John Houck has kindly agreed to write a daily diary to give us all some insight into his thought process as he designs the South Course this week at the National Disc Golf Center near Augusta.

Thursday, May 20th

Day One: Walking The Creek

I got into Augusta a little after 2:00. I wondered if there's something going on in town this weekend -- I've been here three times now, and this is the first time the (small) plane has been full. After checking in at the hotel and grabbing some coffee, I got to the park a little after 4:00.

For about four hours, I walked around the area designated as the South course. Jim Kenner is designing the East course, while Chuck Kennedy (with Tom Monroe) is doing the North course. Besides the amusing correspondence between the areas we're working and where we live (the East course guy is from Michigan; the North course guy is from Minnesota; the South course guy is from Texas), there's a correspondence between our Augusta terrain and the terrain at home. Jim, whose best-known design is probably Tobaggan, has the steepest slopes to work with here. My course is the flattest and will be the longest. And Chuck's course has the most water, because, um, he comes from the land of 10,000 lakes. I swear there are more mosquitoes on his course, too.

The main feature of my course is the creek that runs through it to the lake, so I started by walking the length of it. There are some nice flat spots, small small cliffs, and about every slope in between. For the most part, the brush here isn't too bad. I only gave up a little blood, but the ticks were pretty friendly in spots. I think I'll be OK in shorts, which is good, since it looks like it's going to be pushing 90 degrees the whole time I'm here.

With that concept in mind, I started looking for places to make longer and wider fairways, so I can make some Teaxs-style par 4's and 5's where players will be able to open up a little. Just finding areas like that will be hard work � this park is solid woods, and we have restrictions on the kind of trees we can take out. It's mostly gigantic pine trees -- loblollies, I think they're called � and we can take out any of those if they're under 6� in diameter. If they're bigger than that, we'll need to get approval from the Corps of Engineers before we can remove them. Then there are hardwoods like oaks and maples. We need to keep hardwood removal to an absolute minimum. So I'm looking for places where we can make 900' fairways that are at least 20' wide. It'll be a good challenge.

John Houck

Friday, May 21st

Day Two: The First Hole

Before hitting the course, I picked up some bug spray, some sun block, and a bunch of florescent flagging tape. Most important, I stopped by Brian Graham's office to get some maps. As always, he had everything I might need and more: aerial photos (big and small), topos, aerials with topo lines. Yesterday I wasn't quite sure where my boundaries were, so, map in hand, I headed back out to do some more exploring. There are horse trails southwest of the NDGC, and Brian had negotiated a swap of sorts with the horse people: they got a 2-acre open area that had been part of my course in exchange for some more territory to the west. I headed that way first.

Any time I find a decent-size opening between the trees, I put up some flagging. Marking �gates�
that a disc can pass through really helps me get my bearings, because once I walk another 100', I won't be able to see through the trees. If I can get several gates to line up, I may have a fairway.

Next I went to try to find the imaginary line that divides my course from Chuck's. While I was wandering around, I found a really nice spot for a basket. It was in a pretty open area above the creek (out here, �open� means maybe 80' x 40'). There were several big trees near by, and they seemed to be arranged so that there were three alleys leading in to where the basket would be. Working backwards, I found a flat spot across the creek that would make a pretty good landing area. Now... would I be able to work back another 250'-300'? I did, and it was kind of exciting. There was really only one way to go: back down the creekbed. Every other direction had too many trees. When I got back to a decent distance, the land sloped up sharply from the creek... just in time to make a really nice elevated tee. As an extra bonus, it throws over a big long tree trunk that's growing out at about a 30-degree angle to the ground.

I walked back toward the basket, marking the edge of the fairway along the way, and making sure I hadn't missed anything. Turns out there was about a 4� hardwood in the middle of the fairway, right at the beginning of the landing area. I bet we'll be able to work it out.

It looked great. My first Augusta hole. Kind of exciting. Of course there's no way to know if it will still be there a week from now. It may be that the course needs to run the other direction. Or it may be that I'll come back out tomorrow and decide I was temporarily insane. But it's there for now, and for future reference I'll call it the three gates hole.

Once I feel like I've seen everything and have a good overview, I pick out a few sections to look at more closely. At this point I'm just looking for potential fairways, good spots for greens, good spots for tees, and good landing areas. Finding a complete hole is a huge bonus at this point. Inevitably, I'll find an alley, follow it back to see where it leads, and then get distracted by another cool feature a little off in the distance. Not very methodical, but sometimes that's the best way to find things.

In fact, that's how I found my second hole of the day. It's got tremendous potential � much more dramatic than the first hole -- and I spent the better part of an hour trying to find a tee that would offer a hyzer and an anhyzer option. Eventually I realize that all this time will be wasted if this hole doesn't make the final cut, so I move on.

All in all, it was a good day. Seven and a half hours, two rolls of tape, two new holes, and only two ticks. Highlight of the day: the frog who saw me coming and took a header into the creek from a height of 8 feet. Brave frog. I gave him a 9.0.

John Houck

Saturday, May 22nd

Day Three: It's a Vision Thing

Brian came out in the morning, and it was a great help to have his experienced eyes. I showed him a few areas I was a little concerned about � so many hardwoods and/or big pines that I wasn't sure we'd be able to make fairways. He helped me understand that taking out a few hardwoods here and there will be OK, and that we'd rather take out a 6� maple than a 24� pine. We still want to save as many trees as we possibly can, but our hands aren't tied quite as much as I was thinking.

I got my woods course education doing the Garland Scout Ranch course in Louisiana, and I've done several courses in thick cedars, so I'm fairly skilled at seeing fairways where there are none; Brian has a lot more experience making woods holes. As he said, �I can look around now, and I don't even see anything smaller than six inches.� That's where you want to be out here. He seemed to like my gate-marking method, which would come in handy later in the morning.

I showed him the three gates hole and the cliff hole, and he gave them both thumbs up. I think they're both strong holes, and while I'm trying to keep my mind as open as possible at this point, I'm ready to start looking at routings that incorporate those two holes as �anchors.� At some point you have to something solid to start building upon.

I explained to Brian that I was looking for good landing areas and places to make fairways long enough for good par 4's and 5's. When we went back to one area I thought might accommodate a par 5, we discovered a nice big landing area I hadn't seen yet. �This is really big,� he said, with some amazement. He seemed really impressed � I didn't understand why until I visited Patriots Park later in the day. Patriots Park is not too far from Wildwood (it's actually in Columbia County), and this landing area was substantially wider than any of the fairways in the woods there. So while this landing area was a little smaller than what I'm used to, it apparently looks like farmland to someone from Augusta.

