Arizona style

I arose early this morning to get in a round or two of disc to prepare for JagFest Peoria this weekend. Early means around 5:45, since the weather in Tucson has taken a turn toward the hot, and if you want to play, you'd best avoid the times from 10am to 6pm, because it's just scorching (though not too bad today, actually). Plus the heat begets crazy winds which are not amenable to disc. The other problem is, of course, the people. The course I play most often (Groves) gets mobbed with league play on Saturdays and Sundays, and with gangs of amateurs who play in groups of 9 or something, which as we all know is known to fill one with rage.

I figure that if I'm out there by 7am (9am time in Peoria, still after our likely start time there) I can play pleasantly. So I go out. There's only one other car in the lot. Turns out to be the car of this dude Corey, whose name I always forget, but who always remembers my name. Because apparently I can't be bothered, or maybe because I'm just not good at names/faces, I'm always impressed with those who are. This is the one nonnegotiable skill of a successful politician, which I am also not. Anyhow, he's a very pleasant guy, and a good player to boot, so I'm happy to play along with him. Weirdly, he drives righty but putts and approaches lefty. We're chatting. He's excited because a new course just got the green light to go in at a local ball golf course. It won't play alongside the ball golfers, thankfully, because those courses always suck, but will play on another part of the grounds. There will also be a bar (!), small greens fees, and a pro shop. And it's on the east side, which is good, because I am on the east side. My favorite course, Marana, is an hour drive. Groves isn't my favorite course: in fact it only has nine baskets, which you play to two ways, back and forth, so it's 18 holes, but it is challenging, and fairly interesting. They have three different tees for every hole. The A tees are short and generally easy and boring, very much inside the groomed park. I shot personal bests of -13 and -14 on them a month or so ago. The B tees are far harder, much longer, and difficult. Many shoot from outside the park—up on a ridge or out in the cacti—and so are substantially more interesting. My best on those is -5. The C tees I don't often play. They're different, some harder, some easier than the Bs.

Groves is also 10 minutes from my house. So I always have to choose to trade off good disc golf for convenient disc golf, which I don't like to do, but which I almost always do. This is why I'm excited about another course going in.

Corey says something about how he just won a homemade basket in New Mexico and how he's going to install it out in the desert. He asks if I've played the homemade ones out there? No, though I've played a tournament that had several baskets out in the desert, so I've probably played a couple of the holes. He says there are four or five holes now with baskets in the desert, so we try those out.

They're excellent little holes, with some different looks (a short forehand shot to a covered basket, a 315' hole down and across an arroyo and up to the other side, another 230' hole back across a wash, and so on). They add some elevation change and a substantial amount of scenic pop to this course. And at least as of now, they're all crazy little homemade baskets. I include photos below because each is ingenious.

One of the benefits of the homemade is that they're less likely to be vandalized (they don't seem new, so they aren't as obviously fuck-with-able), and they're easier to patch together if they are. Vandalism is a problem in this course, unfortunately. It abuts an elementary school that's closing in a month, and that surely won't help.

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Needless to say not all of these are regulation, but there's a kind of genius in it. I missed a photo of one of them, which was even skinnier than this. Makes for tough putting. But the DIY nature of these is super cool and somehow very Tucson.

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The shot below is my favorite of the new holes, the 320' out and across an arroyo and up to a slightly elevated basket. Corey throws a nice flat stable shot under an overhang which carries to about 40' away. I'm debating that shot, but it seems a little tight for me, so I throw a beat-up Katana up and left with a little turnover on it. First time driving here, and, hey, that looks pretty good, and then: ching. Right in, dead center, but spits out. High fives, even though it didn't stick. There's a reason for that, this being a homemade basket, and one that's pretty wonky. As you can see below, Corey's trying to fix it after I chained out. I can't really tell what the rubber basket part is, but it was at about a 45 degree angle, not conducive to holding a disc. Anyhow, I'm happy, even if it's not my first ace in a year. There's always this weekend...

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Next hole's another fav, just a roc/buzz/glide shot away, down and up from the wash. And check out this crazy-ass basket:

 

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or maybe check out the close-up: that's wood, homes! Like a dreamcatcher or something. Gotta admire this bit of ingenuity, even if it will tinkle pleasantly in the evening wind. My putt clunks out. Corey's doesn't. The wood's actually not bad.

 

A lovely surprise of a morning: you go out just wanting to disc a bit, find someone you like to play with, play pretty well, and discover five new holes with weirdo handmade baskets. All of a sudden the world is filled with possibility...