Playing "The Legend"

One of the things I was really looking forward to the weekend that my wife and I visited Sleepy Hollow State Park just outside of Lansing, MI was the fact that they had a proper 18 hole disc golf course on the property. Despite the fact that there are a lot of state parks throughout the state, very few of them have embraced the wonderful sport of disc golf even though they have plenty of land that could be used for a course.

I wasn't really sure what to expect with this course. I have an app that gives you reviews of local courses called UDisc, but the information was a bit spotty. Plus, you never know how old it is and how much they have maintained the course.

So @mrsbozz and I got up early on Friday morning and decided to take a hike down to where the disc golf course started. It took us a little bit to locate the first hole, but it gave us some good steps and exercise. Despite this area of the state which is pretty flat, there were a bit more elevation changes than I expected both getting to the course and on the course itself.

Next to the course is a pretty big solar array that they use for some of the power in the park. I was pretty impressed with how they had this laid out, so I took some shots of it. As you can see from the first photo, you can get pretty close to the panels. I'm actually a little shocked they don't have them fenced off a bit more. It makes me wonder just how operational the whole thing is.

The course itself is called "The Legend", and as you can see from the photos, they actually did a really good job of keeping it fairly clear. The fairways were nicely trimmed, and the brush was cut back enough that you didn't have to worry about it too much. In fact, aside from some blind turns on holes, the whole thing is pretty "wide open".

There is one hole that takes you fairly close to the beach and swimming area, but for someone like me, overthrowing the basket isn't really a concern on this one. As you can see, my approach disc fell well short of the basket and I was able to two putt from that position to complete the hole.

There are some wooded portions of the course and like I mentioned before some blind turns either to the right or left where elevation comes into play. I don't think I ever found myself in the weeds too much. There was one hole where I thought I was going to lose my disc, but I was eventually able to find it. @mrsbozz did a great job of being my caddie while she listened to her audiobook. I actually started the round really horrible, but I was able to recover a bit towards the end.

I finished the course with a final score of +14. It took about an hour to play all 18 holes and I think I covered a distance of close to two miles. Due to that fact, I am going to include this post in the #wednesdaywalk initiative started by @tattoodjay. I had eight bogeys, three double bogeys, and zero birdies on the course. I'd actually love to play again, because now that I have played a few more rounds this summer, I totally think I could improve my score. It's a nice course and I would definitely play it again if we ever found ourselves back at this park.

After the exercise was over for the morning, we cleaned up a bit and then headed to a local bar for some appetizers and an ice cold beer. It was an awesome morning!