WORST...FRISBEE GOLF COURSE...EVER!

The other day my karaoke komrade Bryan and I traveled up to Jackson, MI to shoot a round of frisbee golf at a course on the campus of Jackson Community College.

A round of 18 holes at our home course, Ottawa Park in Toledo, takes about an hour or just over an hour, longer if the course is busy. So we figured this wouldn't take long.

Over 3 hours later...

I wish I could meet the person who designed this JCC course. I'd like to shake their hand. And then snap it off at the wrist and slap them silly with it. And then break their arm off and beat them to death with it.

My lack of god. The horror. The horror.

The first hint of an actual course we were able to spot was the 4th basket. We figured it would be easy to backtrack to the first tee. The problem was, the 4th basket was near the edge of an open field, thus we had no idea in which direction we would find the 4th tee. After a bit of searching we found the 5th tee. This did not help.

After some more wandering around trying to get our bearings, spotting a few baskets here and there in the distance, we found the 8th basket. Not far from that was the 2nd basket. Oy. By this time my feet already hurt, and we hadn't even started playing yet!

We traced back along what we hoped was the 2nd fairway, and after close to a half hour of walking around lost and disoriented we finally spotted two other players. They directed us towards the first tee the best they could, but it still took some searching to find it.

We played the first two holes, then it was back to more looking around in vain trying to find the 3rd tee. Luckily our guides from before reappeared and got us to it. Mind you, there was no marker or sign for it, but they assured us that the tee was 'near this patch of dirt right about here.'

Hole #4 was nearly 500 feet long, half the length of the Monster hole at Hudson Mills. The fairway, as I said earlier, was just an open field, covered with weeds and those ugly little white round shriveled-up-dandelion-looking things (are those dandelions?) that draw bees so you have to watch your step. But the bees were nothing compared to the horse flies (as in 'as big as') and other bugs that come at your head.

Then it was back to the 5th tee. We played back across the field toward a basket we saw a few minutes earlier, believing it to be hole #5. Only after we finished it did we see the number on the other side of the basket. "6". So we had to backtrack into the woods to find tee #6 and hole #5 and then go back to tee #5 and start over.

We got thru #7 and had to do more searching for the 8th tee. Got thru 8, 9 and 10, then found tee #11. Did I mention the rough? There's a lot of rough on this course. And it is beyond rough. If you dare play this course, bring plenty of extra discs, because the rough on this course will eat discs like Melmackians eat cats. It is only thru stubborn persistence that we managed to escape with all the discs we brought with us.

So there was a lot of rough on 11. We tried our best to stay on the extremely narrow fairway, but at one point Bryan's disc was MIA for maybe 15 minutes. We finally found it, and finished the hole. Then we noticed the number on the basket. "12". Not again! And after all that searching around for the lost disc. AARRGH!

So we traipse back to tee #11. Did I mention the tees? Most other frisbee golf courses have concrete tees, about 4'x8'. Not here. The tee-off areas were basically just patches of dirt, marked by a pile of rocks nearby with the hole number, distance and a vague line showing the course direction painted on a flat slab of rock sort of resembling a cemetery headstone, perhaps marking the makeshift graves of previous frisbee golfers who had killed themselves rather than play this wretched course any further!

So we re-examine the marker for hole #11. What we had mistaken for the fairway was just a mown path for walking. There was no other fairway in sight, but right by the marker was a hint of a narrow path down a steep hill. A broken neck waiting to happen. Farther down the hill was a lot of rocks and mud, and a large puddle. Beyond that was more rough and then a clear patch. It couldn't be, we thought. It couldn't possibly...The three of us cautiously and reluctantly make our way down the steep hill.

We get to the clear patch. It's part of a fairway with a basket at the other end. Now we are in a state of furious denial. Bryan has the younger legs, so he runs ahead to check the basket number. Sure enough it's 11. Now we are just plain furious! We refuse to go back up the hill, and we tee off from the front end of the fairway.

From that travesty we're off to tee #12. Hole 12, which we know from before, is straight up a hill. Did I mention the numerous elevation changes on this course? If you dare play this course (and by this time I hope I have talked some sense into you and you will heed this warning and avoid this course like the plague), wear good hiking shoes because you will be trudging up and down a LOT of hills.

Holes 13, 14 and 15 also require quite a bit of recon. By now we have learned to spread out a bit until one of us finds the right tee/hole. By now we are also just about ready to drop from exhaustion.

While the other two find their way to tee #15, I happen upon basket #16. This is the 2nd-stupidest thing about this course, after the insane layout of hole #11. I am later informed that a JCC student laid out the course. I must assume this idiot was on drugs at the time. How else do you explain 11?

In fact, at several points throughout the course I noticed a faint hint of a white line which I presumed was meant to lead one around the course. But since it was so faint and inconsistent it utterly failed to act as any sort of a reliable guide, I am left to theorize that perhaps this trail was whatever kind of powdered substance this idiot was snorting while plotting out the course, slowly leaking out of their pocket?

Anyway, back to basket #16, which as I said was only surpassed in idiocy by hole #11. Any other basket on any other course (and in fact every other basket on this course) is set in a clear spot. 16, however...oy. I meet Bry at tee #15. "Wait til you see hole 16! You won't believe how stupid it is!"

Yes, basket #16 is planted in a patch of weeds. This is sort of like putting a regular golf hole in a bunker. Bryan's putting game has been off all day, he really better improve by the time he gets to 16!

With two holes left, we grab a seat on the ground under the gigantic shadow of the campus water tower. There is a road nearby. This would probably be the best place to park next time we play this course, and we'd just start on hole 17 and finish on 16. That is, if we were ever crazy and masochistic enough to play this course again, which I highly doubt.

If you're enough of a masochist to try it, I should probably add that our guides from earlier in the day warned us to tuck our pant legs in our socks and hope to avoid ticks. So for that extra boost of punishment, if you'd like to risk Lyme disease, kick your shoes and socks off and go for it!

Or if you're allergic to bee stings, perhaps venturing into the 4th 'fairway' will lead to your being stung to death, thus sparing you most of the horrors we encountered. Which tee marker would you like to be buried under?

Jackson Community College: WORST. FRISBEE. GOLF. COURSE. EVER!

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