One Grand Disc Golf Tour

06-17-09

Hey Gang,
World Champion Disc Golf Design has invested considerable time and expense to resurrect the “Have Course-Will Travel” program. Rather than running one-day events in hopes that a parks department will come out and get a feel for disc golf, HCWT is now a ‘rental’ program.

The HCWT rent-a-course program will build a rudimentary 9-hole disc golf course and leave it in place for 6 months for the low price of $599.

Considering the enormous amount of time we’ve spent on our new website and outlining the program plus the expense of sand blasting and re-powder coating several of the baskets, having temp baskets turned into perms, having new sleeves and poles made, buying more tools for the installs… we probably won’t show a profit on this program until after I’m too old to continue doing it.

Nonetheless, our first project is underway!!!

Our inaugural course will be installed north of Gainesville, FL at Camp Kulaqua, a 7th day Adventist camp for Florida’s Seminole Tribe. (No, not FSU!!) Admittedly, this is a bit outside of our target audience, but their interest was high and I’ll also be doing some clinics with the kids in July and August.

Jack White (course builder extra-ordinaire) will join me on Sunday, June 21 and Monday June 22 to clean up the area and drop in 9 holes.
(No work or visitors on Saturday as it is their Sabbath)

This course was to be a permanent install but their budget fell through. Both the director of the camp and WCDGD feel that all we need is a trial run of disc golf for the budgetary committee to want to fund the project for a permanent installation.

I vaguely mentioned this facility on this blah blah blah’g a few months back and was contacted by Gainesville’s John Dew who offered assistance. Months later, things are finally revving up, so I hope the offer still stands. Bring lots of friends!!!

If you are a disc golfer living anywhere near the Gainesville area, please consider joining us around 10 am on Sunday June 21 to help install a 9 hole course for the kids at camp. The work will definitely spill over into Monday, June 22

Please understand that this is a Christian facility, so alcohol and tobacco ETC will not be allowed. Bring gloves & bug spray .

Directions: I-75 (exit 399) Go North on hwy 441 through High Springs. About 1 mile past the Winn Dixie turn right at Camp Kulaqua sign and drive all the way back to the camp. Please go to the office and check in. Disc Golf area will be on the east side across lawn near the “Go-Cart Track” sign.

Questions? Call me at 407 701-9058
Or email frivolist@cfl.rr.com

In a collaboration with Sun King, we just finished a course install (permanent) at the Camp Cristina YMCA in Riverview, FL. This is a very short course built for young kids.

The green tees are for kids aged 6-10. The red tees are for kids 11-15. Anyone 16 and older should only need a putter. It’s a fun little track with plenty of shade and many of the tees and baskets can be seen from the camp director’s office window so that he can keep an eagle eye on the kids (and visitors)

No aces reported so far, but that won’t last long! WCDGD donated 9 green and 9 red carpet tees. (It’s the spikes and washers that are expensive) I’ll also be doing a short work-day out there on Friday, June 19 to fix the first tee. Give me a call if you can come out for an hour or so. Bring a shovel and a putter. Check in at office.

Then on Saturday, June 20 the Orlando Disc Golf Club will start the long-awaited project of pouring the blue tees on T2 as well as the 18th long tee of the original course.

Disc golf is booming in Central Florida. Come be a part of making it happen!!

06-04-09

I know, I know, I’ve been gone a long time. I’ve been verrry busy. I have a LOT to tell you.
I’ll try to catch you up in the next few days. But for now… this is all you need to know…

The City of Orlando has posted a link for a survey, which will help to shape the master plan for parks and recreation for the next 10 years.

Currently there is only ONE disc golf facility in the City of Orlando parks system. That would be Bill Frederick Park at Turkey Lake, which has two fine courses. Since the 2nd course was installed disc golf traffic has tripled and it is now the highest revenue generating activity in the park. Yet we are still pretty much under their radar.

Since many of you have traveled to our fair city over the years to visit the mouse, it might be nice to let them know that more courses in Orlando might also equate to more tourist $$$$$.

Here’s the link…
http://www.cityoforlando.net/fpr/html/survey.asp . _

Disc golf is listed on item 3 “Ultimate Frisbee/disc golf“, 3rd from the bottom of the list.
Be sure to look at the entire list and check others that may also hold interest for you.

