roadtrip home and budweiser tour

the milwaukee-area crew represented at am worlds, just before we leave:



george francis riverview park is in OK near the MO border. ok course, nice people.



jefferson barracks in st. louis missouri is a sweet course. i was longing for this kinda elevation change in tulsa. st. louis had just recently gotten beaten up by tornados, and many trees were downed at the course. the locals were in mourning for some key shot-shaping trees. basket's alll the way accross the gorge and behind the tree at center.



this hole was sweet. either put it through the risky gap below the branch at right, or take a big downhill s to the side.



this is looking backwards at the teepad after having thrown under the branch



and turned 180 degrees from the last picture to see the basket.






the perfect place to train yourself a big S drive, basket around behind and to the left of the trees at center.



view of the basket from around the corner



here's a movie of someone driving on hole 10

i stopped by the anheuser bush brewery for the budwiser tour. pleasantly surprised by all the archetecture. idunno why, but i'm always drawn to 19th century factories and plants. this was the stables



the hand-made harnesses



and the clydesdales themselves



the historic brewhouse



and looking up (why can't we have archetectural touches like these anymore?)



a big portrait representing germany



a matching portrait for america



the historic brewhouse from outside



and of course i had to stop by the arch



and lastly an odd picture from jefferson barracks. roadtrip complete!



so roadtrip successful, i'm back in brewtown reluctantly picking up my responsibilities where i left them. un-wheeee

playing other tulsa area courses

riverside park's one of the town's 18holers that wasn't in the tournament. nice community park with lots of local art, as a part of a big parksystem running up and down the arkansas river just south of the city.



short holes for beginners.. i played this course several nights in the dark. one time without even using lights.









player's meeting at mohawk



chandler's an 18 west of the city also not in the tourney.



more trees and rolling elevation than the others, holes just as short as riverside. fun holes, cool people too.



the band plays at the player's party with downtown tulsa at backdrop



and lastly, here's some movies of the guys in my group at mohawk black clearing a big water shot
water hole throw 1
water hole throw 2
water hole throw 3

so i finished tied for 177th out of 244 with a 368 (+30), right at about 3/4ths down the list as i expected. threw 4/6 rounds up to expectations, shame i couldn't get that 6/6. i owe my putter a couple nights at the bar anyway.

i think i'm gonna take off early and try to get some st. louis time in.

days 1 and 2 of am worlds 06

basket 2 at dovillio, generally a pretty boring course



over the road and punch the uprights



a tough flick



mcclure down the street has a neat river used by many holes



this one's tough to keep in bounds, water at right, road at left









my favorite hole at mcclure, a big cut-right over a tree and the river



view of the basket



haikey creek's long and flat



i love this hole's name ^_^



a nice scene at haikey creek



his hole reminded me of dretzka in milwaukee



player's meeting



me



the ladies practicing up for a round



the tulsa oil giant



a scene at hunter



tournament play



last putt of the round



the basket on the hotel roof!



i have a video of someone throwing it too far onto the roof here

warming up for worlds

playing more courses in tulsa all day, seeing what we're in for

jeff putts at mohawk red



definetly the best hole on the red course. tiny hole over the river



some make it some don't



i think this is 18



18 zoomed in



i liked the black course a LOT better, much more woodsy and tech.
this was the first of three tough water holes in a row



my disc slowly floating its' way to the other side



does it count if it keeps floating to shore? not often i get to catch my own throw on the other side...



this hole was beautiful. if only i had a confident drive that could make it that far around






bosco drives









hole 18 black course



after a break and some eats, it was back to hunter. i like this course a lot. this is hole 1.



and the basket









just the kind of elevation change i adore

the road to oklahoma

started my roadtrip down to tulsa ok on friday night. got down to st. louis missouri about 9pm and played endicott in the dark until about 10:30. perfect course to play in the dark, with just enough but not too many trees, and importantly, easy parking offsite. sure enough, the cops rolled through about 11:45 and in a throwback to my college days, i had to shift around to stay directly behind a big tree and not be seen as the cop rolled around the park checking it out with his spotlight. backtracked and out further down, then walked back up the street to my car and on my way. there was apparantly a tourney there sunday, shame i can't go. great course!

after doing that, we tried to find a hotel. found one about midnight to get told that st. louis got hit with crazy weather a day ago and all the hotels are sold out for 150mi in all directions since ppl have no power and their insurance company set them up. i hadn't thought anything of all the stoplights that were dark, but it made sense. 90mph sheer winds and tornados apparantly kicked the whole place's ass the other day. had to drive till 3:30 to get to a motel. shame, i wanted to see st. louis. hope it's better by the time i pass back on my way home.