Unfortunately, it didn't really lead us anywhere, so we went back to the original landing area I'd been looking at yesterday. It was maybe even a little bigger (100' by 25' or maybe even 30' I'd guess). And it was at the base up a nice ridge, so that the approach to the pin would shoot up almost 20' � it was pretty spectacular.

So we stood on the downhill end of the landing area and looked for a way to get in. There were a lot of big trees, but one direction looked like it might not be so bad. We headed that way for about 250', marking a couple gates as we went. So far so good. Decent place for a dogleg. Now where?

We headed in what looked like the path of least resistance, and it was pretty promising. At one point, Brian pointed out that we were getting a little close to the basket on the cliff. �Too close? Do you think shots are going to hit trees and zing over by that basket?� My ignorance of how discs carom in the woods required me to defer to an expert. �No, I think we're OK.� �Well, let's try a little different direction just to be safe.�

We slid the whole fairway over about 20', and good things started to happen. We hit some new growth that would be easy to take out, and we started to get a little extra elevation. But there were several huge pine trees right in the middle of the fairway... surrounded on both sides by smaller trees. Perfect.

We would be able to split the fairway at that point, essentially making two fairways with the big trees down the middle. �Look, righties could stay left here to set themselves up for a big hyzer on the next shot. Or they might actually prefer to be over here to try a big 'S' to the base of the hill.� One of my main goals out here is to make fairways with options � something you don't see too much of on woods courses. We were in business.

We retraced our steps to take another look, and it seemed like it all fit together nicely. Brian wondered if the hole might work backwards, with the tee on top of the hill. I had thought about that, but I was afraid that the main landing area was too close to the hill, and that good drives would fly over it. But from the top of the hill, with a tight gap to hit, and a little curve on the shot, it looked the the distance might actually be just right. And it was beautiful. So we can't lose either way, and having that flexibility will make the routing a lot easier.

That little exercise reminded me of a lesson I shouldn't have had to re-learn. If we hadn't been concerned about being to close to that basket, I might have never found that other (better) fairway. That's the way it is in the woods. You can be 30' from a nice feature and not know it. If you don't take the time to look at every area from every angle, there's a good chance you're going to miss something. We didn't see the better fairway from where we had been standing, but only because there were a few trees in our way. Once we got around those trees, a whole new world opened up. I need to make sure I don'tt make that mistake again.

Before we broke for lunch, we looked at one more area. It looked to me like a great place for a tee, but it had one of Chuck's stakes on it. I didn't remember it from when Chuck walked us through his course, and it didn't match up with the map he gave us, so I wanted to see if Brian remembered it. He didn't.

This tee would be a natural place to tee from after the three gates hole. There was only one way to go: between Chuck's #17 and my three gates hole. That would be just about over the bridge that crosses the creek. And, lo and behold � another big juicy landing area on the hillside beyond the creek. And a couple options to go 600' farther. The bridge hole is born. Suddenly I've got two potential par 5's, and I'm way ahead of schedule. (That is, if Chuck and Tom don't need that tee. Looks like I might be buying some drinks this week. Maybe even dinner, if that's what it takes.)

Brian had some errands to run, so after lunch (thanks, Brian) I headed back alone to see what kind of potential holes I had to connect the five (potential) holes I had in the bag. A rain delay left me in the car for about 20 minutes, so I started to draw things up.

When I got back out � amazing how it keeps �raining� in the woods even when it's dry in the open -- I found a nice little downhill shot from the top of the ridge. It had a touch of hyzer, and a green that falls away to the left, so a sloppy shot would leave a long uphill putt.

I looked at ways the bridge hole could go, and there are 2-3 good possibilities � more flexibility at this point is good.

Chuck will be here Monday, and Tom Tuesday, so I decided that I should concentrate on figuring out what I want to do on the ridge that borders their course. I may need to ask for a concession or two, and I promised that they could use whatever area I don't need.Time to start making some drawings.

About 5 � hours on the course, an hour of paperwork, almost two rolls of pink tape, and three new hole ideas. Definitely a good day. To top it off, I went and played Patriots Park. It's mostly in the woods, and a couple of the holes just looked about impossible to me. Looks like I'm going to need a little more education from Mr. Graham. (Almost got an ace, too -- I knew that hole wasn't really 280'.)

John Houck

Sunday, May 23rd

Day Four: The Only Way to Go is Down

Walking out of the Circle K, I noticed that yesterday's rain had left some nice red mud on my rental car. My little Ford Focus was starting to look like my car at home, covered with that beautiful red San Saba mud. Could be a good omen.

Besides the general tasks of learning the property and finding holes hidden in the woods, I gave myself five specific questions to answer today.

1. �Can the short downhill tee become the par 5 tee?� A quick look revealed that it probably wouldn't work too well. The angle is awkward, and there are a lot of trees that would have to come out. It's a fantastic place for a tee, tall and offering a great view of the creekbed. I'm very inclined to use it for a short, almost straight hole. But I need to be careful not to get too attached.
2. �Is there another way to get to the bridge tee?� I was afraid there wouldn't be enough room, because the bridge hole is within 150' of Chuck's #17 (there's plenty of buffer). The only way to do it would be to cross the bridge, walk through that fairway, and play a short hole that would probably get in Chuck's way. Or... put the preceding hole on the high side of the bridge, walk across the bridge, and tee off. It's a short enough walk. Too easy. That's a huge option to have in my pocket.
3. �Is there a back way around the par 5?� (I need a way to refer to that hole. I think I'll call it B5, in honor of Brian, and in honor of one of my favorite sci-fi shows). I have a growing desire to have that hole tee downhill � I just really think it'll make more of a lasting impression. As it stands, it pretty much defines the western edge of the course. A �back door� routing would give me another option, and it would make use of a nice crescent-shaped ridge that I would otherwise never get to. As it turned out, that area has a sparse (for Wildwood) tree density, which is nice. But wait, there's more. In the interest of being thorough, I looked a little farther west, across the logging road. Holy cow � there's a gorgeous area back there that's open (for Wildwood), has a nice dropoff, and has two tasty rock outcroppings. I thought maybe Chuck and Tom had found this area, but there was no flagging anywhere. If I don't need this little gem, it'll make a good gift to them... or trade bait. Wow.
4. (At this point I'd been out there less than 45 minutes, and everything was going my way. I felt like the great designer in the sky was giving me a week-late birthday present.) �Measure the par 5 (B5) downhill tee � is the landing area too close?� I stood on the spot where I thought that tee would likely go. Man, it's pretty. I was on such a roll, I didn't want to measure it and get a disappointing answer. Besides, I have three ways to control the distance on that shot: tighten the gap a little (nothing crazy, just enough to make people think twice about throwing full throttle), add a little more curve, and back up the tee. It'll work, and if it doesn't, I'd rather find out on a day when everything's falling apart � that day is almost certainly coming. It always does.
5. �Go to Chevron.� OK, that one's not a question. And I had already taken care of it on my way to the park. The Chevron is the last store before you get to Wildwood. Next to it are one or two houses, set fairly far back from the road. The property is landscaped all the way to the road, and most of it is just solid loblollies. It looks like they cleared out everything else and just left the big loblollies where they were. I walked around a little to learn what the course would look like if we did the same thing. I had been thinking that we might leave some areas in their �natural� state � with the big trees right where nature put them. There would inevitably be several routes to get through them, and it would be up to the player to find the best one. I like the way it looks, but I think it would be best if I carefully removed key trees, making sure there were enough good routes left... but making it look random.