On my survey, I also listed disc golf at Bill Frederick Park at Turkey Lake in the “OTHER” Category to distinguish it from Ultimate, which requires no special facility. (But it does require a TEAM to show up at the same time, whereas disc golf has a slow trickle of players ALL DAY LONG)

Item 4 offers the chance to list what you’d like to see MORE of.
This is a chance to suggest “DISC GOLF COURSES” along with the other amenities that hold your interest. Keep it short and please be polite.

Items 5 & 6 ask which amenities are your top priorities and how far you would be willing to travel to visit these. Those of you who have traveled to Orlando to play the courses at Turkey Lake should certainly point that out.

(Please note that Barnett is a county park and is NOT part of the City of Orlando parks system, so, while it is a good facility, mentioning it in this survey would probably not further our cause of getting more local courses in the ground)

Thanks and start clicking. 

Tomorrow: A possible resolution to an ongoing health problem

03-24-09

Plenty going on these days. None of it what you’d call lucrative. There’s a shocker, huh?

After the Melbourne Florida Tour stop I hadn’t played for a week to let my body recuperate. I went to a doctor, got an X-ray and he prescribed a dose pack, which has already made an incredible improvement in 5 days. I plan to start running again today.

The flight and hotel are booked for Acrobatic Paganello, in Rimini, Italy; a beach Ultimate tournament that also has a big freestyle event. I’m very excited about going. I’ll be playing with another “Greg” from Amsterdam.

There’s only ONE disc golf course in Italy, which lies halfway between Rome and Pisa (mid-shin on the Italian “boot”) I hope to add that one to my list.

I’m involved in another disc golf design project on private land. Can’t go into details as of yet, but it has huge potential. Though that potential doesn’t really look to include my pockets.

I was out there for the 3rd time today trying to connect some interesting dots. I climbed a tree to get a look around. On the way down, at about 15 feet, a branch snapped under my feet. I fell backwards out of the tree, started to turn, a vine caught my back and shoulder which helped me rotate and I landed perfectly upright on both feet, walking right out of it as if stepping off a stair-step.
Where’s the You-Tube video camera when you need it?

The only casualty was my shirt, which was highly acceptable to the alternative, which would probably have meant “NO MORE BLAH, BLAH, BLAH’G” or much of ANYTHING else for that matter.

The land steward was with me and said it looked pretty cool. I tried to get him to go up and do it so that I could see what it looked like.  But, for whatever reason, he declined.

As cool as it turned out, it got me to thinking…the Florida disc golf community is losing members too quickly.
We lost Jim Widdick (Sarasota Sky Pilot #001) just before Melbourne.
There were two other charities at the M.O. for players with cancer.
And Jacksonville’s Clint Ehlers, of “Orbital Enhancements” passed suddenly a couple of days ago.
Clint and the Jax club were on the verge of signing a contract with the City of Jacksonville to install something like 10 new courses over the next 5 years.

PEOPLE!!! Take care of yourselves!!!
Eat well.
Exercise!
If the word “party” is a verb to you, make it a treat rather than a lifestyle.
Go get a check-up once in a while.
And don’t climb trees with rotted branches!!!

Tomorrow: More work on the World Champion Disc Golf Design website etc.

03-16-09

Hey Gang,
Lots going on. Most of it not worthing writing about.

I had a visit with Jason Szilli, a disc golfer from PA who comes to Orlando frequently on business. Although we’d been emailing since last year’s 1Kdgt, we hadn’t actually met until last week.

He brought along a first-time disc golfer, Jeremy who showed tremendous improvement over the course of one round. During that round, as I trimmed a branch or two (good to be the course pro) I managed identify an ineffective pruning technique. I pulled on the end of a dead branch in hopes of snapping it off way up on the branch. The branch broke about 6” above my grip and catapulted back up. On the rebound a large chunk broke off and was whipped right back into my face hitting me square in the nose, missing my eyes by about an inch.

Oh, yes, there was blood.

But we finished the round and only after Jason asked my score did I realize that I had shot a –14. This, of course was from the short tees, which were not intended for my skill level.

Until I find out what the parks director has planned for the proposed amphitheatre, I can’t put any real time into redesigning TLO #18 or T2 #1 & 2.

The 19th Melbourne Open was this last weekend. 5 of the extended positions were a bit too long for par 3s and too short for par 4s, especially when the wind is factored in. And 3 more were reachable but verry hard to do so. This, as I predicted, kept the field incredibly bunched up. The emphasis seemed to be more on “not-screwing-up” rather than making great shots.