got up early and got down to tom watkins park in springfield mo. alright, nothing to write home about.


this was hole 7, a short flick crowded on both sides by OB.



this is what most the course looks like. tough to figure out where the holes go sometimes.






i liked this hole a LOT. a flick has to be put so it goes just a foot or two over the tennis courts fence and comes back. almost aced it too, just a little high.



zoomed in



this baseball back comes into big play on this hole. any decent drive lies in front of it. then it's a 50ft putt over the backstop to the hole.




next course i got to, last on 44 in missouri before oklahoma, McClelland.



this was the best hole, a big S through the trees.



to the hole






the holes were custom made, all the holes are labeled with streetsigns ^_^



hole 18



hole 18 closer up



i found this place on rt. 66 on the way to tulsa. good eats!



finally got to tulsa and played a couple holes before dark at hunter park. this course looks to kick ass!



unfortunately, the buddies i met up with said this is prolly the only corse i'll like of what they tried here so far. the rest are flat n boring =P. ohwell, should be fun anyway.

got a hole in one at goldentee in the bar tonight too; straight-in, no roll. during the hottest 9holes i've ever played in that game, -13 after 9.

anyway, having fun, got my camera, gonna be using it the whole week~

new camera with videos!

got a sony dsc-h5 i'm testing out, and i've taken a couple new pix and now videos!

here's the videos:

Peck's near ace
my flick shot
my backhand shot
(oh, if you're not already hooked up for net-videos, go get the latest stable binaries for the xvid codec, a one time thing.)

these are from testing the camera out at sussex

peck's jump putt



dan's ace (the disc went in after this shot)



two weekends ago i went up to close out some 9ers i've never hit fondulac-area. i hit tanner park, a 9er near a school. i dare say it's a near waste of baskets.. except for this one interesting-shaped mound, it's just a short single field with nothing worthwhile.



hole 9 looking back at 1



rosendale high's a little better. hole 1's down in those trees at right.



this one's kinda unique, the basket's guarded from just about anything but a drop-in hammer.






after hole 9 it's easy to miss knowing you have to walk around a bunch back towards a little lake. this is hole 11 i think.



hole 11's basket



i'd completely forgotten anything about red arrow having not played it in a long time and having played so many since. i think i must've even played a tournament i'd forgotten about there last year. it was hot as balls both times...
hole 1:



this big hill is used on different sides to make several holes



from on top you throw down into the trees at left. note the teepad for a different hole up and at right.



the waterpark next door. when i threw from the previously mentioned teepad on an anhyzer with a stable disc into a straight headwind... i kinda put it into the pool at right. whupps..



the skatepark also nextdoor



crazy weather that day, i drove into and past a minor storm cell



new holstein's alright, making good use of what's there anyway. hole 1 starts you driving low



more weather, the sunlight pouring through the clouds



this hole puts you going over or around the water



i got to test out a new photoshop feature i wasn't able to make use of with my analog camera: merge to high-dynamic-range. 3 images at different exposures.. which is why you see so many soccer players.



i aced hole 10 at manitowoc



there she sits, skipped off the ground and in



the weekend after that i went back up to manitowoc for a tourney and blew it worse than i thought i COULD blow it, right away in the first round. i couldn't even get my arm to be completely still while lining up for the putt. dammit, i never can in the morning.. mornings and my body hate each other. got into a hole i had no chance to dig out of, so i had two beers and two bloody mary's over lunch. shot a lot better, but nothing like i was hoping for. wouldn'ta taken much to with this one either, and it's one of just 2 that i give a crap about. was a mess that day in general, dropping an ipod, forgetting to bring my camera.. thpt. i hit two 9ers, oschwald in st. narniaz and hingiss in kiel on the way home.. no photos unfortunately.

sunday was pretty awesome. it was balls-ass hot, so my plan was to go hit the comic exhibit at the art museum. something i'd been meaning to but not finding the time to do. stopped at ma fischer's fist and had a strawberry waffle, watched the air show over the lake, saw the art museum, went down to 'stonefly brewery' in riverwest just to check it out, and then by 6pm or so drove up to brown deer park and set up some tempbaskets and practiced some more discgolf with 2 buddies. came home to a tivo fulla good stuff to fall asleep to too.

working my ass off this week, and preparing to drive down to tulsa for am worlds on friday night.

ww2 bunker graffitti

german: "the future looks suddenly so grey and shrouded."
french: "the only solution"

newer french graffitti over older german graffitti on a bunker in Pas de Calais, France.

more here as a part of bunkerpictures.nl

summer 06 MN discgolf roadtrip photos

so! not this, but last weekend I had a personal day at work that would expire if I didn't use it, so I used that as an excuse to go out to Minnesota and frolf it up.

