Yo! What’s going on Flight Farm Fam? Road Warrior here updating the 100’s of readers at home with the latest installment of Tales from the Road. Sorry I’ve taken so long to finish up on my July road trip. I’ve been busy…well you know, playing disc golf! More on that later. Here is the conclusion to my most recent Texas disc golf excursion:
Summer break road trip The Texas Heat 2022 Tour continues.
Day 5
Today was about numbers:
910-Benders Landing/Liberty Park in Spring TX-9 hole course at a HOA that is for residents and their guests. I waltzed right in, said hello to the park goers and commenced my round. Nice HOA course with nice lines to hit. A couple of holes that you threw around or over the walking paths…this might pose a threat because the walking path is busy. Decent course and I enjoyed my round. With that said the designer needed to take into consideration the 3/4 of a mile walk back down the walking path to the parking lot. I think the walk back might’ve been longer than the course itself.
911-Timber Lane Park in Spring TX-9 hole course in a multiuse city park. Another long walk to the NE corner of the park to get to hole one. Another wooded style 9 hole course and the lines weren’t as clean as the course above but the golf was good and challenging still. Another good 9.
912-Milby Park in Houston TX-21 hole course that has been redesigned according to UDisc. Park style golf for the most part and 2 nice wooded holes in the middle of the course. A solid mix of short/moderate/longer holes and some nice lines and some wide open shots as well. Nice course.
913-Burke Crenshaw Park in Pasadena TX-9 hole course that has been around for a while. The old single chain Innova baskets here have seen some better days. Typical 9 hole park course and there were a couple of holes where errant throws could end up in the street. Like Benders Landing the designer forgot to loop you back to the parking lot. A solid 1/2 mile walk across the pond(thankfully there was a paved path) kinda spoiled the fun. Another number
914-Bayou Bend in Deer Park TX-9 hole course that was a nice park style course. The first couple of holes were longer for a park 9, but then there were some shorter holes in the middle. A good learner’s course and it was still challenging but not frustrating. At least whoever designed this one made a loop and got you back to the parking lot within only about 500’ or so!
915-Stevenson Park in Friendswood TX-9 hole course but it did have 2 sets of pads per hole so you could play 18 holes here. Quite easily the best 9 hole course I played today. Straight shots, basket on a mound, basket with the River in the background so don’t overthrow the hole, hyzer lines, woods, FH shots etc. a fun course that was challenging. As it beats in I’m sure it will get even better.
916-Resoft County Park in Alvin TX-9 hole course…OK Metallica wrote a song called the thing that should not be(Master of Puppets album for you fan bois) well that applies here, this is the course that should not be. If you’ve been following my posts, you know that I don’t say much negative about the courses that I play even when they are bad. However, I have to break that rule today. This course basically plays in three parts, Holes 1-3 are on the west end of the park. Then you walk about a quarter of a mile to get to 4-7. Then holes 8 and 9 are by themselves, and then you have the long walk back to your vehicle.  All of the baskets are leaning, because they did not take the time to secure them properly into the ground. They basically dug a hole and filled the hole with white rock that is loose. The tee areas are marked by a plastic backstop and a post basically right where you need to throw from. I’m all for the growth of the sport but this course isn’t fun. And there’s no way to make it much fun either. Sometimes it’s better to do without than to have this kind of abomination. Worst course ever? IDK but it’s up there! Enough attention for this turd. I’ve said my piece.
Overall another good day of slinging some plastic at metal targets in the woods on Mother Earth. Thanks to Flight Farm and Hyzernauts for the support. Until next time Road Warrior out
Summer Break Road Trip the Texas Heat 2022 Tour Finale.
Day 6 I got in a July 4th round by playing:
917-FTX in Fairfield TX-18 hole course that was park style golf and was fun and challenging. Long/moderate/short holes, straight shots, semi wooded shots, a pond shot, hole 17 was a wide open par 4 to rip on your drive, and a great finishing hole in Hole 18. I had a bit of a navigation issue but that was on my part. You would think as many course as I’ve played I’d be better at looking for clues to the next hole and at reading UDisc for directions but here we are. After some wandering around for 20 mins I figured out the layout. Then I was back on track and rolling again. Apparently there was a mini just before I got there and things were still marked OB etc. a fun course and you will need to be able to hit lines and land in bounds on several holes to score well. The last hole is kind of a gimmick hole, in which they used an old baseball backstop to guard the basket and it played as an island. From the tee it appears the basket is in front of the backstop but it is actually directly behind it! There is a square cut out that you must go through to land on the island. I threw and my suspect ricocheted off the fence and I thought I had an almost ace. But when I got up there I had got super lucky and I had just barely made the gap for a tap in 2! Most likely I wouldn’t be able to do that again if I wanted to 2/10 times! A fun gimmick hole and I’m not much on gimmick holes.
Anyways a great road trip in the lone star state. I’ve got to see so many places I’d never even think of going to if it wasn’t for disc golf. What a unique sport in which you can travel across the USA or World and play, many times for free, as much as your heart desires. Some stats are as follows.
1745 miles traveled, 27 courses in 6 days, 385 holes played. With that said, here are some fun useless stats. Accorging to https://www.dgcoursereview.com/profile.php?id=16809
States played: 24
State rankings/number of courses played:
Kansas 2nd
Oklahoma 3rd
Missouri 5th
Nebraska 11th
Texas 26th
Arkansas 50th-tie
USA 28th
World 29th
I set out on this road trip with a few goals in mind.