At the end of the first round, the top 20 or so players were all within 5 strokes. I was in a 3-way tie for 1st after the first two rounds. The 2nd day was much windier but somehow produced some break-out scores.
I had thrown as hard as I could so many times the day before than I couldn’t rotate off my right leg and sawed most of my shots off. So, I had to break my cardinal rule and took some Ibuprofen before round two. My muscles always fire differently when I do that and it showed in my score big-time. The pain subsided about halfway through my round but so did any chances of contending as I was demonstrating very little in the way of control.

Rich Darter was throwing some strong, pure lines and backing them up with solid putting to win the Masters.

Being the “Sunday” kind-of-guy that he is, Climo caught up to Sarasota’s Brian Moore, as did John E. McCray for a 3-way play-off for first place.

Everone 3’d the par 3.5 #1. The wind pushed everyone to the right on #2, giving Brian an O.B. lie from where he missed his par attempt. John’s birdie attempt went by to the right. Putting last, Climo’s into-the-wind putt hit the nubs and failed to climb-Over the edge.

Down to two, both 3′d the very tough #3.

Ken’s drive on #4 hit a branch and dropped 50 short. John E parked the hole within 3 feet and claimed his very first Melbourne Open title and his 82nd open win.

I would have posted photos of the tourney, but someone stole my camera, as well as my 05 USDGC back pack, out of my van at the Sarasota Tour Del Sol stop. This coming after donating $100 to a charity for Jim Widdick who needed more than one organ transplant. (no good deed goes unpunished) Jim has since passed on, leaving his wife and daughter in dire need. Contact Sun King if you wish to help.

Bart Z was down from Chicago-land and borrowed my camera to video the final round and playoff. Afterward, he and I hung around Melbourne long enough to watch the shuttle launch and then get stuck in the subsequent traffic debacle that ensued.

Tomorrow: Recuperating seems to be taking up more of my valuable time these days. Tomorrow will be no different. More work on finances, taxes, the World Champion Disc Golf Design site and projects, my trip to Italy and maybe even my personal life…yeah, right!

03-07-09

My buddy, Chad, has been working hard on the switch-over from “floridadiscgolfdesigngroup.com” to “WorldChampionDiscGolfDesign.com”.
He came up with a nice new logo, which I’m also trying to get onto a big batch of small Flipees from Hero Disc.
Some of you may recall, way back in 2007, I went to Japan specifically to demonstrate the Flipee at the Dodgebee National Championships.

A decade ago, Rick McCafferty and I started an unintentionally “not-for-profit” program called “Disc Hovering Central Florida”.  The name raised the eyebrows of a high profile disc retailer whose name had a similar ring to it.  Hey, I’m not in this biz to torque people off (it just comes naturally), so we changed the name to “Have Course-Will Travel”.   We did 13 events where we gained permission to run an event at a nearby park, designed a temp course, set it up the day of the event and ran a two round mini tourney in hopes that the parks people would see what it’s about and buy a course.

It never happened quite that way.  The only course we got in the ground due to our efforts was the Gran Canyon (my crowning design achievement) but it was on private land and has since sold.

Our plans are to resurrect HCWT, but with a twist.  We plan to offer a 9-hole rental for 6 months for a low enough price that they feel compelled to try it.    With the course in the ground for 6 months, that should be enough time for people to DISCover the course and start playing it.

At the end of the rental period, if they still aren’t interested, we’ll pull the course and walk away.  If they are, we replace our baskets with the new ones that they purchased through us.  Course changes might be necessary for a better permanent layout.

I’ve booked my flight to Italy for Acrobatic Paganello in Rimini, leaving a month from today.  In that time, I hope to get my low back and hips to the point where I can freestyle for a couple of hours and not have to lie down for two days afterward.

The last few times I’ve jammed I’ve noticed a change in my game.  I’m not trying my normal contrived “Big Uggo” combinations as much and just going after the disc and finding newer answers to odd angles etc.  My head seems to know what to do.   My body doesn’t always move the way my head tells it to.  But still, the game has taken yet another fun twist.

The Melbourne Fab Florida tour stop is next weekend.  I need to prepare my driving and putting skills for the traditionally windy conditions and longer holes.

Bart (Channel Z) Zandstra is flying in today to surprise a buddy on his birthday (today) I’m going to pick him up from the airport, play a round at Turkey Lake and drive him to the surprise party.

