Today is a day I have had circled on my calendar. I have had little opportunity to travel for many months, between a heavy workload and my being limited to driving only in our immediate community (Coos Bay, North Bend and Charleston, Oregon). The risk of my having a seizure is low, BUT NOT ZERO. And along our tight, winding curves through the mountain passes, roads without shoulders that are at the edge of “cliffs” with a drop of 30-40+ feet to the rocky shore and ocean below? A risk of more than ZERO isn’t worth the risk. All it would take is one seizure, in the wrong stretch of road, and I could wind up dying or killing someone else.
But today was the day that I needed to make my way to Klamath Falls (Oregon) for a work conference with the Oregon Small Business Development Center Network. Becky (my wife) would be tagging along and driving, and Klamath Falls has three (as many as five in the extended area) new courses that I am hoping to play while I am in town. And after the four and a quarter-hour drive? We rumbled into town in time for me to check out The Attraction at Moore Park.
The Attraction is the only eighteen hole course in the community, and since I had time before dark (the conference officially starts tomorrow morning)? I thought I would get the eighteen holer played first. The course seems rough…overgrown a bit. Particularly over the first 4-5 holes. Playing for the first time, alone, there were all kinds of opportunities to lose a disc off the tee (or at least waste a LOT of time looking for your discs), so I played the holes very conservatively. I wasn’t there to shoot a “1000-rated round!” I was there to get a +1 on my Courses Played Collection. Still, sitting at even par walking to the Hole 5 tee felt more than underwhelming.
I got my deuce on Hole 5, and then the course started to open up more. You could actually see 50-75 feet in front of you! 😀 And once I could see where I was going? I wound up deucing four of the next five holes. That was a nice confidence boost, as whenever I can actually get out and course collect? I feel as though I have an inch or two of “rust” on my discs.
Once I got through the front nine, the course opens up and gets a lot longer. A lot more fun (in my opinion)! You still need to keep your eye on your disc until it comes to rest off the tee, as there are opportunities to lose discs and/or spend several minutes wandering around the area you think it landed. But the back nine was a LOT more enjoyable.
Of all the photos I took from all eighteen tees, I thought the above photo from the Hole 16 tee was the most attractive. A good example of what you can expect to find on the back nine at The Attraction too! No one had added photos for the course on Disc Golf Course Review since 2009, so I thought I would add a complete set of new photos for the entire course to their site, like I have done for so many hundreds of courses before it. It is one of the things I’ve always thought I can do to help the owner of that site provide a better service to their users.
I shot seven threes and two fours on the back nine, but that was good enough for even par on the second half of the course. And with a final score of 52 over eighteen holes (-4)? That was good enough for an estimated round rating of 971. Pretty good! I had fun, and I am once again incredibly thankful to Becky. Without her? My course collecting days would be all but behind me. But when we’re traveling in new areas, and UDisc shows me there are a few courses not TOO far away? Puppy dog eyes, sticking out my lower lip and saying: “PLEASE!!!” will usually get a response of: “sure.” 😀
Magic Number = -78 (2,078 Courses Played)
Derek Tonn is a member of the DGA’s Ambassador Team. His company, Mapformation, LLC, has been DGA’s partner in the development of disc golf tee signage since 2012. The longer our two companies have worked together, and the more Derek has gotten to know all the great folks at DGA, the more he has wanted to formally sing the company’s praises. The more he has realized that “Steady” Ed’s (the father of disc golf and the modern-day Frisbee) vision for the sport and his company perfectly describes his own interests and priorities related to disc golf, and the more Derek has recently been encouraged to share his story.