So I hadn't even been out an hour, and I had all the answers I wanted. And they were all the right answers. So I gave myself free time to look a little farther up the creek just for fun.

The rain only lasted about 10 minutes today, but I sat in the car for about half an hour, drinking coffee and doing a couple sketches. I realized that I just about had 9 (potential) holes ready to go, and I had only used about a third of the land available. And that was with three par 5's and two par 4's. I figured I should spend the rest of the day looking at the flatter area out by the street to see what, if anything, I might want it for. I had been thinking I would probably need it for at least two par 5's, but if I was able to make long holes back in the hilly areas, why would anyone want flat ones?

I guess the answer is that maybe the flat holes could be wider. That would be nice.

I walked around for over an hour, looking for good gates, open areas, and areas with small trees. It occurred to me that looking for potential fairways in the woods is kind of like looking at those hidden 3-D pictures: you need to kind of unfocus your eyes and see through the distractions. It seemed that, if I spent enough time looking, I could probably find just about whatever kind of (flat) hole I wanted. So I marked areas that looked interesting, but I finally decided I'd be better off deciding what kind of holes I wanted first.

So tomorrow morning will be paperwork time. And buying more pink flagging day. I've already gone through four rolls, and almost two rolls of orange.

Very good day.

John Houck

If John is having that much fun designing this course,
we should be getting very worried. :cool:

Or very excited.

Wow! Thanks Brian. It's a lot of fun hangin' with Houck's thoughts on building this course.

Thanks Brian and John!!

I'll echo that Brian. Since my new passion is hole design and I have to give it up to Mr. Houck as a guy that a lot can be learned from when doing so, this is a lot of fun for me. And, very useful. Please keep 'em coming.

I even found some interesting news tidbits in there like:

"Newsflash: John Houck plays disc golf, almost has an Ace. Film at 11." :D

J/K John. Keep up the good work, you lucky dog.

If John is having that much fun designing this course,
we should be getting very worried. :cool:

Or very excited.



Probably both....

KEEP THEM COMING, GREAT READING!!!!!

I am loving this!!!! Thanks John for taking the time to document your experience. I enjoy designing holes* more than playing them, so this is a special treat for me!

*I have only been lucky enough to design object holes (3 different 9-holers) at this point, but hopefully one day ...

[Hi, gang. The last few days have been long and tiring. This little piece will get us almost caught up -- I'll try to get my sketches to Brian in a few hours so he can scan and post them. --John]


Monday and Tuesday, May 24th and 25th

Days Five and Six: Many Questions, One Answer

I did a lot of sketches Monday morning over breakfast. Maybe the hardest thing for me out here is putting the strategy I'm used to in the par 4's and 5's. On the par 4's I try to make one side of the fairway preferable: that side gives you a shorter or more open or more risk-free approach. But that “good” side has to be harder to get to and/or riskier (often it's next to trouble). The other side of the fairway is easier to get to, but leaves you a tougher approach. It's not necessarily always easy to do, but it's a simple concept.

Here, in the woods, though, if the fairways are only 20'-30' wide, there's just not enough room to have that kind of gradation: if you're 10' from the right edge of the fairway, you're pretty much 10' from the left edge. And on par 5's, I always try to have a “standard” 3-shot option (usually three 300' shots) and a “heroic” 2-shot option that requires two huge (and accurate) 450' shots. But when your fairways are tight and twisting, that can be just about impossible to do. It's not a question of distance – you can dial back the scale to correspond to the tighter fairways – it's the shape of the fairway. You can't cut the corner on a tight S-shaped fairway, and you can't fly over the corner when all the trees are 50' tall.

I pulled out one of my course design books for inspiration. Looking at drawings of great holes, I realized that while bunkers usually help define the width of a fairway, designers can also use bunkers to give players a distance option: lay up in front of it or fly over it. Can't do that with these trees.

Sometimes ball golf designers will create a completely isolated landing area, separated from the main fairway by unplayable rough, rocks, a pond, etc. That would be fine, but these holes would have to be separated by... tall trees. You might not even be able to see the people you're playing with. “Hey, John – did you find your dive? I think you're probably out.”

“I'm by that big tree with the broken branch – I'm probably about 350'.”

“I think I'm about 340', so you're out. Give a shout after you throw.”

But there's always an answer, right? In fact, the different things you can do with a disc might allow for solutions ball golfers never dreamed of.

So I started sketching up some ideas. I'm not much of a graphic artist, so you may not be able to understand them, but I'll put them up anyway.

Diagram A shows a green that has an opening that's perpendicular to the tee. With a few well-placed trees in the fairway, you can't get through this opening from the tee – discs just don't fly that way. So it's basically a 2-shot hole, with a heroic route coming in from the other side. (“Heroic,” by the way, is a term ball golf designers use. I use it to mean a shot that requires great skill and involves great risk.)

In order for this concept to work, the heroic route would have to be long and tight, so much so that if you didn't make it all the way to the pin, you'd be in big trouble. It just wouldn't make sense if anyone could try it, miss it, and still get to the pin in two shots.

Of course, this 2-shot vs. 1-shot option is not something you normally see in ball golf (that doesn't mean we couldn't do it). So the diagram below and to the right shows how the same concept would work on a 3-shot hole.

