Contributed by:
Brendan Leonard/YourHub.com
Article Contributed on: 2/24/2006 4:45:51 PM
Community Assistant Eric Lubbers and I are going to attempt to play every disc golf course in the YourHub.com circulation area, from Boulder to Castle Rock, by the end of summer 2006. This blog is our first course on a preliminary list of 14 courses.
Globeville Landing Park, at Platte River Drive and I-70 in northern Denver, isn't in the most picturesque of neigborhoods. Bordered by a Pepsi plant to the south, a set of railroad tracks to the northeast, and I-70 to the north, it's not exactly Highlands Ranch.
So we probably shouldn't have been really surprised when we found a tent set up in a grove of trees in the middle of the first hole while we were looking for Eric's disc. (I don't call them "homeless people," like a lot of folks do -- I prefer to say "urban campers." And that's why.)
As far as the disc golf course set up there goes, however, it's pretty minimal. Even crappy, some might say, what with its complete lack of tee boxes (we had to guess where the start of each hole was, based on this map), rusty ToneTube holes and proximity to a "creek," which flows with what one can only assume is effluent from the Pepsi plant on the other side of the street.
But it beats working on a Thursday afternoon. We had 50-degree sunny weather and no wind. The only bad part of the afternoon, for me, was my rusty disc golf skills.
I managed to continue a terrible hook I've always had whenever I try to make a throw of any distance. There are not that many trees at the Globeville Landing Park, but I got close to all of them. My second shot on the second hole had to go through a grove of trees instead of around them, and my follow-through nearly took my hand off on a branch.
I also managed to send my drive on No. 3 over a fence on the left side of the hole, which bordered railroad tracks. I climbed the fence without incident or any wounds requiring a tetanus shot, managed to put my second shot still on the railroad tracks-side of the fence. On my way to pick it up, about 40 feet from where I had climbed over, I found a hole in the fence so big that I could almost walk through it without crouching down. No wonder there were so many empty wine bottles there.
Through all this, Eric played like he'd been practicing all winter, with straight drives for the most part and the occasional missed putt.
When we teed off on the eighth hole, of course my drive sailed way left and terribly short, coming to rest near a deck that overlooks the Platte River. A man in a wheelchair had been quietly sitting on the deck all through our game, and when I walked over to pick up my disc, he wheeled over to me. He handed me a small piece of paper and said, "Frisbee Golf poem."
I said, "Thank you, sir," and put it in my pocket.
The poem:
"Feb-23-06
NOT YET APRIL
Winter
Pauses
He and I
Continue
Competing
Ring the chain
Beneath the sun
Floating on
A gentle breeze
M.M.
Globeville Landing Drunken Poet"
To finish the round, we had to tee off over the creek, or "Lake Pepsi," as Eric dubbed it. Now, I don't know what is in that water, or if it was actually water, but I have an idea that if a dog ran into Lake Pepsi, its owner would be pulling out a skeleton on a leash a few seconds later. So needless to say, I didn't really want my disc to land in it.
But we both made it over Lake Pepsi and finished out the hole in time for dinner. It was an ugly course and an ugly game to match.
Eric 35
Brendan 39