I left Marco Island Florida late Wednesday afternoon heading for San Diego. Could not resist grabbing my well worn 2002 Course Directory and hitting courses along the way.

Day 1 (Wed); Drove 330 miles to Gainesville.

Day 2: 6:30AM played Northside in Gainesville and hooked up with local Matt. Nice course, fairly open with excellent signage and benches. Sad to hear that a Super Wal Mart may replace the course within the next few years. Hope it is not true. Back to the hotel for a shower and yet another Waffle House breakfast (AWESOME!!!). Headed out at 9:30AM.

Made it to Mobile Alabama (500 miles) about 2:30 and decided to risk the thunderstorms and try Cottage Hill Park (the name of the park is different, but the directions to the course are excellent). WONDERFUL course, especially from the long tees. Classic tight finesse shots with loads of trees and little undergrowth. Easy to follow, excellent signage for the most part (the walk from 14 to 15 was a bit confusing). So tasty I had to play two rounds in the sweltering heat. Well worth the stop, this course quickly reveals any flaws in your stroke. My only negative comment is that the layout I played favored righty hyzers, but overall I loved the course.

Changed clothes, grabbed a buffet dinner (southern fried chicken, greens, macoroni and cheese...I'm in heaven!!) and drove 150 miles to Lafayette, LA to spend the night. Spectacular cloud to cloud lightning over Baton Rouge and an awesome classic rock station out of New Orleans (go figure!).

Day 3: 6AM headed to the Acadia Park course. Walked a few holes and decided it was a lost disc waiting to happen (heavy undergrowth with some blind shots). Too bad, I think I would have enjoyed working on my finesse shots (they need it!).

I think I am headed to Pleasure Island in Port Aurthur and Tom Bass in Houston today and then heading to Austin tomorrow. Trying to get as far west of the approaching storm as possible. Wish me luck!! DD :cool:

Sounds fun, Dave.

Next time stop and play the FANTASTIC Highland Road Park in Baton Rouge, LA. You missed out on a golden opportunity there.

Also, while the course at Pleasure Island has historical value, there's a really sweet layout at Tyrrell Park in Beaumont. It's a must-play while you're in that area.

My Houston sources tell me that the Wilmont at Tom Bass may be a little overgrown right now, but the Powell course should be in decent shape. And while you're probably used to the Fly 18 courses in southern California, the chatter I'm hearing about the disc golf course located on the grounds of the Spring Valley ball golf course in The Woodlands (just north of Houston) leads me think it's also not to be missed.

Day 3 Continued: Port Aurthur, TX. After 3 holes I was wondering why I had heard folks talking about it, but by the end of the back 9 it had moved into my top 10 (I have about 20 top tens). The setting is what makes it so enjoyable, as well as locals Kevin and Reuben who took good care of me. Hole 10 is a wonderful left to right boomer. Definitely a fun course, even in the sweltering mid-day heat.

Headed to Tom Bass to play the Wilmont course. Good directions to the park, but hard to find once you get there. I ended up stopping by a basket (15 of course 1) and played about 6 holes before a local showed me where Wilmont was. LONG COURSE! A bit repetetive (throw the crap out of it, try not to land next to a tree, repeat as needed). I was the only one out there. Left after hole 16 with the sun getting low in the sky. Found a flea bag near downtown...purple walls, lots of mirrors, and a black light. Right across from the University of Houston, so I grabbed some BBQ and Drexler's.

Day 4: Made it into Austin about 9:30, headed to Peas Park. Saturday mini going on, so I plunked down my money and played with Joel Kelly, Tom Conrad and Tim Veneble. Shot a -3 (1 shot out of the money) and missed the CTP by a foot. Made some nice putts though.

Austin is so sweet that I decided to stay a couple of days (great music, great golf and great women...go figure!). 3 days of flea bag motels so I decided to splurge and got a place right on 6th street. Probably play Wimberly this afternoon, then its Circle C tomorrow at 10AM. DD :cool:

Hi Jeff

My original plan was to play Highland Road, but I missed the exit (I wish directory directions would give exit numbers instead of names!). Maybe I missed it since I cut across on I-12 from Mobile, but it was raining in Baton Rouge and I may have driven past it. Oh well. DD :cool:

Day 4 Continued: Drove out to Wimberly and played the meadow course. A true delight. Finally I am playing Disc GOLF (or at least i am trying). Wonderful par 4s and 5s and 3s and a clean, clear creak and a clean, clear, soothing pond that I heaved into on 18. John and Amelia took excellent care of me. Grabbed some ice for the ride home and hit 6th street from 8:30-1:30 and barely put a dent in it. I was hoping to hear some down and dirty blues, but to my surprise I could not find it. I did hear some good jazz at the Elephant, some loud rock with blistering guitar at Antones (no blues??) and some nice slide guitar at Stubbys (Papa Mali?). Girls everywhere, prime grade A. Great fun.

