I’ve had today circled on my calendar for a while, as I needed to travel up to Salishan Coastal Lodge for the Oregon Small Business Development Center Network’s Fall Leaders Conference. Salishan is the site of the first conference I attended with the OSBDCN less than a month after arriving in Oregon. A transplant from the Minnesota Small Business Development Center Network, I got to jump right in (maybe sharing a few TOO many ideas), and being nominated to kiss a bait fish in a crab pot, for luck, along with Oregon State Representative David Gomberg. Our kissing the bait fish worked, as we pulled up a handful of crab in our pot after a short soak in Yaquina Bay.
But while the conference will be a good chance to connect with colleagues? I ALSO selfishly was looking forward to getting to play two of the last courses on the Oregon Coast that I had yet to play. With everything West of where I live “OB wet” (ha), and no new courses within two hours (drive time) in any direction? It is rare that I have the opportunity to find new courses within sight of the beautiful Pacific Ocean.
My first opportunity to play a new course was in Newport, Oregon: Twisted Pine. I had the opportunity to play it once before, but reluctantly passed on the opportunity as a result of heavy rain. The weather today was better, although it was still raining. But it wasn’t raining hard, and I had the opportunity to play the round with my friend from the Lane SBDC: Dan Collins. Dan is one of the nicest men you will ever meet! A former pastor and missionary from South America, he has played a fair amount of disc golf (and has been asking when we could play a round together). I selfishly hoped he wasn’t “sandbagging” and would proceed to kick my behind all-around the course! 😀 He was a lot better than he let on, but I think I still got him by a couple shots by the end of the round. [whew]
Twisted Pine was a lot of fun, made even more fun by sharing the fairways with one of my favorite colleagues in Oregon. I didn’t know what to expect before playing the course, but it was different than I would have expected. It was more open than I thought it would be! But there were still enough wooded holes. Still enough variety in flight paths required off the tee to make it interesting.
I liked the fact that there were challenging tee shots as you made your way around the course, yet it was (very) unlikely to lose any discs. I like that as a course collector. I ESPECIALLY appreciated that because Dan and I didn’t have a lot of time to spare in order to make it up to our conference at Salishan on time. I took a disappointing bogey 4 on Hole 3, but then had seven deuces over the last fifteen holes to finish with a -6 (48) and an estimated round rating of 950.
After our afternoon conference activities, we had dinner on our own. But we still had enough daylight for me to race up to Lincoln City and check out the six-hole course at Taft High School. A course in progress, there were 1-2 fun shots. But I don’t think it would be a course I would stop and play again. It just didn’t have “it.” It’s hard to put into words? There were 1-2 really fun holes out there! But the rest was just a chance to add another +1 to my courses played collection.
As you’ll see in the above photo, I thought Hole 4 was a fun hole. Challenging as a RHBH or a LHBH player, with the chance for a whole lot of trouble if you don’t hit your lines. But the tee surface was slippery. I had to be really careful not to wind up sliding off the front of the tee and hurting myself. Even worrying about my footwork on my release, I threw a beautiful tee shot and got one of my three deuces on the round. A -3 (15), which was only good enough for an estimated round rating of 899.
I’ve played better. But you can’t wipe the smile off my face tonight. Adding two more courses to my courses played collection. It had been too long…
Magic Number = -76 (2,076 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.