While there, I plan to snag the two baskets that BZ borrowed so that I can clean them up and get them ready for the new HCWT program.

Tomorrow: recuping from whatever happens today.

03-01-09

I drove down to Sarasota mid-day Friday for the 2nd stop on Sun King’s “Tour Del Sol”, a series of non-PDGA events intended to introduce new players to the game and raise some charity.
In this case, the Sarasota Sky Pilots founding member, Jim Widdick (SSP #1) is very sick and needs more than one organ transplant and his family does not have insurance. His wife is working to the tune of 70 hours per week to support the family, plus taking care of the house and their daughter. Contact Sun King if you wish to donate.

OK, I didn’t bring a new player but I did donate $100, as did a couple others. Several folks donated their winnings etc. All told, we raised over $600 for the Widdick family and a smaller charitable cause which escapes me at the moment.

Backtracking for a moment…Friday’s practice round I played with local pro Brian Moore and Dan Smith who were playing a loose “flex-start” dubs round. They shot –11 from the long tees as a team as did I by myself. The North Water Tower course was looking as good as I had ever seen it. The grass was freshly mowed and most of the underbrush had been cleaned up.

Saturday’s tourney was quite a bit windier, so it didn’t take a clairvoyant to predict that I’d be less under par for the next two rounds than I was for the previous one . Brian started off –6 for the first 7 holes but ended up –7 on the round. I finished two back at –5 tied with a veteran of only 2 years and former tennis competitor Jonathan Williams. Local pro Fabrizio Abdala came up from the mixed (open & Masters) group with a –3 to round out the top group for round two.

My game felt pretty sloppy for much of the round but I felt as if I still had a chance after birdeying 12, 13 & 14. I figured one more birdie might put me in the hunt. 15 is a straight 280’ shot which I sawed off. 16 is a 216’ pachinko hole which I over drove. 17 is a tough slow-turn “anny” shot. The drive was close enough but the putt wasn’t. I blew way past and hit a solid straddle for par. Hole 18 is a 360’ shot out of a tunnel, which I had put within 15 the previous two rounds. This time I played “Whack-an-oak” and left myself about 300’ short of the pin in the woods to the left. Even with pretty bad footing I managed to pop a TeeBird out far enough to skip within 30 feet and bagged the par putt after finding out that I still had a chance to tie Brian if he missed his par putt. Brian had been putting well over the last two days and his final putt was no different.

Brian had two on me going into the final round and I had two on Fab. Fab shot one better than me in the final round and I shot one better than Brian, which tightened it up to a one stroke separation but didn’t change our finishing order. Jonathan, however, fell off the pace a bit to finish 4th.

Brian helped Sun King run a few Ring-of-Fire rounds. Even though I put in about 5 putts that got knocked out and one that wouldn’t have gone in that got knocked in, I ended up winning one of the rounds. I gave my ticket to Jonathan’s adorable girlfriend who had a chance to win one but everyone missed and the whole group was back in. If I remember correctly, I won the subsequent round so I gave the prize ticket to her just for grins.

I went to my car to call my mom to find out what sort of dinner plans they had made and that’s when I discovered that someone had gotten into my van and stolen my 2005 USDGC backpack with my Canon S5IS camera! My glove box was open and a few things were scattered but my wallet, checkbook and phone were untouched. Fortunately, I left my laptop (my ONLY computer) at my mom’s place otherwise you would not be reading this and I would be applying for a handgun.

I had hoped to help out a local Master player with his footwork (even though he ended up winning his division… and I didn’t) but I was late for dinner and in no mood to play the role of teacher after getting ripped off. (Obviously there are no photos from the tourney) I have a camera phone but I have not a clue as to how to download the photos. And the photos are pretty much crap.

I met the family at a restaurant and scowled my way through dinner. We grabbed a couple of pies to go and went to my brother’s place. After the rest of the family left, we went through a bit more of my dad’s belongings.

Tomorrow: I had planned to meet with bro to do what we did tonight, so I may just go to the beach since I haven’t been to a beach in Sarasota for a few years.

02-24-09

I’ve been seriously considering going to Italy’s Acrobatic Paganello in April.  I had the good fortune to visit Rimini, Italy for the 2003 FPA World Championships.  It was one of my best travel experiences ever!

So, I called Tito, a local jammer to let him know…WE NEED TO JAM!
Ironically, he had gotten a call from a newer jammer who had plans to meet an Italian woman jammer at our local spot (The Sinkhole) at 4:30 that very day!  Bonus!

