The Community of Disc Golfers and About All Things Disc Golf

Terry "the Pirate" Calhoun's Blog (46)

Blogging the 2010 US Masters

Sheila and I have a flight from Detroit to Atlanta this afternoon, followed by a drive to Augusta in a rented car. The tournament begins with a players meeting tomorrow, Friday, at the International Disc Golf Center.

We're competing in the PDGA Tim Selinske US Masters tournament, an event that until this year had always been held in California and managed by Tim Selinske - a great guy who died…

Continue

Added by Terry "the Pirate" Calhoun on April 29, 2010 at 10:30am — 1 Comment

Tapped Into a Treasure Trove Today

Ben and I bought part of an old-timer's collection today and we've been going through the boxes like excited kids on Christmas morning. The collection puts us over 3,500 discs in stock at The Throw Shop, but these new additions are very cool.

We'll be open from 11-5 tomorrow, Sunday, and we've got the tee pads at The Ponds of Lakeshore nicely cleaned off.

Above, unthrown: a 173-gram… Continue

Added by Terry "the Pirate" Calhoun on December 19, 2009 at 4:14pm — 2 Comments

I Need a Fix!!!

Sigh. I just can't get enough time in to actually play disc golf lately. It's really getting to me today so I thought I'd vent here.

When we last surveyed members of this network, the average member said they played something like 130-150 rounds a year. I doubt very much that I even got 50 in this year. It's not a lack of courses, I'm sitting within an hour's drive of probably 50, many of them really good ones. Hole 1 of The BRATS, our private course, is less than 30 feet from… Continue

Added by Terry "the Pirate" Calhoun on December 10, 2009 at 3:51pm — 6 Comments

The Beauties & the Beasts (& Friends)

Saturday, August 8 was an ugly day to hold a disc golf tournament in Ann Arbor. It had rained all night, and as we set up four pop-up tents with a huge tarp arranged over top of them, it was still raining and the radar showed nothing but green and yellow, with a little red, stretching back west through Michigan, over Lake Michigan past Chicago, and deeper out into the midwest. These guys were already wet and had more water getting ready to be dumped on them.…

Continue

Added by Terry "the Pirate" Calhoun on August 9, 2009 at 8:30am — 2 Comments

Wishing We Were at Worlds!

Sheila and I had expected to see a lot of you folks in Kansas City this week. We weren't going to compete this year, but instead were going to run one of the courses. Luckily the folks managing the event had backup for us, because we ended up not being able to go.

Last year, many disc golfers local to Ann Arbor met our nephew, Andy Ross, when he stayed with us a few months. (He was the guy in the red ball cap who cooked food at both the USADGC and the DGLO players… Continue

Added by Terry "the Pirate" Calhoun on July 29, 2009 at 10:03am — 3 Comments

Amazon Trip, Short Version

My 11-year old niece and I are friends on Facebook. I found myself turning a brief reply, to her into a fast-forward travelog from our trip last winter, into something longer. So I thought I'd share it, since the longer version may never be done.

Hi, Kailee, we haven't been in Ohio much recently.

The Amazon was wonderful. It was a great vacation.

We lived on a boat, and every day we went to the shore and had adventures in rivers, villages, or the jungle. The… Continue

Added by Terry "the Pirate" Calhoun on April 11, 2009 at 7:36pm — No Comments

2009 No Foolin' Tournament

I'm glad that I overcame my worries about being behind at work and spent the day at Hudson Mills with a bunch of disc golfers. There were 179 competitors in the event, including huge contingents of Am-2 and Am-3 competitors.

Not only is my work busy, but I had spent all week - during the day - sitting in the jury of a gory and sad murder trial. We rendered our verdict early Friday afternoon - Guilty of Second Degree Murder and three Larceny counts, but acquitted on one Larceny and on… Continue

Added by Terry "the Pirate" Calhoun on March 29, 2009 at 11:46am — No Comments

Lima, Peru

Tomorrow morning, very early, we head to where we are probably out of any communications loop for a week. So we thought we’d take a stab at a brief blog about the trip so far.

Ben drove us to the Detroit airport, along a very slippery I-94, with cars off the road all around us, where we got through security and on board perfectly. Our airplane then moved away from the runway and sat for more than two hours. Atlanta, the location of our transfer, had been closed and all flights into… Continue

Added by Terry "the Pirate" Calhoun on December 28, 2008 at 3:30pm — 3 Comments

Being Old in the Cold

Yesterday, I drove south to Toledo, Ohio to compete in the Holiday Hyzer 5 tournament, run by Mark Kruse. It was probably about 24 degrees and windy when we started the first round of 21 holes, and at best 36 degrees (and not so windy) when we finished the second round. Brr.

Because I had read earlier in the week that the high was supposed to be in the 40s, I had not properly prepared. Actually, I had been thinking that I would not play again until the spring, so all of my… Continue

Added by Terry "the Pirate" Calhoun on December 14, 2008 at 11:00am — 6 Comments

Just a Pleasant Round

We hope everyone has a fine Thanksgiving.

I was reminded Wednesday of just how wonderful disc golf is; how well it can fit into your life. Tuesday evening, Matt Cunningham called me. He's a former local guy who moved back to Rhode Island a few years ago and was in town for the long weekend. He set up a round at Bandemer Park at 2 pm Wednesday. Mark Ellis and Scott Aikens also showed up for the round.

