Soccer Golf #2

Last Friday, Doug, Randy and I attempted round 2 of Soccer Golf. For those of you too lazy to click on that link, it basically consists of kicking a soccer ball from point A to point B, and counting the number of kicks that it takes. Every time that you touch the ball it counts as a stroke. There is also a 5 stroke penalty if you go into an unplayable situation (e.g. in a creek, in a tree, etc).

This time we did the same course as before, but went in the opposite direction, from work to Randy's house. While Randy and I waiiiiiiiiiited for Doug to show up, we did a few practices on the patio to see what kind of strategies we wanted to make for making it into the back field.

But it didn't really help much. We started off okay, navigating the patio and pathway and making our way to the bridge. We had all agreed that it was extremely risky to try and clear the ravine with a long kick. I was the only one who had attempted to cross the ravine going the opposite way. That way you at least have a slight elevation downhill advantage, and it still took me a chip shot from inside the ravine.

So we got to about 5 or 6 kicks. Randy was first to cross the bridge, and he gave it a pretty decent sized kick, only to find that the bridge had a little lip on it - his ball hit the lip and then bounded high in the air and went down into the ravine. He chose to not take the 5 stroke penalty but instead kicked his ball back out of the ravine and then over the bridge (more carefully this time). Doug made it across the bridge without a problem. I thought I was being careful but ended up hitting the lip too. My ball went further into the ravine, so I decided rather than taking the 5 stroke penalty or kicking back that I would play through. I think that ended up being the best move - it only took me 3 or 4 strokes to make it across to the other side of the bridge.

But Doug was already several strokes ahead of us at this point, a lead he would not relinquish. The next segment was going across the field, a place I was at a disadvantage due to my poor soccer skills. Then we crossed "Eastern Column" and moved on the south side of the street onto Innovation.

Aaaaannnnd let's just say there is a lot more traffic on Innovation at 4pm on a Friday than there was at noon.... We definitely had to evade a few cars, and one guy even shouted out the window "How stupid are you?", an epithet that we chose not to answer. At one point, Randy got his ball stuck on the side of the road, and there was a girl riding her bicycle, and a big semi truck coming, so he chose to take the 5 stroke penalty so as to avoid any unfortunate accidents.

That put him about even with me, with Doug 3 or 4 strokes ahead. We made it onto the service road (see the previous post if you want a map) and I made some good kicks here. It was definitely tricky getting the right combination of momentum to keep the ball rolling with not wanting to go too far into the underbrush.

We also noticed that Duke (or someone) had cut down the trees that separated the access road from the back of Randy's development, so that made things a lot easier. At this point we had to navigate our way around a ravine / stream, and I tragically went in. Well, my ball went in, but then I went in after it. Got real muddy and wasted probably 3 or 4 strokes chipping out.

Then it was just down the residential streets and onto Randy's porch. I believe the final score was Doug 72, Randy 75, Dan 80 (I 2-putted onto the porch).

We have decided that for our next course, we are going to go to a local disc golf course and try that out. We all agreed that Innovation was too busy for our needs.

All in all, it was a lot of fun!