In order to get my wimpy body prepared, I went to the gym and then played a round of speed golf (-7 with 2 bogeys in 18:17) I got to the field a bit after 4 and stretched out for a while.  Geoff Gregory showed up first.  Fabiana and her two non-playing friends showed up shortly thereafter.  However the call of the mall was deafening and the girlie girls bolted so they could SHOP, SHOP, SHOP.

The wind was up and a bit inconsistent but enough to tough out some big combos.  Fabiana is from Rome where there is a HUGE resurgence of freestyle Frisbee.  She claims that there are 20 jammers that meet regularly in a local piazza.  Some of whom are among the very best in the world.  “Fabulous” Fabiana was hooked a little over two years ago and is already showing great progress.

What really impressed me was her glowing attitude and burning desire to improve her game.  We were pretty well warmed up by the time Tito arrived after an electronics install job several miles away.

Fortunately, the field lights came on as we jammed between soccer players, LaCrosse games and Football scrimmages.  Tito gives good spin which resulted in some killer combos including one that finished with a body roll to a tip, to a scarecrow brush-back roll that went back out for a perfect set seal!  (Ask a freestyler)   At one point, as some teens were warming up for soccer, I could hear them during combos saying “Holy Crap!   No Way!  Did you see that?”  I love that.

After we had burned all of our collective energies we swung by Tito’s place to listen to some music and talk.  Eventually our growling stomachs urged Fabiana and I to take off for Universal Studio’s City Walk to eat and meet with her friends and their dates.  We nearly missed out on food but luckily the Hard Rock Café was still open and we got our fill.

It seriously stunk that she was leaving the next day to go back to Montreal where she is currently working.  But if there had been any doubt about going to Italy in a few weeks, that had been soundly replaced with eager anticipation.  Stay tuned!

Shawn & Juliana came into town after La Vie en Rose.  We got together to play T2 on Thursday afternoon.  Before I went to bed that night Shawn had sent me this link to a video of our round.  Very impressive.  I plan to look into this program as well so that I can start posting some of my photo collection and pix of cool things and people.

Tomorrow: To Sarasota for SunKing’s Tour Del Sol #2 and family stuff.

02-22-09

Sorry I haven’t made an entry for a while. I have a great excuse but I’m going to save it for when I’m actually in trouble. (Won’t be long now)

So, I get a call from two different guys about this course going in north of Daytona in Holly Hill. The guy putting in the course has been playing long enough to have a 3 digit PDGA # but, unfortunately this guy is a disc retailer. He doesn’t spend time on course design.

I hear all sorts of horror stories about the layout and I figure I’d better go up and take a look at it myself.
One of the locals shows me around and it is no wonder that the players are already calling it “Holy Hell” instead of Holly Hill. This project is a classic example of what NOT to do.

Firstly, the tee pads are already poured and they don’t even HAVE baskets. Though the tee pads are the first thing you step onto at a course, it is the last thing you want to install. If the course is intended to have any real challenge level, in many cases, the tees shouldn’t even be concreted for a year AFTER the installation so that the course can be tweaked. “LETS JUST GET IT IN THE GROUND NOW AND WE’LL FIX IT LATER” is the worst of all possible install ideologies because you are building the flaws into the course. You wouldn’t build a car that way. OK, maybe Chrysler would.

Hole 1 is between a ball field and a kids playground. Righties will probably throw down the park road. Hole 2 is backed up against the ball field fence and goes across the park road back toward another ball field. If it hyzers out, the disc will probably end up on or around the #3 tee pad.

#3 runs along a ditch and railroad track, directly down the park road again and under an oak tree in the maintenance building parking lot.

Cross the tracks to #4’s tee, which is connected to the sidewalk. #6 has a tee with a light pole directly in front of the tee. Holes #7 & 8 again are running between the railroad track and a tidal lagoon. Walking to #9, you must walk within 10 feet of the 10th pin. Hole #9 runs to the end of a peninsula. An early hyzer skip might end up on the 10th tee as it is only 2 feet outside of the putting circle.

Hole #12 is a 305” shot with a 4’ fence on the right to a sewer treatment plant. YUM! No one is allowed to climb the fence (Yeah, that’s gonna happen) #13 is down a strip of land about 50’ wide. #14 carries a bit of water and aligns perfectly with the neighbor’s sliding glass window. 17 goes across a small retention pond, the walking path to 13, a ditch and another retention pond and ends up about 15’ from the park’s main sign.

