8/3/08 Celebration Tour #5: Disc Golf

Whooop! We're done! And what better way to celebrate than to play a round of disc golf!

Well, personally, I wouldn't know since I've never played disc golf before. But I trusted Rodney on this one and we joined Randy and Jenn (a different his brother and sister-in-law than the ones that are moving into the family homestead) at Ricker Hill near Turner (the same place where we picked apples last fall). This is a serious sport. Rodney, Randy, and Jenn all have their own discs. That's plural. Apparently just like golf, you have some you use for distance, others for putting, . . . Hmmmm, I'm guessing this isn't like the Frisbee Golf that we set up at summer camp where we nailed bushel baskets to a tree and bought a bucketload of cheap flying discs at 3 for $1.

Jenn loaned me one of her discs. I had been warned that you had to watch carefully where your disc landed or you might lose it in the trees surrounding the course. Did Jenn really want to loan her valuable equipment to a rank amateur? Won't they rent you a disc or two at the pro shop? Wouldn't that be better. But she assured me it would be okay and we were off. As we were walking out to the course she admitted that she often doesn't go with Randy and Rodney because they're so good at it, but when she heard I was coming and had never played, she decided to come because she knew she had a better chance of not coming in last.

You can see that this course is well-established and well-marked! Here we are at Hole 1 ready for a late afternoon of fun:

Hole 2 has an interesting hazard. It's not a typical water hazard . . . it's a cranberry bog! There were signs warning us that if a disc went in the cranberry bogs we weren't to retrieve it ourselves as we might damage the cranberries. If we notified course personnel, they would retrieve it for us.

Though the clouds were dark, there was enough blue that we thought we could get in a whole round before more rain came. There's been so much rain that the course was a little wetter than usual and as a bog, it's usually pretty wet. The scenery was gorgeous but I can't tell you if the water in this photo (which was near Hole 1) is cranberry bog or just temporary "summer of 2008 bog."

Rodney in action:

Here's an action shot of me that Rodney took. When your disc hits the vertical chains, it typically falls into the basket underneath and that's the ultimate goal. For the most part, it took me twice as many strokes as the others to get to the basket. Sometimes, it took three times as many strokes. But my partners were patient and even gave me pointers on how to improve my game.

This is not an action shot of me, but check out what flew into the picture as Rodney was taking it!

This trio actually knows what they're doing when they play disc golf:

Today wasn't exactly a "Celebration Tour" like our other ones. This one just had more celebrating and less touring, but I think it counts.