Diagram B combines two other concepts. The left and right routes have a minimum distance requirement: here the heroic shot gets you there in two, but only if your drive is long enough. Depending on how tight the fairway is, there might be a sharp corner at 400'. If you're short of that, the best you could do would be to pitch up to the corner, after which you'd be looking at another tough shot.

The middle route throws a curved shot up to a row of trees. The row of trees is pretty much parallel to the flight of the incoming shot, so you can't really get through the “wall.” The trees are spaced 8' to 10' apart, so that if you're close to the wall, you'll have at least one, and probably two, easy routes through. The farther away you are, the tougher it'll be to get through. So that gives us the gradient I was hoping for: shots close to the wall are better, and the better the shot, the more reward. Of course, if you get too close, you may be right up on a tree and have tough lie.

Get as close as you can, but don't get too close. That's just about perfect, like having a dogleg next to water. I saw a hint of this at Ewing in Des Moines. It was one of my favorite holes – I think maybe #6. There are lots a places to throw your drive, but one place was down to a “wall” of 3-4 trees, I think, that gave you 2-3 routes to the pin.

The problem here at the NDGC is that if you can't clear for 200' past the wall, there's no fairway to throw into. So maybe the area beyond the wall has more trees – but there must always be a route through.

Diagram C shows a hole where the heroic drive actually winds up on the same line as the “regular” drive, but it gets there by throwing a big huge curving shot through a gate. That's one thing these loblollies are good for: making very well-defined tall gates. They don't have any foliage for the first 30' of more, so they're very striking visually, and they're very fair (no little unseen branches to knock a shot off line). Of course, you're not likely to find two of them all alone – clearing a fairway like this would probably mean taking out a good number of loblollies.

There's one thing I really like about this concept. Everyone plays the same fairway, and that's a very good thing.

Diagram D shows a fairway with obstacles in the middle. Basically, you have to go right or left. The left route is easier but leaves you farther from the pin. The right route is tougher off the tee but easier on the approach. Simple but effective.

Finally Diagram E shows an idea I actually added later. This is something I don't think you'll ever see in ball golf. This time the heroic route is actually much shorter. It's two very tough technical shots. If you can execute them both, back-to-back, you can save a stroke. Otherwise you're playing for a four like everyone else. It's an interesting concept, but I'm not sure I'm ready to try it this week.

Chuck came out Monday afternoon, so we spent a while looking over the area where our courses border each other. We talked about where each of us wanted to be. The big disappointment was that we had apparently found that sweet rock outcropping when we where here last time. It was at the end of a long tiring day, so I guess I had just forgotten, but Chuck hadn't. No new bargaining chip for me. Oh well.

On Tuesday, I wasn't making much progress on anything until... I came upon a nice landing area on the edge of the ravine (If you follow the creek far enough, the bed gets to be about 8' deep and maybe 30' wide, and it's dry). There was a tee throwing to it right down and across the ravine. So far, so good. Then I found a shorter safer landing area across the ravine... sweet. What if there was a heroic crush straight down the ravine? That would be perfect. It was there.

It was like all my prayers had been answered. Three separate landing areas, all with increasing risk and increasing reward. To top it off there was about 300' feet of rolling, multiple-alley, terrain leading into a nice green. Holy cow. It was just about perfect.

I didn't get much else done Tuesday. Just one new hole, but what a hole. Made my day.

Here is a link to an image file of the design sketch that John references above:
Houck Design Sketch (http://members.aol.com/pdgareg8/Houck.gif)

thats awesome stuff john, it gives me a whole new perspective on deigning holes. keep up the great work! :D

Sorry I've had to discontinue the daily updates. The days here have been very long, and while it's going well overall, I've been wondering if two weeks is going to be enough time to get it all done.

Time to get back out there. Happy Memorial Day, and thanks to those who have served.

SPOILED SPORT!!!! :mad:


;)

John,

Thanks for sharing what you have done so far. I know that a LOT of people on the board here enjoyed reading them.

Stay away from the tics and enjoy the red clay!

[John asked me to post his latest diary since he's having some difficulty with his laptop. - Chuck]

Monroe and Kennedy have come and gone and I'm still here working a few extra days to get a layout I'm proud of so Brian can invite the Corps of Engineers to review at least two layouts. Sometimes it seems to just fall into place in my head but then the hard knocks of a giant Tulip or Oak tree in the way brings progress to a halt on that route.

One side issue is how to handle the relatively deep ravines in some parts of the South course. My "advisors" have offered several options from just "play it where it lies", to casual relief, to OB marked with cables along both sides at the top. The decision impacts whether the risk/reward for the size and location of potential landing areas will be balanced properly.

When things look darkest, I think about how I could really mess with people and throw in a spiral hole. Naw, it can't be that hard to find the routes that will work. It's just more walking, more taping, more thinking, more testing, more sleeping... (I mean sleeping on it).

Those guys working on the North Course seem to know what they're doing after their three visits. That course is now ready for the Corps to review and might be the first to be built since it looks like there are fewer trees to remove on their routes. Having several lake holes helps in that regard.

We've all had to do tick recon each day. Any wordsmiths know if the feeling you get when a tick is crawling on you was the origin of the word "tickle?"

John

Wait! I'm confused, is John going to try and incorporate a diagram E hole into his design somewhere down the road? I hope so, that was my favorite option. Talk about great risk reward.

Also, for holes like those described, will there be T signs that define all the possibilities? Just curious�

This is great! Thanks for sharing with us!

Also, for holes like those described, will there be T signs that define all the possibilities? Just curious�



I hope not. Disc golf is about finding the options, not having them explained to you. :)

Respectfully....

The playability of these course's will depend on just how many of the trees can come down. Long holes with tight fariways in the deep woods, is a hard sell to most players.
If they can put two bulldozers side by side and crash thru the fairways that are designated, then those 6-900' holes will be a lot of fun.
The Headrick Memorial Course is ready for the final OK from the Corps and then the County can go to work on those pesky old growth trees.
We could be playing by USDGC time. Book that room at the Masters Inn and come on down South to play a little golf.

The playability of these course's will depend on just how many of the trees can come down. Long holes with tight fariways in the deep woods, is a hard sell to most players.
If they can put two bulldozers side by side and crash thru the fairways that are designated, then those 6-900' holes will be a lot of fun.



Keep in mind that sometimes wooded holes don't stay tight for long. There's a few formerly tight wooded courses in my area that have opened up significantly through player use. Recreational players have a tendency to remove tree branches that are in their line of play.

