for the drive home I found probably 15 thorns stuck in the soles of my shoes. Do not underestimate the desert. Track your shots. Bring your drivers...

And I'll leave you with one more photo, from a round with Jeff and I playing at Marana Rock a couple weeks ago. Both our discs, 6 inches from each other, in an evergreen. I think this might be a metaphor:


So, Rob and others, you know, the best way for you to get in some quality desert disc photos is for you to get y'all's asses down heah. 75 today and lovely.

Minneapolis Courses I would like to play

Blue Ribbon Pines:

Description: Open and wooded with ponds, doglegs, abundant risk/reward and signature holes. 80' tall pines. Hours; 8am to 2 hours prior to sunset. Fee/$5. Scorecard/Map at pro shop.

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Bryant Lake:

Description: Challenging championship design overlooking scenic lake. Rolling hills with elevation. Alt. tees and pin placements. Many park amenities including concessions. Annual event in July. Tall grass/brush - use bright palstic. $3/rnd or $30/season pass to all Three Rivers Park Dept. courses

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The courses I like are Oakwood (Cottage Grove), Acorn (Roseville), Kaposia (S. St. Paul), North Valley (Inver Grove), Plymouth Creek Park (Plymouth), and Red Oak Park (Burnsville)

Acorn Park, Roseville, MN, 12/26/08

Eric Ostermeier, Mark Ehling, and Your Correspondent, Acorn Park, 12/26/08. Temperature: 36. Snow: quite a bit. Melting. Getting a little gooey.

I meet Mark and Eric at Acorn Park in Roseville, MN, a northern suburb of Minneapolis, for a couple rounds. This is not the best course in the cities (probably Kaposia or North Valley/Inver Grove, or maybe even Cottage Grove) but it’s the closest for most of us and offers enough variety for all our games that it’s the one I play most often.

I stop off at Fairway Flyerz, the excellent disc golf pro shop on Rice Street just north of Acorn, to pick up some discs. I choose a bright orange flx challenger (thus bringing my total to four of these discs, for use in standardizing my backyard putting) and one of the ace race 2008 midrange prototype discs which appears to be sort of similar to a Roc or Buzz, but maybe a little less stable. I throw it one time later in the round and it wings a tree. Things don’t augure well for this disc. The proprietor at Fairway Flyerz informs me there are two very promising new courses in the northern suburbs of Minneapolis that I will have to revisit in the summer. They sound difficult and lovely. Perhaps I'll play them in the week around the yearly Madison meet up.

Round one scores: Mark and Eric tie at +14. Ander shoots +2. Few birdies are made. I think I got one or two. Ehling got one as I remember it, though I could be on crack. Often I am on crack. Most holes are in the short position to compensate, perhaps, for the difficult tees and heavy snow. The upside is that the lake on hole 1 (below, center, in the dip) is frozen, taking the teeth out of that hole:

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We shot pretty close, as is usual, for the first half of the course. The first half is shorter, and a little easier in terms of the variety of shots (and birdies to be had). Scores start to separate around hole 9 or 10. Eric found himself in the snow (as we all did). He was dismayed, as if regarding his shot in utter disbelief:

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Mark Ehling flourishes to conclude his drive on 4:


I like the shot of the disc in the air. That's a goal for me when shooting these, especially since my cell phone camera is not great.

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Later Mark finds the heavy rough on the left on 8 (below--this hole is also more toothless thanks to the frozen lake on the left). He manages to get out and save bogey. This is a good hole like many on this course, a big hyzer shot or maybe a hammer. It plays 250 maybe from the long tees (which we always play). It’s not incredibly difficult to par but there are few birdies to be had on a day like this. I actually birdie this both times today. Go me.

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Later, Eric fires on 12, a great 400’ dogleg left. If you leave it short and left you have a choice: either run a tiny gap to get back towards the green, or else play big around to the right. A straight shot of maybe 300' gets around the big trees and onto what qualifies as the green. Usually you're left with about 100' of work among sparse but difficult trees to get to putt. This is often a bogey hole, like several out here. See Eric's eclipse (I think) in the air, starting to hyzer left. That's where he'll play from both rounds.

