Living On The Edge

The disc golf course at Texas State University in San Marcos is nice enough, but I don't know if I'd make a special trip down there just to play it. If I did make a special trip, though, it would be to play the second hole; I'd be happy to play that eighteen times - or 21, because that's how many the TSU course has - and call it a round. The tee box is situated well above the basket so you're throwing off a cliff, not unlike hole five in Arlington except you're throwing onto a lawn rather than into a disc-devouring jungle. I only wish they'd make it clearer which basket you're supposed to be shooting at. I think I aimed for the wrong one when I played the course on Christmas.

Waiting On Godot. And Vladimir. And Estragon. And Pretty Much Everybody Else In Tarrant County.

It was another beautiful and terrible day for disc golfing on Tuesday. Every putz in the Metroplex, it seemed, was out at Bear Creek; we eventually got in seventeen holes and it wasn't too painful except for when it was. We started on the back six while waiting for Nick the Knife to show up, then crawled through the first three holes behind incompetents who thought that playing more, uh, deliberately would maximize their skill. Actually one of the players in the group immediately ahead of us - as opposed to the group ahead of them, who spent an inordinate amount of time tangled in brambles - was proficient. He was also the fastest player in his group- coincidence? Yes, but there's no reason to let the slow people in on that. After the third hole we jumped over to eleven and played from there through to eighteen, with delays on twelve, thirteen, fourteen, seventeen, and eighteen although none of them were worth murdering the offending parties over. I'm disappointed in theory not to have played a full round but based on the holes I did play, I probably wasn't going to have a round worth recording anyway. While we were cooling our heels on the second tee box while waiting for the morons in front of us to hack their way out of the creek bed, another party of three walked up, and while we were in the process of throwing, a party of two walked up behind them. The party of two, who obviously were trying to get in a quick round before getting back to finding a cure for cancer, wanted to play through and the guys behind us acquiesced but I said no, pointing out that there were multiple slow groups in front of us. A butterfly flapping its wings in China would probably slow some of those idiots down; I don't know what kind of effect a couple of assholes crashing through them would have but I can't imagine it would be positive for their rate of play.

Another Day In Paradise

I knew we were in trouble when I checked weather.com; sunny, seventy, and calm are lovely conditions for playing disc golf except in that they tend to attract hordes of golfers out of the woodwork, which boded unwell for our usual Thursday round. The last thing we needed was to get stuck behind a gang of eight, all of whom found it helpful to demonstrate their jerking-off technique fifteen times or so before each shot. So taking that as the worst possible scenario, we actually didn't do that badly - on eight through eleven we were stuck behind two goofuses who took multiple shots from each location, mostly because they were stuck behind a group of six that was kind of all over the place. We played through both groups at twelve and after that we had nobody in front of us. I wound up shooting a 63 as I started and finished strong but took way too many bogeys on six through fifteen. I birdied eighteen, which was pleasant and didn't feel like a total waste; I wouldn't have wanted to waste a rare birdie on seventeen in the service of a 63, but eighteen has high enough birdie potential that I don't mind wasting one on a mediocre round. I didn't lose any discs, which is more than I can say for King Karl, who lost two. One was on fifteen, which if you overthrow on fifteen you know that disc is a goner, but he overthrew on a short second throw, so that was kind of weird and unfair. He lost the other disc on the second hole, which was even more of a rip-off. Your first shot does go between trees and over a brook, but you still have to have extraordinarily bad luck to have the disc wind up in the water, and even then it's usually retrievable. Weekend storms had the water deeper and muddier than usual so we didn't even get a glimpse of where it might be. That disc is going to be found by someone but not by us, today.

This Week In Frolf

I was playing Grapevine Bear Creek Saturday morning which playing these impromptu rounds is problematic because I'm not really practicing; I'm playing because I feel like playing and there's no reason not to play. But I don't want my usual disc golf frenemies to get the idea I'm practicing like a maniac behind their backs. So basically I'm hoping nothing interesting happens but I figure it's a given that if I ever do get an ace, it'll happen while I'm putzing around on my own. I didn't get an ace Saturday morning. On the fourth hole, while tracking down my tee shot[1], I did see a coyote with something in its mouth - maybe a squirrel, maybe a cat - walk behind the basket, heading towards the tee boxes for the ninth hole. I also took a seven on twelve because it took me four goddamn shots to get out of the gully, which they probably would have enjoyed watching that debacle. 1. It was in the brush protecting the basket's right flank.