There is no Tenth Hole!

After a long break between blogs, here it comes roaring back with the
Kilborne experience. I have been playing a lot lately with the good
weather, a few times alone, sometimes with friends. Jake Brown, Lisa,
Jake Cordell, Robert, Penny, John...ask any one of them, i played
fairly well. These trips were noteworthy, but nothing compares to the
jaunt i had today. Halt dich fest, we're in for a bumpy ride!

Today was a mild and sunny March day, all the more beautiful because
it's the first of the next five that i don't have to work (wahoo!). It
started out with a leisurely breakfast at Landmark cafe, yes that
Landmark off Central. i give props to the potatoes, and the coffee
ain't half bad either. With my super full stomach and Robert there too,
it was on to Kilborne Park.

I'd heard of Kilborne before, i've read up on area dg courses, but i
had heard it was closed for a bit and it wasn't as good as Reedy Creek.
Basically, i didn't know where Kilborne Park was and was too lazy to
find out when Reedy was just around the corner. So here's the skinny on
the course itself:

Look for the trashcans.

There are double trashcans and a bench with a back at every tee off
(with the possible exception of Hole Ten). Look for these after
completing any hole because unlike Reedy, there are no markers or
arrows to point you in the right direction. Ian, it was like Raleigh
all over again: we spent more time looking for the next tees than we
did playing the holes themselves!

Learn to read badly drawn marker maps.

A few of the holes had real dg maps of the hole/fairway, but many had a
crudely drawn rough pic done with what i can only imagine to have been
a Sharpie. And it's not too late to adopt a hole either, many are just
waiting for sponsors to plaster a sign up and front the dough for a
real map. In the meantime, enjoy the heiroglyphics!

There is no Hole Ten.

This is not to say there is no basket for Hole Ten, there is...there's
just no tee off for it. Anywhere. I dare you to show me. I would go so
far as to double dare you. And yes, before you deem me an iDioT, i did
go back and check the course map at Hole One to see where the tee was
marked on the map, but that was a serious Baloney Tale. As in: it was
not there. Perhaps the giant mud/water hazard right after Hole Nine was
covering it up, but whatev man, we searched all frickin' over and found
squat.

Your score will rock.

The creaters of Kilborne's course were very generous with the pars, so
your score should look pretty darn good if you play here. Granted, a
lot of the fairways are super long, especially in comparison with
Reedy, but still, if you can't hit par here, you won't hit it anywhere.

Bring sunscreen.

Part of the course is pretty open, so you may get a tan. The back nine
are much more woody, and in this respect i give it points over my
beloved Reedy Creek. This course mixes it up. I can't wait till summer
to see how the leaves change the size of the fairway. On the other
hand, they aren't any of them particularly difficult holes. Some are
long, but all the putts are pretty simple. No drop off steep hills like
Hole 14 at Reedy, or curved out of sight slopes either. So i guess it's
a good vacation, but i wouldn't want to live there.

Our game itself was pretty fun, adventurous as we were searching all
the while for Hole Ten's nonexistent tee. It's not terribly far either,
so i would definately play there again. One caveat: it's not in the
best of neighborhoods, so bring a partner or a group unless you are
truly fearless. A small tree had fallen blocking the path of Hole 13,
but this was only a temporary setback, otherwise the trees were pretty
cooperative.

We had driven Robert's car, so we only had his Orc and his son's Wolf
to play with. The Wolf was a cheap disc, not bad for a six year old but
i think we know now why Dustin doesn't throw all that far (ie: that
disc sucks butt). Robert launched it into a tree a couple of times so
now it's warped (congrats Dustin, you're getting a new and better disc
soon!). I'm not used to an Orc, i prefer my Sidewinder, but it was all
good.

Afterwards we went to the Charlotte Museum of History, conveniently
located on the way back to the UNCC area. If you have an hour or two to
spare, you really should go. It's great. And you get a student
discount. It follows from settlement (i know how downtown streets got
their names now), all the way to the present. Charlotte has history,
even if all the buildings get torn asunder and redone every twenty
years.

Now i'm waiting for a plane to LaGuardia, my Delta flight got cancelled
so now i'm on a US Suckways flight. Not checking my baggage, that's for
darn sure. Oh yeah, and it's delayed (big surprise). Even if the next
few days with family are depressing or stressing or (dare i hope?) fun,
at least i had a great disc golf game to kick off my mini-vacation
right.

To find out more about Kilborne Park, click here.