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I ready a shot on 13, at a crazy angle thanks to Ehling's cinematography:

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18 is a really tough finishing hole. In order to have a shot, you MUST get your disc through the gap and get out to the fairway, which plays well uphill towards the basket. The foliage is down but the branches grow closer together each year and the gap is fairly intimidating. In the long position, the basket is probably 550’ away from the tee, and is a very difficult par. I don’t remember having parred this in the long. Your drive can be great but unless you can flip it and end up right there are only two ways onto the green. You can try to brave the trees on the left (straight ahead in the photo) or go big hyzer right, going around the trees hoping for a skip towards the basket. The hole is much more difficult because you really have to throw a drive out right from the tee box to get an angle on the green and you're just thinking about getting it in the fairway so not to drop a stroke to your competitors. In the winter, they move the basket short in front of the tree line, probably about 450'. A much easier par, though by no means simple. Again, the drive is everything. The wind is a major factor on these last three holes which are the most exposed on the course--otherwise you're among the trees. Eric and Mark contemplate their shots, Eric’s in the past (he got out) and Mark’s in the future (so will he):

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Stopping for a lunch at the Flameburger between rounds, I get the Super Cheese Flame:


Sorry, Sean. No nachos on the menu.

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Round two: Ander +1, Mark +9, Eric withdraws (WD) with three holes to play in order to make a vet appointment for his cat Applejack who is a very fine cat indeed. We start on hole 3 bypassing some chumps. We will always wonder whether he would have taken Mark out or not on this round, since they decided not to play off their tie from round one. It’s slow out there this second round because lots of people came out after a couple weeks of Minnesota subzero temperatures, and there is much looking around for discs that enter the wet snow leaving nary a trace. The more people play the harder the discs are to find--we're in the space between the snow getting panked down enough so discs don't bury and the snow being virgin enough that you can see the slashes where the discs entered, and follow them a couple feet underneath the snow to your disc. I lose my best starfire on the first hole. It was getting beat up anyhow. I need another one. It was even a very nice drive, a long putt for 2, but we are in a hurry so we leave off after looking for 2 minutes per PDGA rules and courtesy. This is the only proper lost disc of the day, which is pretty good. Eric loses an eclipse later, having dropped it after driving it on 15, though the loss did not occur in play (hence no stroke penalty was awarded).

And Eric in action on 13:

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I nearly aced this hole (13), probably my best shot of the round. It’s a long shot, probably 320’, that finishes left after flirting with the treeline on the right, which knocks down most hyzer drive. I turned my Beast over and it looked true but must have missed the basket by feet since it ends up just past on the left. Like many of the holes at Acorn it is complicated by trees and low ceilings and the placement of the tees. One tree has apparently been removed, thus easing this hole’s approach somewhat (you used to have to launch higher and throw a helix or hammer it or go huge hyzer; now you can drive hard at it and let it finish left).

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Eric and Mark, wet, trudge towards the basket on 17 (below, straight up, amidst all the snow). They both hit long putts to keep it tied. This hole really ought to be a birdie but it rarely is, frustratingly. It’s about a 280 foot downhill hole, so within range of a good shot for anyone. The wind is often swirling, however, and picks up on the top of the hill in particular.

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And that’s the game. Not bad rounds from Ander. Good rounds from Ehling considering his alleged couple years layoff. Eric was in for a better round for #2 but his cat, Applejack, is healthy and friendly. Eric has a really huge fucking house in Minneapolis, about which his cat frolics and tries to decipher the hydraulic heating in the walls and tiles. Here's to warmer weather. Go team!