It will take a lot of effort for players to remove the lower branches 12 feet up on 18" southern pines let alone mess with the trees. Most of the small stuff will already be removed before play begins. Parts of some fairways will be nicer looking versions of telephone pole alleys.

It will take a lot of effort for players to remove the lower branches 12 feet up on 18" southern pines let alone mess with the trees. Most of the small stuff will already be removed before play begins. Parts of some fairways will be nicer looking versions of telephone pole alleys.



Brahan Springs II, Tom??

Keep in mind that sometimes wooded holes don't stay tight for long. There's a few formerly tight wooded courses in my area that have opened up significantly through player use. Recreational players have a tendency to remove tree branches that are in their line of play.



yeah....harold has to use lots of yellow rope to make up for all the trees the rec players took out at winthrop :D

Bill, B.Springs is wide open now compared to the last time you saw it. You can see the stadium from the front parking lot!
The Augusta courses' have huge old growth trees. They are not in tidy rows like B.Springs either
The undergrowth is not that bad, for the most part, and a bushog can take care of most of it.
The Headrick course does have the most beautiful water holes in GA. Just watch out for high tide.

OK. Staying three extra days made all the difference. I was able to make several important improvements to about 8 holes, and I was able to find alternate fairways in places where we may not be able to clear cut. I think I was able to do a couple things I'd never seen on woods courses (but then I haven't seen a whole lot of woods courses).

Chuck and Tom made huge improvements to the North Course, so now the Corps of Engineers will have two courses to look at. Fingers crosssed. Jim should be back soon to finish the East Course.

Thanks to my ghost writer (that last update was actually written by Chuck, not me) for filling everyone in.

I've got 2 1/2 weeks of other things to catch up on, but I'll see if I can put together a final report at some point. I can tell you this: it's a beautiful park, and there are going to be some great holes out there.

Thanks to Harold , Chuck, Brian G, and Mayor May for their input during the review process, and to Brian for making the whole thing happen.

Great reading - Thanks!

John,

If you have the chance to do so, I know I speak for many others as well as myself that we very much enjoy reading them.

You might consider having a condensed version published in DGWN.



Thanks again.

This is some excellent reading. The importance of keeping an open mind, spending tons of time on the site and letting that define your vision really comes through in your narrative. Thank you for taking the extra time to share your experience with us. We are all richer for it.

Jay

Soooo, speaking of the NDGC, can we have an update? :)

What is a realistic date the first course might be playable? :cool::)

I am DYING to take a big roadie to check the place out!! :) :cool::D

Yeah, I was wondering if the main thread was dormant because of a new topic somewhere.

Any news?

Right now it's all up to the Corps of Engineers.

They have to approve everything before we can start taking out any trees. There's no telling how long it will take them to come out and do that.

The PDGA will soon have a full-time employee there, so that might help speed things along.

Fingers crossed...

Thanks for the update.
Good to know.
If someone was to visit, over the Winter, what would they notice?
Flagging? Paint marked trees?
jw

The south and north courses are marked with stakes and/or flags. Matt Gillis will be working there soon and may be able to supply maps.

For a more throrough update on the big picture, see Brian Graham's update on the NDGC thread..

http://www.pdga.com/msgboard/showflat.php?Cat=&Number=254095&Main=26934#Post254095

June 1st-7th, 2005

Dear Diary,

It's hard to believe it's been a year already. Everybody figured we'd be further along by now, but all of a sudden we have lots of good news.

We'd been waiting for the Corps of Engineers to look over our layouts and see if they could/would take out all the trees we were hoping to take out. Well, it turns out that every 10-15 years they come through and thin out the forest... and that's happening this year.

That means that instead of trees every 5'-10', they're going to be every 30'. That is an enormous difference. Think about the South course, which has 12 par four and par five dogleg holes (plus 2 longer, curving par three holes): taking out just two key trees means there's no more dogleg. Fortunately, the Corps said that they would try to leave any trees we marked with pink tape (currently there's a picture on the PDGA's home page). What's more, they said they would try to take out pretty much any tree we wanted gone. Wow.

The bottom is line is that we were handed unprecedented control of the finished product. In a DGWN article I once compared designing a course to carving a sculpture; in this case, that analogy would be truer than ever.

I scheduled four days in early June to mark my course, review the other two courses, and check out a couple of the local Augusta courses (something I had hoped to do last year but never had time). On Thursday morning, June 2nd, I stepped on to the #1 fairway with two rolls of pink tape in my pocket. Hole 1 is a long, tight par five, with a fairway very well defined by big trees for the first 450'. In no time, I was out of tape, and I hadn't even gone halfway down the fairway. I was not going to get to review the other two courses, and I certainly wasn't going to get to visit the courses in town. I wasn't even going to be able to make it to dinner every night. This job, I quickly realized, was huge.

But I also realized that I had the chance to do something I had been dreaming of doing: customizing the rough. When I first started designing courses, I would automatically look for good places to put greens and tees. Eventually I began to appreciate the value of good landing areas -- which are generally harder to come by � and I found myself instinctively looking for them. The next step, surprisingly, was to learn to recognize good rough. A stand of trees spaced every 5'-10' won't often make a good fairway, unless it has lanes that are at least 200' long. But it can make great rough, and that's a feature that's almost nonexistent on most courses.

Think about courses in the woods. There are so many holes where you can nick a tree, kick 20' off the fairway, and have no shot. Frequently you're lucky if you can just pitch back into the fairway. That unforgiving rough results in one of the few major advantages ball golf currently has over disc golf. In ball golf, if you miss the fairway by just a hair (which usually means landing in slightly taller grass or a sand trap), you can still save yourself by making a great recovery shot. Recovery shots are very rare in our game, and we still don't have anything that really corresponds to taller grass or sand traps.

But with this new control over every tree in the forest, I was able to make the rough just as dense as I wanted. So if you miss the fairway by a hair, you should be looking at a tough but makable shot up the fairway, maybe through a 8' gap. And if you miss the fairway badly, you might be looking at a 4' gap. So there's a direct correlation between the quality of your drive and the difficulty of your next shot: the worse your drive, the more severe your penalty. If it works, it'll be real risk and reward. Fingers crossed.

Trying to make the rough perfect made the job tougher but a lot more fun. I don't know how many hours I spent on that first hole, but I bet I put ribbons on 150 trees. �Tree hugger� has a whole new meaning for me.