Cross the railroad tracks back to hole 18, which is another 300+ hole with the pin less than 15’ from a ball field fence, a side walk and 10th street, which is the preferred hyzer route.

The park is in NO way conducive to a disc golf course and the design only made matters worse.
This was intended to be a beginner friendly course. The only person that layout would be friendly for would be the guy who designed it when he pulls up with a trailer full of replacement discs to sell.

This was one of the most dangerous courses I had seen anywhere! We had walked it in the rain. After my buddy took off, I walked the course again with my camera.
18 DISCatchers had been ordered. I sent the photos to Innova and they stopped shipment. The local designer threatened to just go ahead and get Gateway “Titan” baskets. I called Gateway and Dave said, for safety reasons, he doesn’t sell ANY course EVER without having one of his trusted team design it or sign off on it. DGA and Discraft got similar calls.

Yet the Holly Hill parks department is determined to install an 18-hole course despite the fact that they’ve been told that it is unsafe. (I wish I could see that sort of passion coming from a park whose land IS conducive.) Even the designer admitted that it may have some safety issues when queried by Gateway.

Some Innova guys were in town for a convention and checked it out…”not conducive”.
Another high profile Gateway guy was in town, I took him up to look at it and he said “There is no way a disc golf course should go into that park”.

The course was slated to be a “beginner friendly” track. I can promise you with no reservations whatsoever that a new player with only 1 disc would stand little to NO chance of his disc surviving until the 17th hole.

This is what I’ve been clamoring about for years. You’d think someone that had been playing since the early 80’s (or before) would have enough experience to design a course. But this guy hadn’t the first clue about ANY of it. Safety was right out the window. The course wouldn’t even remote appeal to the intended demographic. I can’t believe that he even pursued the property

I truly hope that this course serves as an example that, even though most people firmly believe that they have what it takes to design a course, very few people have the basic understanding to make it work. Certain unobservant people might think that this is personal. While it is no secret that I don’t have the first semblance of respect for the designer, I love disc golf waaay more than I dislike this guy and would never consider opposing a decent layout based on a personality conflict. Pure and simple, this is poor work in a bad location.

This will be an unpopular sentiment but…In my opinion, I think every manufacturer should remove the “how to install a disc gof course” instructions from their web-sites and list the links & contact info for the disc golf design group. Disc Golf standards are incredibly low because we ALLOW them to be. Imagine how much higher quality our sport would be RIGHT NOW if EVERY course had been conscientiously designed by a paid designer.

I’ve just been informed that there is a new course going in near Jax, FL and it is being done by a newer player. There are two guys in Jax with a TON of experience and they have nothing to do with the project.
Disc Golf is one of the fastest growing sports in the world. But this practice of allowing ANYONE to design courses is not only inviting a serious lawsuit in this age of super fast-beveled edge discs, but it is also keeping us SMALL-TIME, because so many of the courses are so obviously cheap and cheesy.

It has to change if disc golf is to ever be taken seriously.

Sorry about the soapbox.

02-05-09

We had our big meeting with the City of Orlando Parks and Rec folks at Bill Frederick park at Turkey Lake.
Our goal was to listen to what they needed and had planned for the park.

Many things were disc-ussed, most things from our perspective were a surprise to them and vice versa.

Most of the discussions revolved around the master-plan for the park.  However, amazingly, Turkey Lake disc golf course has been at the park for around 25 years and it is NOT on the park blueprint! (????) In fact when I designed and built T2 I had no clue that there WAS a master plan which included an amphitheatre where the approach to #1 is and a wedding gazebo directly behind blue tee #2.

Bottom line in all of this is that I will now have to redesign a new blue tee for #2 (we may be able to save the red tee with the brick structure that we built), completely redesign T2 # 1 to go around the amphitheatre, and lose the very cool long position on “Original” 18.

I’m currently not convinced that I can match the quality of those holes but I’ll probably be in those woods this afternoon after helping my roomie unload an unwieldy French door from his van at a work-site across town.

The good news is that Bill Frederick Park at Turkey Lake is one of the highest revenue generating parks in the City or Orlando, and disc golf brings in the highest traffic and probably the highest money as well.  The disturbing thing is that I didn’t track my work hours in the early stages of T2 and lost my daytimer a year or so back so I don’t have those numbers once I DID start tracking them.  They respond well to volunteer hours, park entries and revenue generated.  We are only now getting things in place to track these numbers.