Orts, collecting recent disc photos +

Friends Jeff, Josh (who took several of these photos on his sweet iPhone; thanks, yo), and I headed up to Phoenix (or technically Fountain Hills and Scottsdale, respectively) to try out courses now that the heat is below 90 credibly during the day. On the way in we could see the fountain (of "fountain hills" fame) towering over this weird little development in the desert. It was eight miles after we left signs of civilization before we found a Williamsburg, Virginia-esque Wendy's and got some food and wandered into the town (?) of Fountain Hills. Morning, about 75 degrees. Mood: full. Ready.

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Josh drives on hole 1 at FH. It's a 300 footer across (shallowish) water. This is a very nicely maintained course, easy to find (mostly) tees and baskets. Lots of walkers and kids, dogs and so on (Jeff met one the hard way on hole 8). This course does a lot with its water. Also you see rolling hills, some excellent use of various (mostly non-native) trees. There is a shitload of grass. It's a cool course, but in weirdo suburbia craziness. This is what I envisioned Phoenix to be.

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Jeff teeing off on hole two. His shot (like his shot on 1) found water. There is a whole lot of water.

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Ander throwing a forehand on hole 6 (?). This is one of several great holes on the course. Tight, low fairway, downhill. Water takes your disc if you overthrow it, underthrow it, hook it, etc.

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Case in point.

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A great shot of the six hundred foot fountain. This thing is immense. It is incredibly picturesque. Also incredibly man-made. As artificial as you get. On a couple holes you get spray. It is pretty sweet. Would be better if you had to throw around it or through it, of course, but then the world does not always deliver our desires. Also this is a possible book cover for me. Thanks Josh.

Two holes previous Jeff threw a, shall we say, errant drive, way left, over some pedestrians. The disc just passed over a teenage girl's head, stirring her hair up (possibly it clipped her) like sand from a bunker. This did not bode well for the day. Said girl seemed entertained. We played away fast. Josh hit a ten-year old kid in the leg the previous week on Groves in Tucson. Good times. That was kind of hilarious, actually. This, a little less so. Note: be more careful with drives.

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This round wasn't too close. Ander shot +3, winning by 8 strokes. Josh and Jeff (who was the agua king this day) ended up close though. Josh, having never won or tied a round with Jeff, had a 25 foot putt for the tie on 18. Good putt. It was forever in the air. Just hit the lip and missed. Backtrack: the above photo is Jeff driving downhill on a nice, if maybe too open (there's a lot of this in Phoenix, it turns out, though this hole, like many is saved by the vista, the water, and the cool palms) hole. On to the next course. We stop in at the disc golf pro shop (Spinners on the Green) which abuts the Shelly Sharpe Memorial Disc Golf Course at Vista del Camino (Scottsdale, AZ), which is a grandiose name for a fairly plain course.

Again, water running through the center of the course. Lots of 300' or so holes, some with water in play (not enough!), a couple with good tree action or OB to offer. But overall this course was a letdown. Flat (with a couple exceptions), open, water (but no fountain). Very samey in this player's opinion. I wouldn't return to this one if I didn't live close, or if it wasn't right by the pro shop (and a bar called Duke's featuring 50 tvs showing sports and one (not showing sports, oddly) in the men's bathroom so you could see it from any stall/urinal. Quality. They had $2.25 burgers. We avoided the burgers. No photos of this course. It was okay. Long holes. Oddly they had 2 baskets for many of the holes (though only one tee per hole) so that it was oftentimes unclear which basket you'd play to. Instead, we think, it might be better to use the baskets to BUILD MORE AND BETTER HOLES, and put in some am/pro tees. This could be a good course with some work. #11 (we started on #12 since the pro shop abuts #12) is a very good finisher, though. Across water, 490' to the basket, maybe 150' to the fairway, but OB on the left (bitchy) and water the length of the hole on the right. We played with a dude who claimed to have some good game but we didn't see it fully deployed. This last hole we played from the old tee, about to be decommissioned, for a shorter tee. Not sure why. It's always sad when things die.

Anyhow, I played this round well. Shot -3. Should have shot better (what the crap, putting?), but I also put in two 50 footers so that's a plus.

