Disc Golf Year in Review 2013

T at hole 18 at Tom Brown Park. This is his favorite -
when there's a "moat" around the basket. December 10, 2013

Thomas and I had a great year of disc golf, playing nearly every day. My Garmin records show that we played 269 times in 2013. I don't always have my watch with me so this is a low estimate. (FYI Garmin is my running watch that tracks distance, pace, etc. I wear it during disc golf so I'll know how far we've gone.) Weekday mornings T and I play on our own before school and usually also on weekends. On those 269 disc golf excursions, we covered 312 miles over 196 hours (not counting travel time!).

One of Thomas' goals for this year was to play disc golf in new states (we already had Florida, Ohio, and Kentucky checked off). We ended up playing in two new states in 2013 and on four new courses! In March, we played MacIntyre Park for the first time, in Thomasville, Georgia (I blogged about that here.) In June, we stopped on our way to Ohio and played in Knoxville, Tennessee at Victor Ashe Park. We thought this was a great idea based on this video:


In reality, the disc golf course was not in great shape - mostly it could have used a good mowing... or perhaps a good pass from a hay baler! On some of the fairways the grass was knee to hip high, which made it hard to find your disc. The scenery was picturesque though and the other disc golfers were kind and helped us when we couldn't find the next hole on our own. Eventually we got frustrated enough to quit, but first we played a good dozen holes, and crossed Tennessee off our list!

In addition to hitting our favorite course at Lake Shore Park in Ashtabula, we also played two new courses in Ohio: Glacier Ridge Metro Park in Plain City (near Dublin, outside Columbus), and Veterans Memorial Park in Parma.

Disc Golf in Parma

Glacier Ridge is a challenging course, not because of distance but because the open field fairways are really narrow with tall grass and brush in the rough. It's not the best course to use to introduce friends to the sport, but not knowing that, we took Dawn and her family out to shoot a few holes. The first few are in the woods and beautiful - no brush, open fairways, fully shaded. Definitely playable for all levels. Once out in the fields, though, we spent more time looking for discs than throwing them. It was still fun and good exercise and we appreciated the Petrills being troopers and trying something new!

The course at Veterans Memorial Park in Parma is a fun one. It's well-marked, hilly (not extremely so), wooded but mostly clear of brush. My brother, John, joined us in September and we played the back nine together. The highlight for T was seeing a couple of deer! We really enjoyed this course and will be back for sure.

While we love adventures, we continue to play the majority of our disc golf at our "home course" at Tom Brown Park. Once a week we visit Jack McLean Park (usually on Sundays) and occasionally we drive up to Thomasville and play the 12-hole course at MacIntyre Park. What will 2014 bring? Time will tell but we look forward to more disc golfing fun!