When Birdies Feel Like Aces

Yeah, right.

No shot feels quite like an ace, but carding these recent birdies I'm about to detail for you felt like a decent accomplishment.

My home course is Terrace Creek in Mountlake Terrace, WA. It's a damn rascal of a spread. This thing invites you over, drags your ass through the mud and makes you walk home.

I'm kind of serious about the walking home bit. Starting with hole eight this design has you walking in one direction – away from your car. When you're finished with 18 you have either a delightful hike back through the course while replaying great throws in your mind or you have a miserable stomp through the cold, wet woods wishing you were home with a bourbon in one hand and a cheeseburger in the other.

I've discussed hole one here before. It's a challenging shot up a sloping fairway with OB road on the left and a mess of trees on the right just before the basket. This hole is deceiving in that the distance is only 300 feet or so, but the gradual uphill climb makes it play longer.

I've seen people throw big RHBH anhyzers out over the road, rollers up the right side that eventually fight the blades of grass and ride the ridge on the left staying in bounds and straight shots up the middle. I put a pink dot to show where the basket is in the photo below. Can you see it?

I've been hurling drivers up the middle for a while now, but I've always failed to reach a gimme-putt position. Every drive that felt good and powerful has either found road or branches.

Not this time.

On this particular day I timed a sturdy right-foot plant and a tight last-second grip off the tee pad. The white Legacy Cannon boogied out of my hand on a slight hyzer heading toward the sidewalk. Then I watched that disc stand up and start bending right toward the edge of the tree line.

At first I thought the trees were going to swallow another feel-good drive, but the disc had enough speed to get past the dense green mess. The natural fade back was brief since the fairway slopes uphill the whole way. When my drive came to rest I knew I was sitting pretty for an easy putt for bird.

I made the chains sing. The accomplishment of carding a bird on this hole for the first time felt really good, but it was also proof that my driving power had increased. My practice is paying off.

The other hole on this course that's been messing with me is hole 15. I've been close to shooting the bird on this bastard a few times, but I've always missed the putt. On this particular day I was playing the round with my friend Don. I wasn't having a great day or anything, so I was surprised when I watched my disc weave down the fairway and land near the big, mossy tree near the basket.

The slideshow below will walk you down the fairway.

I'm not sure exactly how far this hole is, but dgcoursereview.com has it measured out to 402 feet. I brought out a 300ft tape measure and, as straight as I could, I measured out the 300ft mark, then measured to the basket using the same line. I wasn't in perfect line with the basket, but the distance was around 392ft, so the DGCR measurement is probably close.

My drive landed about 10 to 12 feet short. It was the farthest point I've ever reached. To top off the day I actually made my putt.

I love crossing holes off my birdie list:

Here's to a progress-filled 2014.

Thanks for reading.

DGCR Achievements: Stat Addict

http://dgcoursereview.com

Disc Golf Course Review is an outstanding Web site for the flying plastic obsessed people of the world. The site has accumulated detailed information, including photos and reviews, of disc golf courses from all over the world. It also hosts a ridiculously packed forum full with topics that practically cover every aspect ever thought of regarding the sport – and then there are duplicate, triplicate and quadruplicate threads for many topics to lose yourself in. What comes after quadruplicate? Because there are those too.

There are thousands of people registered, there is a market place to buy related and non-related items, there are numbered bag (travel) tags and there is a feature that allows players to keep track of their scores. 

DGCR has pages of other features, but the one feature I wanted to highlight in this post is the achievement page.

To be more specific, the "stat addict" achievement.

These stats have multiple levels of achievement. The levels are bronze, silver, gold and diamond. When a player reaches each level they are awarded an icon on their DGCR profile page. 

When the bronze level of "Shutterbug" (100 photos uploaded) is reached then this icon will appear for profile visitors to see:

Here's silver for "Disc Collector" (150 discs in personal organizer):

Gold for "Aces" (10 aces):

Diamond for "Wordsmith" (250 written reviews):

I'm on a journey to 400 feet, but that doesn't mean I can't have smaller goals as well. I'm interested in collecting as many of these achievements as i can. In the nearly 5 years of disc golf play I have accumulated a silver in the Ace department, a bronze in Workout, a bronze in Disc Collector and a silver in Stat Addict.

After a few beers the other night I decided to play with math and figure out how long it would take me to reach the diamond level Stat Addict achievement. 

Here's what I came up with:

The goal: 50,000 holes

Current number of holes played: 6,125

Holes needed: 43,875

18 holes a round equals 2,437.5 rounds to reach goal

Realistic rounds in a week for me: 5

Rounds per year: 260 

9.375 years to accomplish goal

Nine years. Wow. That's a long time. My daughter will be 11. I will be 45. The year will be 2022.

I wonder if I can accomplish the achievement sooner. I wonder if I'll be throwing 400 ft. by then.

How long would it take you?