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Flashback one week to playing with Erik at Marana Rock (Tucson). Beautiful day. Josh and Jeff had come out to join for one round and the two of us played another, then put in 18 at Santa Cruz River Park (Tucson). A couple quality shots of Erik throwing into the morning:

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(Note the cracked mud—still a little gooey underneath the surface; this is the leftovers of the big flood we played through a couple months back. Discs are entombed underneath it, I am sure, for future anthropology.

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Flash back now again to three non-disc photos worth chronicling quickly:

(Tucson Day of the Dead parade, disturbing)

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(My neighbor has a war going on with the other neighbor, Griswold-style, for Xmas decoration dominance. Great. 22 inflatable things on the lawn (well, lawn is not the best word for it) and house. Word is that he will colonize our carport for some more of them. The compressor runs most of the night. It competes with the kreepy krawly chugging to clean the pool. 80s and sunny here. Don't know about the rest of y'all. Time to come down for a visit?

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(Creepy light-up Kennedy at The Shelter, a strange Tucson bar.)

End transmission.

The Columbus Effect

Columbus, Ohio, 9/21-22, 2008

Gentlemen: Saturday morning, 10am, at the Brent Hambrick / Hoover Dam (Columbus, OH) disc golf course, I met the following: Andy Segedi, Rob Hays, and we waited about a half hour for Sean Lovelace and Mark Neely to arrive before teeing off on hole one of this excellent 27-hole course. It is quite solid, probably the best (I declare) in the Columbus area, though I haven't played them all. It has great variety, about 9-10 openish holes, including the one below, a 290 foot shot down towards a basket with the "Hoover Dam," as they refer to it, behind it, just enough to make you think seriously about overthrowing your shot. It's a gorgeous vista, ruined somewhat by the presence of Mr. Lovelace and Mr. Segedi.

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Hole 6 (?) is a one of the strongest holes on the course, a 295' shot to a dropoff on the right and a basket on a pedestal about fifteen feet down from the fairway:

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I don't remember which holes this is, probably on our first round, where Mark is trying to salvage a mediocre drive. On the day neither Sean nor Ander was putting all that well. It left some space for the others to make their move...

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Segedi putting downhill towards a basket that recedes towards OB:

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This was an excellent course, played pretty well, collectively by us. I don't have any shots of the 9 in the woods, very nicely laid out but birdieable, or the 9 in the deep deep woods, supertechnical holes, where we racked up some bogies. Round one had Ander as the winner at -3, Sean at +3, Andy at +7 (I think), Rob at +7 (I think), and Mark bringing up the back at +12.

We took a break to eat lunch at a preppy sort of place with the red-hat ladies brigade on display. Rob entertained them with his regurgitation act. Segedi offered to strip.

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The second round (featuring Rob's signature hammer throw, brought to you by the letter G and the Great Lakes Oktoberfest beer) was warmer, afternoon by now.

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Also you can find Andy Segedi in the wild:

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One of the final holes (#15?) plays left to right along a road (on or over which is OB), and it's a nasty little hole. Ander went OB both times, not helping his cause. This is obviously a popular hole since the following (along with "DICK" and other sundry quality terms) were spray painted on the road, perhaps out of anger or frustration?

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Pensively, Sean often wondered if Mark could hold onto his lead midway through the round:

This was one of the woods (but not crazy technical woods) holes featuring either 1> a huge high hyzer shot over trees, or else 2> a hyzer skip shot along the fairway that doglegged about 60 degrees to the basket. Ander deuced this both rounds, a highlight of his round.

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Round two, Mark showed the hell up, turning in a score of -1, winning (!), and improving by 13 strokes, proving something to all of us, especially Sean. Ander ended up +1, Sean +2, Andy and Rob at +7. Interesting, we thought. Mark led most of the latter half of the round and kept hitting putt after clutch putt, drives in the fairway. A solid performance. Sean began to steam.

