2007 Disc Golf Trip Day 9: You Really Ought to Give Iowa a Try

I happened to notice last night that there was a Play It Again Sports in Burnsville that was advertising a big sale, so we waited until 10:00 a.m to get on the road. Unfortunately none of the discs were on sale. I did see a few Jaguars, though. I haven't seen those discs in years.

The drive was brisk to Ames, and after lunch and much agonizing over which of two nearly identically described courses to play, we settled on the Carroll Marty DGC. I was thinking it might have less traffic than the course on campus, but it was actually pretty crowded.

The course was nice enough, but we hit it in the heat of the day and there were more than a few hidden pins that caused us to walk 1/2 way up fairways. That, combined with the numerous elevation changes kind of wore me out for a short course.

Cindy and I shot a 49, the odd thing about which was that we birdied holes two and three and then parred about 11 consecutive holes before getting deuces on 14, 15, and 16. Two of these were longer holes that wouldn't necessarily be ones I would think of as gimmees, so I really need to heed Cindy's reminder that you don't always know where your birdies are coming from. I remember how disappointed I was in Fargo that I deuced the first three holes and didn't get but one more the rest...would I have cared if I had got one on the front nine and then got three in a row in the middle of the round? Sometimes shorter holes are harder to calibrate on the fly and a longer, more open hole can be easier. The last hole we deuced was a 300 foot pinnacle to lower elevation shot, and I've noticed that a lot of these Midwest courses are enamored of these sorts of holes. (One park in Minnesota had three of them, I think.) The eighteenth was a 270 or so uphill. Nothing too impossible, but the walk up to my approach was tiring. We went into the clubhouse and Cindy got another Skeeter but I didn't get anything.

We got into Des Moines about 4:00 pm, but the course I was thinking about playing was actually on the other side of town and we were a little tired, so we decided to get a nice dinner and do laundry in the free facilities.

Speaking of which, Priceline has treated us nicely this trip. Despite a preponderence of surly check in people (in Minnesota and Iowa), the rooms have been really nice, and the Candlewood Suites in Des Moines has been especially good. I'm not sure I can use Priceline to save money at the lower end anymore, but it does tend to get me a nicer room for roughly the same price I would pay retail for a bargain hotel.

Going by Penzy's tomorrow, but we still haven't decided whether or not to play Des Moines in the morning or a course just across the border, such as Moline or Rock Island.

Carroll Marty DGC; Ames, Iowa

3-2-2 3-3-3 3-3-3 (25) Out
3-3-3 3-2-2 2-3-3 (24) In 49