Shall we discuss the pleasures of winter disc?

After Christmas glow with my week's highlight with family and in-laws, being a morning of sweet, sweet winter disc golf at Acorn Park in Roseville, Minnesota, with occasional jag Mark Ehling and senior jag Eric.

Acorn Park is not the fanciest or most difficult course in the twin cities (there are half a dozen to contend for that honor), but it’s convenient, familiar, and has teeth. Mark had to leave for Chicago with his family this afternoon so we played early (8:30 tee time). Acorn’s popular and well-traveled, so fairly packed down, hence a smart choice for cold golfing.

It’s been between -2 and 20 most of the week I’ve been up here, but it warmed up for us this morning to a balmy 18 (at tee off; 25 at finish). Of course it snowed an inch or two last night, so everything was dusted, slippery, lovely, but the snow underneath those inches was nicely crusted, so it was easy to find buried discs (we lost none, and really barely even searched, though maybe that was due to our collective skillz). Ander and Eric were playing a jag round, so the #3 bag tag was in question. Of course our doubles #1 tags were not in question, but Ander’s #3 tag was at risk. 

Winter golf can be brutal (see also the skin that sloughed off my face while playing the ice bowl tournament with Erik Sather in Grand Rapids a few years back; see also Sean’s frozen fingers and arms for many shared rounds played in GR), but today was lovely. Not a lot of wind. The pins were mostly in the short positions, as they usually are for winter. 

Mark hasn’t played for something like a year, but usually he shows up none too rusty. He hit several 40 foot+ putts (here's one), but also found some rough and accrued a few bogies. 

It’s slippery going, so no one was driving as well as usual. Putting’s tricky too in weather like this: hard to get a grip and trust it. Here's Eric finishing the job on hole 17 (a downhill penultimate hole, about 300 feet, but downhill; it's driveable but hardly simple, since major winds make it tricky, especially if you throw high. Ander deuced this once, Eric parred twice (I think), and Mark parred and bogeyed.

 

And winter presents some unusual lies for Eric:

 

& here:

 

Driving is not exactly easy, though tees are all concrete, with gravel in them, so it's tacky enough to provide some footing. Here's the two gents teeing off on holes 3 and 2, respectively:

 

Turns out there wasn’t a lot of risk, this day at least, of me losing my tag. I played fairly well (aside from missing almost every putt—something to work on, obviously, though working on my frozen golf in Tucson doesn't sound likely), with only one or two real shanks.

First round: Ander +1, Mark Ehling +6, Eric +11.

Second round: Ander +4, Mark +9, Eric + 18.

(Note: by far the score I have shot most often on this course is a 55, which I shot...again...in the first round.)

We had good separation, mostly, both rounds. All were competitive—it's often the case that the group is close together through about hole 9, then the course opens up and gets some more distance, so things sort themselves out. All players birdied. All players bogied. Some more than others. One player took the box, and while doing a chicken dance to mock the other player, lost his footing and almost went down. Actually Eric's boots seemed rather slick. He claims they are eighteen years old. There is power in that. But there's also power in not wiping out off the tee box or going down slight hills. I had purchased new winter boots the night before; on packing for this trip (at least half my luggage was taken up by disc related gear, which I am kind of proud of), I realized my old ones were covered in packing tape to try to keep out the wet. It’s obviously embarrassing to be rocking half-assed boots in Minnesota. There are many ways to be mocked in Minnesota. Perhaps you will find some for yourself? Word on the street is that jagfest 2013 is scheduled to move west of Madison...