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We drove over to Lobdell Preserve (20 minutes east, in Alexandria, OH) and put in 18 holes on this (also difficult) course. This one's most obvious feature is its length and open, rolling fairways. It's in the midst of Deliverance-seeming country but is very nicely maintained (though they could use some signage pointing the way from hole to hole). We had planned on maybe doing 36 but it was a bit of a bear, particularly since the hurricane winds had done some damage to the holes here. One of the better holes would have been hole 7, but as you can see the HUGE tree made this a...challenging...shot. It's downhill to begin with, featuring a low ceiling, and if you tried to throw a turnover at it, you might well carry, as Rob and Mark did, 150' down the hill:

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This is a shot of Sean in his natural state of fearfulness, on the other side of the fallen tree, by the basket:


If he doesn't move for a long time he slowly becomes invisible.

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An action shot of Rob driving on one of the intermediary technical holes. These provided a very nice break from the longer open holes, and played through a huge ravine. There were very few bugs, shockingly. I didn't photograph the open holes since they're not as interesting compositionally.

This was a fun round. We were all clustered within 2 strokes the majority of the round, perhaps because the holes were long enough that there were few deuces, but open enough that there were few bogeys (though Ander found his way to a couple of those at unfortunate times). One of the best holes is #17, which is a long hole (400'?) a bit of a left to right bend, but the fairway sloped to the left, making the shot quite difficult to keep in bounds. We were pretty close by this point. Sean threw the shot of the round, setting himself up for an easy par. Andy dropped a stroke (he was leading by 2 at this point) with a bogey. Ander and Mark shanked it in the left woods, not knowing that there was also a huge bonus dropoff into a ravine. That made par a difficulty...

With one to play, hole 18 is a great finisher. Birdieable but nearly blind, a 280 footer down about 70 feet to the green. Sean put his 40 feet from the basket. Andy missed but got par. Rob shot par. Mark had a long birdie putt but also missed. Ander nearly aced it and settled for a drop-in birdie, but too little. Too late. Andy managed to hold onto his lead and carried the day with a +1. Sean ended at +2, tied with Ander. Mark ended at +3, and Rob, tiring, shot +8. Impressive day for Andy and Mark! Unimpressive for Sean in particular, who not only did not register a win, but he was beaten by Mark (4th time historically) and Andy (first time). Rob was certainly in the hunt on this course. All this is to say that the global superpowers have receded and everyone, it appears, is vulnerable. Rob, it may soon be your day.

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Sean and Mark and Ander retired to the inn. Rob and Andy drove back to Cleveland. The next morning Sean and Mark headed back to Muncie. Ander stuck around and tried another course, to wit, Griggs Reservoir (Columbus, OH):

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This is the only photo I took because it's an underwhelming course. Beautiful park along some river in downtown Columbus just west of OSU. The river allegedly "comes into play on at least three holes" which is not accurate. Unless you seriously munged a shot there is no way the river is in any way in play. The course is okay, but kind of samey. The average hole is 250-280 feet, open, or with one tree in the way, flat, back and forth along the park beside the river. The fact that the sign says "park/frisbee information" should tell you something about the design of the course. It's a good place to bring your kids and dogs. Maybe have a picnic lunch. If they'd taken advantage of some of the real rougher stuff back from the mowed areas this could be a good course, or if they'd moved some of the baskets up next to the water so you'd have to reckon with it, it would be worth the trouble of playing twice. I shot -1, playing quite poorly. Didn't stick around for another round. Drove down, dejected, to Columbus Brewing Company, which was closed (eh.). Ate lunch and posted this at a good breakfast/lunch joing in the "German Village" area by the Brewing District. Retired to the hotel. Ready to put in another round someplace along the way to my next stop (Earlham college) tomorrow. As always, enjoyed playing disc with those who made the trip down to join.

Capsule report: Columbus has 2 excellent courses and one mediocre one. I'd give Brent Hambrick a 3.35/4.0, Lobdell a 3.0, and Griggs Reservoir a 2.4. The PDGA site shows they have a bunch more courses. Perhaps worth another rendezvous...?

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