A Saturday Full of Frolf

Jason learned a new word during the week since I last saw him.  That word was 'frolf', a combining of the words 'frisbee' and 'golf'.  He said it correctly the first time, but then for the rest of the day he proceeded to butcher it until he gave up saying it all together.  I don't remember what he called it, but suffice to say it wasn't close.

Jason and his boys, Austin & Evan, traveled to the northern fringes of the UP to play some disc golf with me, since I was on call for work and couldn't leave the area.  There are two courses up here that we can choose from: Al Quaal in Ishpeming or Silver Creek in Harvey.  Despite seeing a note online that the Silver Creek course had been pulled to be redesigned, we decided to journey to Harvey anyway.  Fortunately for us, the course was still open and completely deserted.  The course consisted of 4 holes that weaved around a bunch of playground equipment and fences and 5 holes that went through some woods and hills.  The first 4 holes were basically wide open 'let the drivers rip' type holes, but were less fun than the challenge the wooded holes provided.  Also, it was nearly 90 degrees and the sun out on the open playground was brutal.

There was a good southwest wind blowing in with some pretty heavy gusts, so we were all over the place with our throws.  I managed to win the first round of play.  Since the course was deserted, we decided to play a few more rounds (it was only a 9 hole course after all).  The second time through, Austin really found his rhythm with his tomahawk style throw.  His drives were straight and true and by the 7th hole it was a 3 way tie for first between Austin, Jason and myself.  I fell apart, going +3 on that hole and basically taking myself out of contention with some HORRIBLE putting. Austin continued to play well on the last 2 holes and won that round.  The third round was very exciting.  Going into hole 9 it was another 3 way tie between Jason, Austin and myself.  I managed to sink an incredible putt through some branches from about 35 feet away to par the hole and win the round.  I could have thrown it 10 times and probably missed that shot 10 times.  I doubt it'll ever happen again.

After that, we drove around Marquette a bit while nibbling on cookies from Cal's, then we headed back to Ishpeming for some shrimp and steak on the grill before hitting Al Quaal to round out our day.  Al Quaal was tough because of the punishing sun beating down on us and the unpredictable winds altering our discs in midair.  I was able to win both rounds, but we were all worn out by the end.  At the end of the day, we had played 45 holes of disc golf on the hottest day of 2012 and we had a blast.  All of us saw improvement in our games throughout the day, which is excellent.  Evan developed an under hand throwing method that worked really well for putting.  I saw the little guy make some amazing putts that I doubt any of us older guys would've made. Here are the scorecards:

Though the Bialy Disc and Duck Club doesn't own land or a clubhouse yet, think it's safe to say we have two base camps.  The Wisconsin base camp would have to be my dad's place, while the Michigan base camp is my place.  There are way more disc golf courses in Wisconsin by my parents, but I heard that Marquette will be soon adding a course, which will be great.

Derrek "Thankfully no water hazards" White