Day 5: Crawled out of bed at 8AM and headed to Circle C for a 10AM money round. Awesome, complex course. Loads of trouble when you are not in the fairway (I was usually not in the fairway). John Houck joined us for some holes, a great pleasure. Too tired to play the hill course at Wimberly, will probably head out there tomorrow morning after checking out the DISC GOLF DOCUMENTARY being filmed at Pease Park. I hear Kenny is flying in. Then its the long haul out towards El Paso and maybe Cloudcroft, NM. DD :cool:

Isn't Disc Golf a wonderful sport ? /msgboard/images/graemlins/smirk.gif

Try doing this with stick golf and you might find your wallet much lighter at the end of the cross country trek !!

Day 5 Continued: Had some good ribs and Texas Tea and went back to the hotel to watch the basketball game. Arm is definitely feeling the effects so iced it down for 20 minutes and then fell asleep at 7:30 (that Texas Tea is vicious!).

Day 6 (Monday): Woke up 1:30AM, after 3 hours of drifting in and out of sleep decided to skip the documentary and Wimberly Hills course and head west. Made it to Pecos, TX by noon. Great tacos. Now its off to Cloudcroft to hopefully see some Astronomer friends and try out the local course.

After some thought, decided to avoid pushing all the way through to San Diego tomorrow and instead head up to Phoenix to catch an afternoon round with Russell Shelton. Should be fun. DD :cool:

Great stuff, keep posting! Tonight, play golf under the waxing moon and catch a nice view of the 'evening star' and the big dipper at dusk. See ya in WV!

Day 6 Continued: My God its hot! Topped 100 degrees in NM, but up here at Cloudcroft it was in the 80s (Cloudcroft is about 8500 feet). Great towering pines and big blue sky, it reminded me a bit of Colorado. Cloudcroft is a neat little town that is mostly one strip of stores and a bar. I picked up some stuff for the wife and drove around looking for the high school (the course is across from the HS). Asked a local where it was, he responded "in Cloudcroft". It turns out my room was about 150 yards from the 1st tee. The course designer did a good job with the small strip of land available. Nice shots, but I only played the short tees since my arm was feeling it. Good signs and fairly easy to follow. I would not drive out of my way to play it, but since I might be observing at Apache Point some day I hope I will play it again. Drove 15 miles out to the observatory and suprised a buddy of mine from graduate school. We closed down the bar in Cloudcroft at 11:30 (lucky she kept it open that long) and talked until 2AM.

Day 7: Woke up at 6:00AM and hit the road towards Phoenix. Sick of I-10, so took back roads. Great views, rolled into Phoenix about 2:30 with the temperature at 107 according to the sign. Played a few holes at Fountan Hills to see if they had made the changes yet, but apparently I missed it by one day. Played Cenocido on the north side of town with Russell. Unfortunately some jerk had vandalized three of the holes so we had to put some baskets in before we played. Nice course with longish air shots and pool table grass that lets rollers go on forever. The week of golf had caught up with me by this point and I barely finished 18 holes before heading back to San Diego. Arrived 1:30AM totally wiped out but it sure felt good to sleep in my own bed.

Final summary to follow once I finish painting the inside of the house and washing the windows (been at it since yesterday 9AM, hope to finish by tonight). DD :cool:

Final summary to follow once I finish painting the inside of the house and washing the windows (been at it since yesterday 9AM, hope to finish by tonight). DD :cool:



I was at Tom Bass a couple days ahead of you. Funny, eh?

Wow Rick ................Dave's Road Tripp was made for Television..........

Wow Rick ................Dave's Road Tripp was made for Television..........



Dave's whole -life- is made for TV. ;-)

so you decided to drive with no stop after all. After that round in 107 degrees, I thought you'd be looking for an air conditioner. I mean I'm from here and I was DRAINED after that heat round . I sure wouldn't have wanted to drive 5hrs. after that.