I also stopped by an older lady who's a family friend to give her a new computer. during her career, she worked with computers back when they took up a whole room and used punchcards. now she had an old windows3.11 machine. last Xmas, I jumped on a 700mhz machine my work was throwing out, and hooked it up with XP, office, and an antivirus, and then it just sat there till the next time I could go to MN. That worked out great; she appreciated it, and I had a free place to stay the weekend.

thursday night I started driving after work. I played a couple holes at Hiestand in Madison until it got dark, and left my 150 star sidewinder sitting somewhere. darnit. travelled on to menomonie before getting a hotel. friday morning I woke up early and warmed up by playing Wakanda before going to nearby Brickyard.

Brickyard's enterance, near the humane society in menomonie. dual pins on every hole!



hole 1's pretty long--it's up to those trees in front and then a little up and to the right



looking halfway, am pin offcam at right, pro pin up further



and now looking backwards from the pro pin



hole 2, a long flick, gently to the right



this course has warning signs for the methane exhaust pipe from a nearby landfill (inside the fence). don't wanna be the first frolfer blown up on the course.



hole 3, a long straightaway followed by a cut right



proud to say i made this putt to deuce the am pin; pro pin further up at right



hole 4, a really fun short downhill midrange that'd be cake if it weren't for the TONS of trees in the way. fun!



hole 4's am pin from the lefthand side, pro pin in the right-of-the-am-pin position; could also be further up and straight sometimes.



hole 5's tough to depict, but it's a big long downhill hyzer with lots of bordering stuff at heights on the left.



looking backwards from the pro pin



6's a fun uphill strong hyzer; i've shown this hole in previous pix



6's am pin and pro pin hiding behind the tree and on-edge of a ridge that drops off FAST.



7's prolly the signature hole to me. easy, but still fun as hell.



8's the drive-o-meter valley, also shown before



8's am basket at left, pro at right



9's a crowded hyzer-or-flick uphill. trees are in particularly tough places, making it hard to get where you need to be.




so after brickyard, i continued on towards MN, stopping at the last WI course before the border, Willow River state park. 6$ to get your car in for the day =( the course is short but fun for a 9er, but nothing to write home about.

this one was kinda cool tho.



this one too; the basket's behind a big rock



said rock and basket, closer up



then I drive the rest of the way into st. paul and played kapiosa once. it was getting dark, and I knew I'd be back, so I didn't take pix of that. i went down to my old town, eden prairie, and had a couple of wood-oven pizzas at 'punch'. then visited my family friend, hooked up her computer, and got a good night's rest for the next day. woke up early, went down to see lone lake in minnetonka, where i started playing disc golf.. they took out the big tree that used to be at the bottom of the biggest hill-shot (they pulled the pins a while before) to extend the length of the parking lot. =(( i bet the lot never gets CLOSE to full now that the discgolf's gone.. =(((

jumped a mile or two around the corner to where they likely brought lone lake's baskets: bryant lake park. which is admittedly a better buncha holes than lone lake (but i miss where i started! ;_;). met up with some guys and had a nice round.

here's one of the guys, throwing a big downhill hyzer



me too



the next hole, a long one



a good uphill shot, basket pretty much along the center line with the big tree, just a little further



this is a fun hole, pitch it high and hyzer through the first window, over the trees up and at left...



then coast back 250~ ft to the basket hiding behind a big boulder



this course's hilarious for having a 800~ ft shot... practically right over the parking lot! seriously, anything that breaks right is a REAL danger.



view from teepad, see the hole and the parking lot?



view from teepad, zoomed



looking backwards from the hole; yes you throw from atop the hill



the next group teeing off



looks just about ripe enough to pick



after warming up there, i went to Hyland Ski and Snowboard Area in bloomington. holy crap, maybe the best ski-hill course i've played yet (tho winter park's still meaner). and it was HOT HOT HOT. i got so sunburned being out on this hill for a couple hours, too hot to wear a shirt..

hole 1



hole 1 viewed backwards towards the lodge and driving range



hole 2's a fun one, 400~ ft or so accross a slight valley



3's an awesomely challenging anhyzer. the hill robs you of just where you need height .