1: get to 900 courses played
2: play 20 courses
3: play some good courses and not just filler
Thanks to everyone that supports me in these adventures, my family first and foremost, my sponsors Chris Smith of Hyzernauts and Chad Nech of Flight Farm. All of you players that have played a MA40 CREW event and to the millions watching at home, I truly appreciate it.
Thanks so much
Until next time
The Road Warrior signing off
Whew that is a lot of miles and a lot of courses in a 6 day period! I wished when I started documenting my road trips, that I would’ve kept track of the total miles traveled. It would be interesting to see how many miles per year that I’ve traveled. I’d guess my 2018 trip to Am Worlds in Charlotte, NC and 2019 trip to Am Worlds in York, PA logged approx over 5000 miles combined!
So what have I been up to since my 6 day road trip at the first of July? I’ve been running our local league at the Anthony Lake DGC in Anthony, KS. I played in my 70th PDGA event, the Cessna Classic in Wichita, KS. I was also fortunate to win the Cessna Classic in the MA40 division and win my 9th PDGA event. I promoted, TD’d, and played in the inaugural event, Bird is the Word, in Sharon, KS. This event was played on a course designed by me and we brought in 5 portable baskets so we could have a 9 hole layout. The format was a bit different than your traditional 2 rounds of 18 holes that you would normally see at a disc golf tournament. We only counted Birdies(2’s) and Aces(1’s) and if you didn’t get either, then you simply picked up and proceeded to the next hole. All of the holes were under 300 ft, with the exception of Hole 4 which is a nice 315 ft hole. We had 15 players at this event, a majority of which had never played in a disc golf tournament before, and some had only been playing for 2 months or less. I really enjoyed hosting and playing in this event. It was refreshing to see so many new players having a good time playing this sport in which we all love. Oh and I was also able to secure another KDGA Oz Tour win in MA40 and had the most birdies overall for the event with 18!
Last week I was able to get down to Pawhuska, OK and played a not yet completed course. It is located in the Wazhazhe Heritage Walking Trail at the corner of US 60 and Lynn Ave on the SE side of Pawhuska. Here is a run down: 918-Don’t know the name of this course yet in Pawhuska OK-18 hole course designed by Avery Jenkins. A wooded park-ish style course that had some elevation in play and some good lines. Holes 1-7 play on the west side of the creek and then you walk along the refurbished railroad bridge to get to holes 8-18. Decent mix of short, moderate, and longer holes. Hole 11 is a sweet hole requiring 2 placement shots in order to get up and down on the elevated green. Sweet hole! I’m curious to see if this will be a Par 4 or not.
Hole 12 is an open hole with a tight green if they play the tall grass as OB. I’m sure they will because the bank is super steep. Sadly i lost a gatekeeper over the edge in the tall grass or the creek. Couldn’t see it and the bank was too steep to go down very far 
This course will be a fun play once it’s 100% completed, it’s not quite done yet. It’s a nice complement to Timber Valley and not quite as tight, but you’re going to have to hit lines to score well here. There will be 4 solid and unique courses when all is said and done with Timber Valley, Moccasin Creek, Island Course at The Lodge, and the new course in town.
I did play Timber Valley while I was in Pawhuska. It has improved a lot since I first played it about 3 summers ago. They’ve done a lot of work making islands, next tee signs, defining fairways, etc. this course is a fun play and the elevation/terrain will work your legs out for sure. A must play course when in Pawhuska. At the beginning of this week I was able to get up to Wichita, KS and pick up course number 919, LW Clapp Memorial-East. Here’s how that went down: 919-Clapp East in Wichita KS-18 course that was just installed last week. This is a new layout and is different than what has been used for Doo Dah 3 or 4 years ago. A longer course that has some par 4’s and par 5’s. Using the creek and the sidewalks as OBs also tighten this new layout up as well.
The reviews on Facebook were pretty spot on IMO. This course will favor the long arms and a couple of the pars might be soft but the shots are there on several holes. A few long walks to get to a couple of holes, but overall not bad. My favorite holes were holes 2 and 12. Both require you to shape shots and 12 has an elevated green that has a roll away threat.
Yesterday, July 30th, I went to Wichita and played in the Brook Disc Golf Tournament at Millbrook Park. A roller coaster event for me today as Round 1 I just couldn’t get anything going. Putts were just not falling, and some miscues that led to 3 bad holes. I crawled back to get close to Even then took a 6 on the toughest hole on the course. I shot an abysmal 830 rated round! Not going to lie being DFL in your division isn’t a good feeling. I decided to just see what happens in the 2nd round, I mean I was in last place already. Got some breaks in the 2nd round and was able to get some birdies. I shot the hot round in my division shooting -4! Didn’t finish the way I wanted to on the last 3 holes but it is what it is. I was able to shoot a much better 941 rated round in round 2! The 2nd round shows me what I know I can do and moving from last to 2nd helped to boost my confidence after that terrible round 1! My card mates for both rounds were fun and the 2nd round we were paired on the Advanced card.
So as I conclude this part of Tales from the Road, I hope you, the reader, are enjoying this series. As you can tell I try to stay busy with playing disc golf, running our local league, competing in disc golf events, promoting my own disc golf events, promoting my sponsors, and going on disc golf road trips. I’m hopeful that by this time next year I will be telling you about my 1000th course played. All in due time as the journey continues. If there are any questions about any of the courses I’ve played, events I’ve played in, what the Road Warriors first set of discs were, whatever feel free to drop a comment below. Until the next one, Road Warrior out.