Meanwhile, Tom Monroe was out working on the North course, with Chuck Kennedy joining in on Friday. And Jim Kenner was back, this time with Ron Russell. They had the big Discraft RV, which they used for occasional air-conditioned breaks, Jim being a Yankee and all. Actually, Ron's been spending plenty of time on hot roofs in Florida, so the Augusta heat was no big deal for him.

We knew that the clearing could start at any time, so we were all eager to get our courses marked before the heavy equipment showed up. When we got hit with a few rain showers, we knew we'd bought some extra time � the crews won't come out if the property is muddy.

It was fascinating how we were all in different stages of the process. Jim and Ron were primarily concerned with a major re-design; the change in the tree clearing rules gave them a whole new perspective on the project. Jim worked mostly on the front nine, and Ron took the back. Chuck and Tom had enough good hardwoods and big pine trees on their course that they knew the thinning wasn't going to have as big an impact. Plus, they have several holes down by the lake, where the thinning wasn't even going to be an issue. They worked more in spots with smaller pines and were able to make a few notable improvements, including the �diamond� fairway, which will potentially give players two mirror-image two-shot routes separated by more than 100'. (We had several conversations about how players would know who was away... and who might be moving their minis.)

Whenever someone had a few fairways ready to go, they would call on the Blue Man, Matt Gillis. Matt would don his backpack paint rig and start spraying the trees that are supposed to come down. The woods became a strange-looking impressionistic mix of pink ribbons and blue splotches, with occasional lines of orange and green ribbons marking key spots and alleys.

Meanwhile, I was keeping the people who make pink tape in business. In addition to trying to maintain the integrity of my fairways, I was able to widen, re-shape, revise, reconsider, and address some of the course's weaknesses. After two days, it became obvious that I wasn't going to be able to get it all done. I called the airline and changed my flight, giving myself an extra day and a half to work. Here's a look at the main improvements I was able to make. I'll use the original numbering, but don't count on this list making any sense when you get to the NDGC � a couple of the changes I made will result in a new routing and a new numbering system.

1 Widened the fairway slightly and customized the rough on the drive; widened the landing area so that shots that fade a little at the end (righty or lefty) will have an open second shot; created a second, tighter-but-shorter route to the pin.

2 Widened the fairway enough to accommodate a new landing area, which I think most players will consider the primary landing area. From there, there are two new routes to the pin, both of which make better use of the elevation on that part of the course.

3 With the main route for #2 moved over, I was able to slide the tee for #3 over. The results are: a shorter walk between holes, less chance that a bad drive will hit a tree and kick into the #4 fairway, and ...

4 No changes (awesome hole)...

5 With the #3 tee moved, I had room for a new hole that makes much better use of a really beautiful area. The original #5 was probably the weakest hole on the course. It was a straight, tight shot over the creek, maybe 275'; there was nothing wrong with it, but it wasn't very creative, and it was a little too similar to the new version of #16. And it extended the �back and forth� routing of #1-#4. The new hole is beautiful and tricky, with a dramatic drop and the creek winding around the green, and it makes for a better transition. Now that the weakest hole on the course was gone...

6 I could turn my attention to #6, a hole I was never really happy with. But there wasn't enough time.

7 Made the landing area a little bigger and tweaked the obstacles on the approach.

8 This is the most ambitious hole on the course, from a design standpoint. Things got a little more complicated when we saw that the road into the course, which runs along the
last 450' of hole, was going to be widened, bringing it closer to the fairway. Fortunately, we got a surprise visit from Speedy Guererro, who volunteered to help for a few hours. He quickly became a master of the pink tape, making sure there would be a good buffer between the fairway and the road.

9 Opened up the tee quite a bit, gave the fairway a bit more curvature, and widened the fairway � leaving a few trees in the middle, so players will have a choice of routes.

10 Widened the fairway, again leaving an island of trees in the middle to create two routes. Lengthened the second shot... and left another island of hardwoods in the pine-lined fairway.

11 Same type of changes as 9.

12 I spent several hours on this hole last year, but I was never sure that I had nailed it. So I started in on it again. Eventually I was able to find a new tee that will (I hope) solve several problems. The angle on the dogleg had been close to 90 degrees, which I consider a little awkward, and it tempted people to cut across the parking area for horse riders. The landing area was a little too close to another tee, and the second shot was now getting close to the tee for new #5. And the basket was too close to where I wanted to move the #14 basket. On a course like this, you never know for sure what it's going to look like until the trees come down, but if I'm right, this will be one of the best holes on the course.

13 Not enough time.

14 Widened the fairway off the tee (fingers crossed � they may not be willing/able to take out a few very large pines on the hillside), widened the landing area, lengthened and straightened out the approach shot. I needed to move this basket to accommodate the new #5, and the changes to #12 allowed me to do that.

15 Not enough time.

16 Moved the pin away from the #17 fairway.

17 No changes

18 Added a wide hyzer option to the drive, moved the fairway over a bit, (making the hole just a hair longer), widened the approach to the pin, and added the heroic route I couldn't quite manage last year. This is a par five that will require three well-executed shots to get to the green. But if you're willing to take the risk, you can now get there with two superbly-executed shots. Caution: every mistake on the heroic route should cost you at least one stroke.

Even with the extra day and a half, I couldn't get to it all. I was going to have to come back. (When I got back to Austin, I started rooting for Tropical Storm Arlene to hammer Augusta, delay the clearing, and give me time to go on vacation.) And when Matt and I went through hole #8 with the blue paint, we saw that we had another problem: something was eating my pink tape. We had noticed this strange phenomenon last year, but now it took on a greater significance: if the tape fell off, and those trees got cut, entire fairways could be ruined. Were the insects in the woods really that desperate? Didn't they have anything better to eat than pink tape? Stay tuned for our next installment...

something was eating my pink tape.



BBQ sauce residue?? San Saba sweat?? (the bugs didn't seem to eat Tom's and my tape) :D

:)

...but what does "...it tempted people to cut across the parking area for horse riders." mean, so I don't read something into it? [!]

There's an open field parking area for horse trailers that borders that part of Houck's course. A 90-degree dogleg in the woods might not have been deep enough near there to prevent players from throwing across the parking area (unless you used the less desireable mando option).

Round 3

I got back to Augusta last Tuesday, June 28th. I had given myself about 8 hours Tuesday and all day Wednesday to finish the job. If needed I could squeeze in 3 more hours Thursday morning, but I really hoped I would be able to use that time to look at the East course, since no one (other than Matt, who painted all 18 holes) had seen Jim and Ron's new layout, much less reviewed it. (As head of design for the NDGC, I oversee the committee responsible for approving the layouts.)

