Hanson Hills Recreation Area

A couple weekends ago when Hive account@mrsbozz and I were camping Grayling, MI, I pulled up the UDisc disc golf app and I discovered that there was a course relatively close to where we were staying. Two courses actually, but both located in the same park, how cool is that? I knew right away that we had to make stop there as part of our #weekendexperience activities.

Hanson Hills is a 1000 acre winter and summer sports park just a little bit outside the downtown area of Grayling, MI. I've actually be over by the road that leads to Hanson Hills many times in my life, but I never realized it was right there. I'm actually considering making a trip back to the park in October when we have our final camping trip at a different state park that is relatively close to the recreation area.

As I said before, there are actually two different courses at Hanson Hills. One of them runs up and down the small ski hill that they have on the property. I thought that might be a bit too intense for Hive account@mrsbozz since she decided to come along with me, so we played the other one that was more open and flat.

The first couple holes on the course were pretty short only being about 150 feet in length. I thought maybe it was going to be a pretty easy morning for me, but later on the "holes" opened up a bit more and I was faced with some 500 foot looks at the basket. The photos above are from the second or third hole on the lower course. It was pretty cool how they left the tree that had fallen over and put the basket next to it.

The course was impressively maintained and while a lot of it was relatively wide open, there were still a good number of trees to make some of the shots a little more exciting. In one of the photos above you can see a wide open look with a small clump of trees on the left hand side of the fairway. Wouldn't you know it, I landed right next to that dang clump of trees with my tee shot!

As you can see from the photos above, some areas of the course used to be something else. I couldn't quite figure out what, but the concrete slabs were interesting enough that I took some photos. There were also areas where you could tell they had moved tee pad and basket positions.

One of the things I really liked about this course was the fact that they had two tee pads per hole as well as two basket locations per hole. If you were a local who plays this course frequently it would give you a lot of different combinations you could try each time to make things a little different. For my round I played the far tee pads and the closer baskets. Though there were times that I feel like the close baskets were the more difficult shot!

This basket was super unique in the fact that it was hanging from a cable that was suspended between two trees. I have seen baskets in trees before, but never something like this. Trust me when I say throwing up into a basket is no easy task. Heck, throwing straight ahead into a basket is hard most of the time, throwing at an angle upwards is even more difficult!

In all it was a really good round for me. I finished +1 over par and I think in different circumstances I could have done even better. As I said, the holes at the front of the course are relatively short and offer the opportunity for an ace or two with a lucky shot or lots of practice.

It was a great way to start our Saturday morning and Hive account@mrsbozz and I both got a good deal of steps in, so I am including this as a #wednesdaywalk post sponsored by Hive account@tattoodjay.

I know I indicated it before, but I would definitely play this course again, it's one of my new favorites in the state. I actually made a comment to my buddy who plays disc golf the other day and said it might be cool to take a day trip and play both courses at Hanson Hills in one morning, grab some lunch somewhere and then head home.

We will see...