 |
| Image: Two days that will live
in infamy. The Outsiders held our second annual Summer Solstice Slam tournament this weekend. It's a travelling circus of disc golf. Last year we played 4 disc golf courses in two days, which nearly killed me (Oroville, 2 in Grass Valley, and Penn Valley). After the '08 tourny we figured we should scale it back to two rounds at one course and a third round on day two. This would get us home in time to recover for work. Unfortunately, we picked the two first rounds to be played at Toney's Mountain Golf. This is a great, but brutal disc golf course. It took 5 hours to play the first round. I came off the course looking like a cougar attacked me. Nobody finished round two, so we scratched it from the record book. I think as a group we lost something like 5 discs on the course, with two getting stuck 100' up in the same pine tree about 20' from each other. Damn you hole 4. The average score for this course was around 18 over par. The second round at Penn Valley's course went a little better. Gregg took first place overall after placing 3rd at Toney's and then blowing everyone away at Penn Valley shooting 1 under par. The rest of the field was sitting around +7 at Penn Valley. Preston received the glorious DFL trophy for last place. Last place deserves a trophy since it means you played the most disc golf of anyone else in the field. In mid July we're holding a free tournament at Lave Creek in Paradise open to the first 60 people that register (members or not). Late in July we have a member only backpacking/safari disc golf weekend scheduled for the Trinity Alps. In addition to playing a little disc golf this trip is designed to introduce kids to backpacking with a short 2 mile hike to a mountain lake. Image below: Hole 4 at Toney's. The tee shot is a 250' drop into the "bowl". The target is right of the dirt road that shows up as a tan spot just in front of the tee pad. And if you throw down 250' you've got to throw back up that distance. Holes 5 and 6 are serious inclines. Hole 6 has had steps installed, but used to be traversed with knotted ropes tied between trees. |
 |
Summer Solstice Slam '09
3 Comments
Leave a comment
Lon
About Me: Fasten your seatbelts for an exhilarating trip through Chico's public policy; I guarantee it's marginally better than public access TV.
|
We've played Toney's once, took about 4 hours with lunch and a swim. My kids shot around 15 over. Andy actually par'd a few holes. I didn't shoot every hole, but couldn't resist 4. Since my eyesight is a thing of yesteryear, they point me out, and I huck, and then the little one keeps an eye on my plastic. He says, "you go around Mom, I'll get it." I scrambled around on the trail, followed closely at all times by Tank and Babe, while the men beat the underbrush for the discs. But I shot the hole. And I shot those up holes, that was interesting.
I love it there, it's like The Waltons, with pit bulls. But it's faaaar. It's off our beaten path, which goes right by the Colfax turn-off and then some. My husband had to be honest with me, we might never go there again! But Penn Valley, that's right by our favorite bathroom/gas stop, so we do that one just for s's and g's. It's so pretty, and the people are so friendly.
Now remember, work is play, and play is work. Life is a cabaret, my friend. I gotta finish mowing my lawn, Andy sharpened the blades on my push mower and it's actually fun now.
Whoever laid out Toney's course was evil and twisted. :) It was the first time I played there and I'm still recovering. I was happy to average a bogie per hole. Looks like Juanita's kids would have whooped me.
On behalf of those of us that sucked in 2009, the course layout this year was more difficult than last year. The more open holes were in longer placements. I think 4 was a little easier this year, but 6 (the last big incline) was at a farther out location.
I shot a 9 last year and 15 this year. I spent more of this year rolling around in the dirt like a wounded cockroach, so that didn't help much.
The big downer of my weekend was that Penn Valley had their hole placements at the shortest positions that I've ever seen. I still sucked, without a single birdie in the entire round. I even shanked a 10' putt.
Still, it was all good fun for an old man to hoof it around the woods all weekend.
Lon