We put discs in their hands and got them around the practice basket for a while then played hole 1 on The Original.

One issue that has come up has us a bit concerned.  PDGA tech-standards has just set up a tiering system for disc golf targets.

The OLD Mach 2 baskets (which are considered Mach 1s with a set of inner chains) has been placed in the “Standard” category, which will be good through a B-tier event.  The Orlando Open would like to put on an A Tier in the near future but we would need to upgrade the baskets in order to make that happen.

With the economy as it is, this is a baaaad time to ask for money but they see us generating it where others are not.  And these baskets are a pretty long-term investment as the 25 year old Mach 2s would attest.  The great thing about this is that those old M2s would likely then be split up and placed in 2 separate parks as rec 9 holers, thus giving us broader coverage.

They’ve only recently started counting gate entries.  Their method is obviously missing plenty of people who are there to play.  Even with these lower-than-actual numbers, we have been averaging 100 players a week (which isn’t really impressive by many park’s standards as some do well over that per day) but considering there is another good disc golf facility about 10 minutes away that is free and they can stay until dusk, I think BFP@TL is still gaining ground despite the fact that people have to pay to enter and must leave well before the sun sets.

Next: “Holy Hell”

02-01-09

Orlando Disc Golf Club’s usual Saturday morning handicap was cancelled so that some members could prepare for this afternoon’s member-appreciation party at the VP’s place.

In light of next week’s Barnett Disc Golf Championships event, I went there to enter and get a round in.  I had planned to hit the gym, which is part of the Orange County Parks and Rec building (also on the grounds) but I met a couple of local advanced level players who were pretty much ready to go.  I took a very short run, a couple of putts, a couple of Roc shots and headed out.

It was breezy and cold (for Florida) but at least the playing surface was still green.

Afterward, we headed over to the parteeee.

ODGC VP Mark Janssen and his fiancé, Linda have a nice corner lot with a, deck & Jacuzzi, a garage turned studio for the 3 bands he plays in.  And, of course, there was beer…and chili, veggies, chips etc.

Matt Monzka brought a game called Kan Jam that was invented by a friend of his up north.  The game requires 4 players, 2 teams of 2.  One team mate throws a “lid” type of disc from 50’ at a plastic can with a slot in the front.  If the disc goes through the slot it’s an automatic win.  But it’s a very hard shot.  So the smarter strategy is to try to get it close to the top and your teammate can try to jam it, brush it, guide it, cuff it…into the Kan.  1 point if the disc hits the side of the Kan…unassisted (before it hits ground) 2 points if it hits the top with or without an assist and 3 if it goes in through the top.  Play to 21…exactly.  Click here for the full rules, which I may have misquoted.

We also had a 5-hole par 2 course set up around the house, which actually played pretty well.  Bill Burbage hit 3 aces in his first round of two loops, but had a double-bogey “4” as well.  I had straight 2s on the first loop of 5 but aced #s 1&2 and nubbed #3 on the 2nd loop to end up with a –2/18 for round 1.

Round 2 (2nd round of 10), our host, Mark Janssen had 2 aces and took honors.

Round 3 was going to be an “off-hand” round, where we play with our less talented appendage but turned into a worst-shot-doubles round.  I was teamed with a fairly new player who was having some trouble grasping the concept of worst-shot as well as a few of the standard disc golf rules.  On hole #5, which had to hyzer-arc over the road, we ended up with a quintuple-circle 12 (that’s 10 over par on ONE hole)

That was trying, but what annoyed me most on the round was that my partner hadn’t yet developed a respect for the bushes and plants around the course.  Breaking off healthy branches and stepping on plants etc.  She knows now.

One of the members requested I break out my jam & juggling stuff.  As I’ve stated before, below 50 degrees I no longer have an opposable thumb.  I don’t know the actual temp but it was pretty cool and my hands were less than responsive, but I pulled off a few minutes worth of juggling stuff.  I broke out the jam disc (on a brick patio) and went dropless for the first few minutes.  My only real drop came when I tried a verrry restricted “Oliver” pull.  And that was only because I was wearing too much clothing.

Members of one of Mark’s bands filtered in and had a practice session while some ODGC stragglers hung-out and yakked.  The party was to run from noon to 4pm.  I left the remainder of the party around 8:30 in favor of an Epsom bath and a bad Spartan movie.