We started on Hole 4, because the out-of-towners parked at the South end… Continue

Added by Terry "the Pirate" Calhoun on November 27, 2008 at 8:45am — 1 Comment

Lake In the Woods Disc Golf Course

No, I don't know what it will be called. That was the name of the ball golf course that used to be there, as well as the apartment complex. But the apartment complex has changed its name. The image below shows the location of a likely new disc golf course on Ford Lake in Ypsilanti, MI.

This is a pretty exciting opportunity. At first glance, I'm thinking about three loops of nine holes coming out from the parking lot, and each 9 potentially linking… Continue

Added by Terry "the Pirate" Calhoun on November 17, 2008 at 10:50am — 17 Comments

Raleigh, North Carolina - sustainability and disc golf

Sunday I flew to Raleigh, NC for a meeting of the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE), which I attended for my job partly because I had helped to create the association just about three years ago, originally serving on its board. About 2,000 students, administrators, and faculty from colleges and universities in several countries spent two and a half days networking. It was a great time meeting lots of old colleagues and friends and new people, plus… Continue

Added by Terry "the Pirate" Calhoun on November 12, 2008 at 7:00pm — 2 Comments

Mary Beth Doyle - 9/21/08 Update

A couple of weeks ago I attended the public meeting about the course at Cobblestone Farm. Only 7-8 disc golfers, plus the parks planner (Jeff Dehring), showed up. We talked about the current rough layout and people seemed pretty satisfied with it. One good news item is that the supervisor of the county work had seen the map also and thought it was okay.

Even better, Dehring had spoken with him about the likelihood of disc golfer "trails" in the wetland areas, even showing him some… Continue

Added by Terry "the Pirate" Calhoun on September 21, 2008 at 1:34pm — 5 Comments

Karma or Dharma—Either Way, What a Coincidence!

So, this morning we did the random thing on the tosses for yesterday's Ring of Fire. A fellow named Eric Sears won, so we added his name to the list of people Sheila was going to mail discs out to today. (She mailed out 6 today.)

Then Sheila instant-messages me in the afternoon that we had just gotten a package at home from . . . Eric Sears!

It turns out that Eric had found a disc that Ben had lost on his current trip around the United States and mailed it to us in Ann… Continue

Added by Terry "the Pirate" Calhoun on September 17, 2008 at 8:32pm — 8 Comments

9/6 Update to: More on Big Portage Lake Unit - Waterloo State Recreation Area - Grass Lake (MI)

We spent Saturday morning marking the fairway perimeters for clearing and putting two flags at tees and one at pin locations. None of our Sharpies worked so they are not numbered. Pin and tee locations will change once we see what the fairways look like when rough-cleared. We took to hear the feedback that the first nine were not lefty-friendly enough and after marking the fairway perimeters, I think the back nine will reverse that.

These holes will all be in - the first nine already… Continue

Added by Terry "the Pirate" Calhoun on September 1, 2008 at 11:00am — 1 Comment

More On Mary Beth Doyle

On Saturday I drove to the Ann Arbor airport and rented a tiny plane and pilot and took some aerial shots of the park. That finally gives me an overarching perspective of what the terrain looks like right now, not several years ago.

Here is the latest. Interpreted on the ground as things get cleared, it is less clear as to what is a right-hand or a left-hand hole. But this is what I am turning in to the city next week. What were Holes 9-11 are going to be somewhat similar but, from… Continue

Added by Terry "the Pirate" Calhoun on August 31, 2008 at 8:00pm — 2 Comments

Mary Beth Doyle Park (was 'Brown Park) and Wetland Preserve Redesign

We had another walk-thru this evening and I think we have settled on at least a rough sketch of the 18 holes—long tees, anyway. It's not clear to me how well people will be able to view the image I am posting here, but my fingers are crossed.

This park was redone to change the water flow and flood control functionalities for Washtenaw County. The disc golf course was taken out two and a half years ago and may get put in this fall, probably next spring. We lost some holes to the… Continue

Added by Terry "the Pirate" Calhoun on August 25, 2008 at 8:00pm — 14 Comments

Big Mistake - Nine Years Later!

This fellow's name is Richard (Rick) Williams. He came up to me at the 2008 Worlds at the Robert Morris course and reminded me of a story from the first year I played competitive disc golf, in 1999. The disc he is holding in his hand is a key to the story.

I had begun throwing discs around late in the summer of 1998 and enjoyed it so much I decided to get competitive in 1999. Late spring, I heard that there was this big tournament in Rochester, New… Continue

Added by Terry "the Pirate" Calhoun on August 19, 2008 at 2:00pm — 14 Comments

2008 Worlds Day One of Singles Competition

All of today's Am scoring is here.

I played a pretty terrible round at Oshtemo, figuring by the time I was done it was about 880-rated. However, it turned out to be rated 914 (still not good) and enough to tie me for first in the Am Senior Grand Master group (with Chuck Hornsby, who I figured I would be seeing a lot of). I had three (3) putts hit metal and roll away, two for bogies and a… Continue

Added by Terry "the Pirate" Calhoun on August 11, 2008 at 5:45pm — 3 Comments

Getting Started at the 2008 Worlds

Well, I have to say that I am impressed by the courses here in the Kalamazoo/Battle Creek area. No disappointments yet and now I have seen them all. (At least the ones I get to play; plus I got to see Timber Ridge from the bottom of the slopes.)

This afternoon, Sheila and I went to Oshtemo (Sorry Ben, lots of poison ivy.) and played with Heidi (from Texas) plus Martha and her husband (Oops, forgot his name.) from western Washington state; they are both here in DGRUS. We threw from… Continue

Added by Terry "the Pirate" Calhoun on August 10, 2008 at 9:30pm — 5 Comments