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.