I still had three holes up for significant revisions and three for minor tweaking. Of those six, four still needed extensive taping, and all needed some painting.

My review of the overall hole balance showed that my course still had a few more left-to-right shots than right-to-lefts, and it still lacked a big righty hyzer drive. Hole #13 looked to be the best opportunity.

I had originally tried to design that hole as a righty hyzer off the tee, but there were just too many big pine trees in the way. Now that the Corps was willing to take them out, there might be a chance. It helped that the area I wanted to clear was right next to the open field where the horse people park -- the crews would have lots of room to knock down and drag out those big pines.

My original tee was much better than the one I had settled on last year, so that should be a major improvement to that hole. In addition, moving that tee started a domino effect that helped several other holes (and therefore the course overall): I could now put the #12 basket near were the #13 tee had been, which allowed me to slide the #14 pin to where the #12 pin had been, which opened up the area that would become the new #5.

Of course there's no guarantee that they'll be able to clear that new tee on #13. If they can't do it, I'll have to compromise on some of the other changes. And that points to an important part of this process: the need to be flexible. We don't know for sure that they're going to be able to do everything we're hoping for. So as I went, I tired to clear alternate tees and sometimes even alternate fairways... just in case.

And working in the woods is always a bit of a gamble � it's very hard to mark a sweeping hyzer or anyhyzer shot when you can't see 75' in front of you. Sometimes you look at the finished product and say, �Oops. Discs don't fly that way.� I learned that on the very first woods hole I ever designed. #2 at Cain Park in Athens, Texas is still one of the funkiest holes I've ever seen. Incredibly, some people have found a way to play it.

Distance is always an issue in the woods, too. Besides the fact that your perception is constantly messed with, even measuring doesn't ensure success. I know how long a par five should be when the fairway is 100'-150' wide, but how long should it be when the fairway is 30' wide? Just in case I had misjudged some of the distances, I tried to clear room to move the tee and/or hole back later.

I was surprised to find that my balance review showed a lack of straight shots on the course. That's unusual for me, since I think normally have too few curving shots on a lot of my courses. It's also unusual for woods courses. Hole #15 gave me an opportunity to correct that weakness. I really liked the original tee on that hole, but it was a lot like the tee on #7, and that always bothered me. I found a new tee that gave me a straight fairway, created a little separation from #14, and moved away from the #16 pin. A winner all around... if they can do it. If not, there's a hyzer fairway that offers most of the same benefits.

I went back to #18 to tweak the heroic route. The concept is that, instead of playing the regular fairway, which doglegs left then right and requires three shots to reach the pin, there's an �island� you can drive to. It's about a 50' circle cleared out of the woods. If you miss the island, you'll be looking at about 500' of thick woods, but if you hit that �island, � you'll be looking at one of two tight alleys that will take you 400' to the green. If you miss your alley, you're again looking at thick woods.

So sure, you can get a three on the hole... but only if you make two perfect shots and hit your putt. Too much risk? You decide.

One of the key features of #18 is an area of dense woods that's maybe 200' long by 80' wide, right in front of the hole. It helps define the second dogleg , and it separates the regular and heroic routes. Unfortunately, there are a lot of small trees in there, and the thinning process was likely to take almost all of them out. If that area became �porous� the hole would be ruined. Without the tight approach to the pin, the hole would be way too short. I had some serious taping to do.

For the first time, I decided to count how many trees I could mark with one roll of tape. In this case I counted 61. Since a lot of these trees were smaller, I guessed that an average roll might cover 40. Realizing that I had gone through at least two boxes of twelve rolls each, I calculated that I had marked over 1000 trees. That's a lot of hugging.

And the bad news was that the eating hadn't stopped. Here and there throughout the course I found tape, eaten all the way through, hanging on a piece of bark or sometimes on the ground. I fixed it when I found it, but there's no way I found it all. Suddenly I was hoping for dry weather, so the crews could start work before all my tape disappeared.

The big issue on this trip was hole #6. The review committee had suggested that I move the fairway over to make use of the existing logging road, and I was able to get it to where I thought it had some cool features, but I was never happy. I tried moving the tee over (creating a big righty hyzer), and that resulted in something I hadn't ever thought of. The fairway had a sharp dogleg right, so that a hyzer drive actually finished away from the pin. You had incentive to flatten out your shot, but that made it tougher (of course a lefty could throw a big flex shot that faded toward the pin). Neat concept, but it wasn't meant to be on this course.

The new #5 and the new tee on #12 took #6 well out of the flow. But the old #5 tee was now available. From there, I could throw down the original #5 fairway, and then to the #6 pin. Or I could go to the original landing area for #6, and then to the pin. Or I could drive to a really neat area that wasn't being used, and then to the pin. Or maybe... I could do all three.

There were three really well-defined landing areas. All were reachable off the tee, and all had routes to the pin. This would be a hole with three separate options. To cut down on confusion, Matt and I decided to name them Papa Bear, Momma Bear, and Baby Bear. Papa had the biggest open landing area and the shortest, widest approach to the pin. Baby Bear was closest to the tee, but had the longest and tightest approach. Momma was right down the middle: medium hard to get to, and leaving a medium hard approach.

Of course, everyone would want to use the Papa route... unless it was the hardest to hit and/or offered the biggest risk. And no one would want to use the Baby route... unless it was the easiest to get to. Having choices off the tee is great, but if one option is clearly preferable, everyone will use that one.

So it was going to be a tough balancing act. In order to make the Baby more attractive, I found a second way to get there. Now the Baby should be easy to get to (although it's got a few baby teeth), but it's going to make you work on the second shot. In order to make Papa riskier, I created a narrow gate --a �field goal� if you will. Split the uprights, and you're sitting pretty. Miss 'em, and you're probably going to take a four on the hole. Easy drive and tough approach, or tough drive and easy approach? Or maybe you'd prefer two medium-hard shots. If so, Mama will be the way to go.

Will it work? The key will be placing the tee in a spot where all three options balance perfectly, so players really have to think about which way they want to go. We'll see. Once again, my fingers are crossed.

I was able to get enough done in time to make dinner Wednesday night. It's great now that Brian and Lorrie are living there -- I even got to stay at their place on this trip. Dave Gentry, who just moved into his new house this week, couldn't make it, and neither could the Mayor (Pete May), but Brian Graham was able to join us. I think everybody felt like we were about to turn a corner on this project. Get those crews out there, so we can finally have some fairways!

