Disc Golf: May 2008 Archives

The disc golf meetup met today at Wilco. And it was very large. Too large. The first problem was that John had introduced bag tags to the group that you can compete over. You can only do this with singles. So no one wanted to play doubles today.

The other problem was how the group was split up. Or not as the case might be. Instead of just quickly making groups of four, or even randomly assigning groups of four, John decided that everyone should play at once until people's score differentiated them into groups. I guess the losers should play with other losers. This is not very optimal. Everyone slowly walks ahead. There is confusion about who throws next, etc. Finally, after forty minutes, we split into groups at hole 4.

But, even then, we still have a bottle-neck. The individual groups don't wander ahead to different holes. So I decided to ditch the group and jump to hole 11. Even occasionally throwing multiple times, I was able to finish the course quickly. I made a birdie on hole 12. And I had fun.

It looks like someone made a sign for the bee tree. I hope that this does not point out the bees to everyone and make them a target.

The meetup group went to Cat Hollow. And it was quite large. There were ten people to start with. We spent some time looking for discs on hole one. This was enough motivation for three teams to leave us and play hole 2. Unfortunately, I was stuck in the slow and smoking group.

I was teamed up with a new person named Tim. It was amusing to learn that he was red/green color-blind when he was trying to spot his red disk among the green leaves in a tree. We did pretty well. My Ace Race disc put me within range of a birdie on hole 2.

I also threaded the needle and landed close enough for a birdie on hole 6.

On hole 12, my Panther flew correctly to land near enough for another birdie (although it didn't look like it in mid-flight)!

Tim also did well and got us close enough for other birdies. We kept neck-in-neck for the lead the whole game.

I went to Wilco today for some disc golf. For the first time, I actually scored a par on hole 10! With no mulligans, even.

And on hole 12, my Ace Race disc was good enough for a birdie (but still no ace yet).

The meetup group met out at Wilco park today. I drove past a marathon out on Chandler Boulevard.

We had seven to start out with (two teams of two and one of three). There were two new people that came. One was supposed to be only taking pictures. But when his friend hurt his elbow, he played. I paired with Gravitt today. We birdied hole two. Later on (around hole four), two more people showed up (well, one guy and his son).

I came across a rather colorful orange mushroom. I'm guessing that it is poisonous. William tells me it is a Amanitaceae mushroom.

With nine people playing we played rather slow. And we finished at one pm.

Apparently the big group was getting on John's nerves. He kept listening to long and mellow music during the day.

Just a quick round around the hill on Old Settler's Park. I got a birdie on hole 9. Man it's starting to get hot outside...

Only Jon RSVPed for games tonight. So we decided to play disc golf at Wilco instead. It was a surprise to me to find John Gravitt already out there and just finishing up. Apparently, this was the second time that he played disc golf today.

I had a birdie on hole 5.

It must be mating season for snakes because we ran into a couple of them. And just after I had taken this picture, Jon stomped this baby snake. He hates snakes.

An interesting mistake. The phone doesn't include aperture and shutter EXIF information with the picture. But I am guessing that it was a slow one (1/30th of a second or less).

We stopped by Chuy's afterwards for dinner. I like this sign in the men's restroom. I didn't know that alcohol affected the sperm and that would hurt my baby's brain, heart, kidneys and other organs.

Today was the second annual Cinco de Fly-o at Twin Parks Country Club. We arrived there early. Early enough to practice some holes. Unfortunately, we practiced the red tees but we actually played the blue tees at the tournament. One good note was that it did not rain today! This is the first tournament that I have been in where I was actually dry.

Our group had five people in it. We played relatively quickly and were not forced to wait on a group ahead of us. Which was nice. It was a little too windy out today though.

I did all right today. I had some good throws. And Jon and I remained competitive. In the end, he only beat me by one stroke (congratulations!). I think that John mentioned that I had beaten him last year and that his goal was to do better this year. Unfortunately, the tournament got to him and he did much worse this year.

There was one tragic event that happened today. After the tournament finished, we were all sitting around talking and waiting for the free lunch. I hear this kid screaming at the top of his lungs "I don't want to die!" At first, I discounted it as a reaction to the parent throwing him in the air or tossing him around or something. But he kept screaming it. We find out that he was playing around in the rocks and must have slipped and fell on one. It had cut a rather deep gash in his leg. Deep enough for someone to call the paramedics out. The ambulance took a while to appear (apparently it came up from San Marco). The kid didn't really calm down until the ambulance arrived (hopefully, they gave him some strong drugs).

We skipped going to Papasitos and went down to Manor to try out their new disc golf course. I had previously driven down there only to not find the course. This time we drove around a bit (and even encountered another group of disc golfers doing the same) before spotting a basket and parking. A park ranger drove up and admonished the other group behind us to slow down. After that he told us where the real start location was.

Man, this course is crazy long and crazy tough! There is a stream running around the course that has a number of branches in it. Sometimes it is on both sides of the hole. And it is quite deep. Fortunately, the water is not that deep in it and it was easy to locate our discs.

I found some wild raspberries while searching for my disc. Mmm, tasty!

Oddly, it looks like they are installing some sprinkler lines on part of the course. Thats a first.

I had one great throw for a birdie.

We finally finished the course and drove home. By that time I was famished and we stopped by Papasitos for dinner. When I got home, I was covered in dust. You could definitely notice it on your glasses and ankles. Time for a shower and then sleep.