3's basket



4's a tough long S, basket at the opposite side of the woods at left of the path



this one's a short blind downhill shot--I'm standing on a trashcan near the tee in order to see the hole.



a fun downhill hyzer, almost back into the trees. almost aced this ^_^



a huuuuugely long uphill hole, especially steep near the end



this hole's impossible to photo correctly, but it's just an AWESOME hole design. the am tee up at right has a reasonably clear shot into the low hole, curving left. the pro pad shown here pretty much can't hit that hole, and has to go up and over everything. the real kicker is that though there's a lot up high to block the shot inside the curve, the outside edge of the curve is a LOT harsher to land in than cutting it inside~



view from a little more than halfway from the am pad



the view from 18's tee



view of the basket



keeping it low and hyzer




after that, I went back towards st. paul to play the rest of the courses that were part of the big MN tourney I missed a few weeks ago. north valley park's one i hit back when i lived there. once upon a time, i bailed a buddy out of jail and we went to play there at about 1am in a thunderstorm.. the rain stopped though the thunder didn't, and we got to play. the whole course makes a bowl, coming down from the corner where two bordering roads meet.. that night it was filled to the brim but no higher with fog... and at the time we were playing with glowee-frisbees... so cars were driving by at 1am seeing these glowee discs flying up from the fog and diving back down. i still get a kick out of that ^_^

anyway it's got some nice holes, even though it's very tough to follow with no tee signs nor even numbers on the pins.






halfway through i met this guy, with a cute little girl in-tow, completely self-entertaining; skipping and playing about while he absolutely crushes this drive, 4-500 feet accross the lake.



this tunnel was how i used to sneak onto the course at night without cops noticing my car parked in the lot for the course. by about this time, my legs were just about to fall off from all the grass-itch wading through brambles in 90 degree heat all day.




oakwood park nearby is really nice--great wooded holes! this one's just before the woods; hole's just inside the trees.






i was running out of film, but a lot of the holes look like these.



that night i absolutely crashed, exhausted and sunburnt.
the next morning i got up to warm up at alimagnet park. lost a damn disc on hole 1, the first throw, feeling stiff from the day before. whee, started off futilly searching a wooded hillside for a half an hour. alright course.

this hole was pretty cool though, downhill then anhyzer a bit before tucking back left.



this was fun too, real short but real guarded.



and now we come to what is still in my consideration, the cruellest, most disc-eating course i know. the red oak 9.

hole 3's pretty visually cool, though it's fearsome. a big flick to behind the tall tree on the right... clear 225 feet or so and you can land on some shorter shrubs on the hill-face, but anything else: short or near the hole exclusing that teeny-tiny path, is going to be lost in some 8 foot tall shrubs. this pic's the am tee by the way.



and now the cruellest individual hole I know. red oak 4's pro tee. the ONLY hole I know of that I absolutely cannot throw. no chance in hell. it's 300-350 feet on a huge sky-anhyzer to even get a chance at a landing that's not inside a gigantic patch of 10ft tall shrubs. I had to basically throw a putt into the gap, and then putt along the 2foot wide path.



here's the path from about where i safety-putted.



safety-putt again and i finally have an open enough shot to try to make it to some fairway. the am tee's just about where the arrow's pointing.



view from the am tee; it takes me 3 shots to even get here!




after that, i went back to kapiosa. which, by the way, is also kinda confusing, and forces you to double-back a lot to find the next holes. thankfully some dude was nice enough to draw me a sketch map. i heard they rearranged the holes too and that they used to have a big valley shot somewhere. shame, i'da been curious to see.

made this awesome putt blind and from 10 feet behind and down the hill, keeping it low enough to not hit the low-hanging branch. sweeeet.



a good tough hole forcing a tight anny



viewed backwards






looking backwards on a sweet pin position on a hillside near where you enter the park



unfortunately, i ruined the last couple photos cuz i didn't realize i hadn't rewound the film before opening the camera. =( nothing too important was lost. after kapiosa I tripped back out to eau claire and met my buddy peck for a round at tower ridge from the longs, then made the long trip home.

I may have played more holes numerically in one weekend before, but what with the ski-hills and 700ft holes, i think this might have been the most throwing i've ever done in a weekend!


during the last week, i got and am testing a new digital camera with not just camera but also VIDEO options, hit some FonDuLac / mannitowoc area courses, and had an ace! pix coming soon~