Thursday morning I got out there early, finished putting up the pink tape on hole #12, and eagerly headed over to the East course. I'm happy to say that, in my opinion, the new version is much, much better than the original. Under the new guidelines, Jim and Ron were able to make good use of some of the better features of that property (a tough job in spots, since some of it is pretty featureless). I wasn't able to spend as much time as I wanted, and I didn't even get to see a couple holes, but I left satisfied that we are on the verge of having three of the world's most memorable courses, which is what we've been shooting for.

The only bad news was that someone's been eating Ron's tape, too. I even replaced the tape on one tree. Which begs the question: why won't they eat Chuck's tape?

So we're looking really good overall, but we're not out of the woods yet (so to speak). There's one more element of chance on this whole project, in addition to all the ones I've already mentioned. Even if the Corps is able to take every single tree we ask for, and leave every single tree we want to keep, accidents are going to happen. We're dealing with very tall trees here, and it's going to be very tough to take some of them down without hitting � and damaging � some �keepers� as they fall. In fact, Matt just heard from the Corps that they might not be able to clear anywhere near as much as we wanted on South #8, which runs along the park road. We had been hoping to pretty much clear cut that hole, so that anyone driving by would get a good look at disc golfers in action. But there are power lines along the road, and you don't want trees falling on power lines.

I feel like I did everything I could to be ready for every possible outcome, but it's virtually a guarantee that we're all going to have to do some re-assessing after this next stage. Fingers and toes crossed.

We'll see how long it takes. Hope to have the next update within two months.

and it still lacked a big righty hyzer drive

you have to have some of these holes!!!! :D

The only bad news was that someone's been eating Ron's tape, too. I even replaced the tape on one tree. Which begs the question: why won't they eat Chuck's tape?



Does anyone else think that Chuck is eating the tape on the other courses?

and it still lacked a big righty hyzer drive

you have to have some of these holes!!!! :D



Of course you do, but it can be hard in the woods. Believe me, I was thinking about you when I did it.

But I also realized that I had the chance to do something I had been dreaming of doing: customizing the rough. When I first started designing courses, I would automatically look for good places to put greens and tees. Eventually I began to appreciate the value of good landing areas -- which are generally harder to come by � and I found myself instinctively looking for them. The next step, surprisingly, was to learn to recognize good rough. A stand of trees spaced every 5'-10' won't often make a good fairway, unless it has lanes that are at least 200' long. But it can make great rough, and that's a feature that's almost nonexistent on most courses.

Think about courses in the woods. There are so many holes where you can nick a tree, kick 20' off the fairway, and have no shot. Frequently you're lucky if you can just pitch back into the fairway. That unforgiving rough results in one of the few major advantages ball golf currently has over disc golf. In ball golf, if you miss the fairway by just a hair (which usually means landing in slightly taller grass or a sand trap), you can still save yourself by making a great recovery shot. Recovery shots are very rare in our game, and we still don't have anything that really corresponds to taller grass or sand traps.

But with this new control over every tree in the forest, I was able to make the rough just as dense as I wanted. So if you miss the fairway by a hair, you should be looking at a tough but makable shot up the fairway, maybe through a 8' gap. And if you miss the fairway badly, you might be looking at a 4' gap. So there's a direct correlation between the quality of your drive and the difficulty of your next shot: the worse your drive, the more severe your penalty. If it works, it'll be real risk and reward. Fingers crossed.



Hi John - would you mind expounding on this a little? It struck me that your description here of the nature of ideal DG rough matches up pretty closely with the majority of the wooded courses I have played in the SE. I can think of tons of times I have had to simply pitch out to the fairway and hope to get a lie that will give me a route to the basket. And I can think of a ton of times I have been challenged with airspace that took incredibly creative and/or accurate recovery shots.

Is what you are designing different than what is already here? I am from New England andknow that the woods there are not as dense in the underbrush department as in the SE. Of course the midwest and west have their own character as well. What happens a lot in the SE is that as courses get over-played a lot of the underbrush gets damaged and goes away. In that regard, I understand what you are saying with the 5-10' spaced trees.

I love your diaries - they inspire me to want to get a move on with my ideas and creativity in course design (unfortunately all in my head and not in reality right now :D). Thanks for your effort and contribution in designing courses AND for sharing your diaries!

After all the trees are cut, the only one's left should be the ones that define the fairways. That could significantly alter some of the escape routes.

Well, this past week I finally finished the design phase of the IDGC's South Course. The pin locations are now marked, as are the gold tee locations. I'm not sure when everything will be installed, but it'll be playable for the Hall of Fame Classic in April.

Hard to believe that it'll be almost three years from when it all started.

I've certainly never seen a more ambitious course in the woods. The fairways are long and generally pretty wide, and the amount of clearing was immense... which means the cleanup will be even more immense. Right now, volunteer crews (and I believe county crews) are still cleaning up the North Course, which has shorter and tighter fairways.

I want to thank Mike Olse for his help with the final phase last week. Also Matt Gillis for taking charge of the clearing, and his executive assistant Jeremy Dunsmore. And the club volunteers. Finally, everyone else involved with PDGA HQ and IDGC Committee super staff: Lorrie Gibson, Brian Hoeniger, Dave Gentry, Brian Graham, and Pete May.

Mike, Dave, and Matt helped test the holes last week, so I'm comfortable with all the hole lengths, shot variety, and likely scoring spreads.

It's taking a lot of work by a lot of people to see the IDGC vision through. Opening weekend will be a big one the history of disc golf.

I'll be working on getting together pictures and diagrams of the course, so people can get an idea of what to expect. Here's a quick overview:

Three par 5's in the 850'-950' range
Nine par 4's in the 500'-650' range
Two par 3's in the 350'-400' range
Four par 3's under 280'

Challenging, fun, and beautiful. At least that's the plan.

Glad you are through, John. I'm looking forward to playing it next week.

Watch your footing, Tom -- there are still a lot of logs and limbs down.

But I think you'll be happy with the cleanup that's happened on the North Course.

Have fun.

http://members.aol.com/pdgareg8/HouckTree.jpg
John Houck and Mike Olse finalizing the IDGC South Course layout


http://members.aol.com/pdgareg8/IDGC.jpg
The rear of the IDGC Headquarters building overlooks the skillshot course

Thanks, Brian. The building is looking great.

Got any better pictures of Mike? You know how his fans are.

I liked that picture of Mike just fine.
Who else could be hidden by a tree with a 3 inch trunk?

**** Ethiopian :D