Most EXTREME course you've ever played?

[tbird888]

Diamond X. If you can find a guide to play this I'd highly recommend it. My heart gets beating faster thinking about some of those tees.

 

[Mocheez]

Diamond X. If you can find a guide to play this I'd highly recommend it. My heart gets beating faster thinking about some of those tees.

Meh, it doesn't look that bad.

 

[Sunday Mike]

72 holes at Buffalo Ridge on a July day is about as extreme as it gets.

 

[Sunday Mike]

Meh, it doesn't look that bad.

That looks pretty damn cool!

 

[mfcastillo17]

Maybe I have a different view for extreme now. Like if I fall here I'm going to need rescuing. I would bet hiking to the top of ski Santa Fe is no joke.

Yeah its a solid hike to get to tee 1, but you can also take the lift to get there! I've hiked it several times to play it and a bunch more while we were designing it and its tough but doable if you're in decent shape and acclimated to altitude.

 

[gabdisc]

Diamond

Diamond X. Haven't been to Diamond X since the big collapse. I hear that they had to move some of the holes. It still has to be on this list. Did anyone play the course at the New World Mine outside of Gardiner MT. It was back in the 90s when they pulled it out of there and I have no idea who put it out there but that thing was crazy. Does anyone remember this course? I also played the Crystal City course in the old mine. Not a great course necessarily but that was pretty cool.

 

[Krusen]

I'll put in another vote for Mont du Lac: White Cedar. I've not played many out west so this is definitely the most extreme course I've played.
Went camping with the family a couple years ago up there. Stayed directly across the river at a campground called Fond du Lac. Nice little place. No reservations. We got a spot showing up in the afternoon on the Friday before Labor day weekend.
On Saturday I rode bike to the resort and played Eagle's Peak. Typical ski hill course like Hyland Hills or Giants Ridge. It rained pretty heavy later that night.

The next afternoon I offered to take my 4 y/o twin boys with to White Cedar to give the wife somewhat of a break. I thought that being on the lower part of the hill it would be more mellow. I could not have been more wrong. Due the the previous rain and the clay soil, the paths were very slippery. I fell down more than once and advised the boys to slide down some of the steeper hills on their butt. They were covered in mud by the end of the round. At some point around hole 9 I started to get concerned that if someone twisted an ankle, things could get a little ugly...especially if it was me, since I could carry one of them, but not so much the other way around.

Thankfully we made it out in one piece. One of the boys declared he was never going to walk through that disc golf course again. I agreed, though after rehashing the round in my mind decided I could not wait to play there again, though would probably try to make sure it was dry. The boys have changed their minds as well and often speak of that course and want to go back for another adventure, though next time we need to pack more than one "mountain bar" (Cliff Bar)

 

[Martin Dewgarita]

So, this discussion started with Mont du Lac, and is the most recent comment. Maybe somebody else will chime in who played this weekend to verify my comments.

The most extreme round I've played to date is the White Cedar/Eagles Peak back 9 - 27 hole combo in steady pouring rain the entire round for the Lake Superior open. 8 hour round - this wasn't disc golf any more, this was survival mode. Severe injury or death could have been a potential on nearly every hole. I felt bad for the folks that might have forgot some snacks or water, luckily I had a burrito and some beef jerky.

Out of everybody I talked to, only one person didn't agree that it was the most grueling round of disc golf they had ever played. The TD of the event said "imagine pretty much the same condiditons, but it's 35 degrees and you can't feel your fingers any more"

Ah, ok, it could have been worse... I can imagine a more intense round, I suppose maybe I'll experience it someday. I'm not getting off of the couch today, time to watch some replays of NFL preseason, maybe even turn on the ps3 for the first time in 14 months.

 

[discreid]

Yeah, I played the LSO this weekend as well. It was the most brutal round I remember. Although I did also play the Crosstown round that Logger mentioned to you. I was younger then so I don't remember it being as bad.

Our round was an even 6 hours, I can't imagine yours being two hours longer.

I didn't hear of anyone seriously injuring themselves, did you? It was a definite concern of mine.

 

[Martin Dewgarita]

No injuries that I heard of.

I did talk to a few people that said something along the lines of "This is worse than that Telemark round in '07" Logger was the only one that mentioned that the Telemark round was worse.

Props to the survivors that made it through the entire tourney. It will be interesting to see how many DNF's there were, I know several people walked out of the first round, and I know several people didn't make it to the second round (only 2 of the 4 people on my card showed up Sunday morning. I would wear a t-shirt that said something like "I survived LSO 2017"

 

[Martin Dewgarita]

I'm a little bummed I didn't take more pictures or videos during the round - I was too focused on survival. I did get one on hole 19 of the day, the only moment we had some "shelter" though the wind whipping through there and being soaking wet, I can't say that it was any relief from the elements.

 

[Martin Dewgarita]

I just tried to explain to my boss why I didn't feel like working today (understand that I make my own schedule for the most part, there's nothing that needs to be done today). Told him I was recovering from the weekend, he's like "what, your frisbee golf thing?"
I'm like "Holy **** this was was one of the most intense experiences of my life"
And he's like "what? why?"
"Hmm, it rained the entire time, on the side of a mountain, mud, possible death - not to mention I stayed up until 4am each morning partying, obviously my fault, but my body still needs time to recover"
His face was had no comprehension, it was a look of "wtf is this dude talking about?"
Lol, he's like "yeah, whatever, do your thing"

 

[jeremyhilss]

Holy cow. I can't even imagine playing the latter half of Eagle's Peak, or any of White Cedar in that. My buddy Ryan was playing in the LSO, gonna have to ask him about it. That's absolutely insane. Props to Geisinger for winning in that crapola.

 

[discreid]

Here's the only picture I took. It's from Sunday, but I needed to capture this ridiculous tee pad.

 

[Golden Tuna]

The Ozark Mountain courses are VERY extreme! Very fun and unique. I just played the new Harmony Bends course in Columbia and would say it is fairly similar (terrain wise) to Ozark Mt.

These, plus Blue Valley in KC.

 

[hummer1025]

The most extreme course I've played is the temporary course used for the Lemmon Drop tournament on Mount Lemmon in the Santa Catalina Mountains, an hour drive from Tucson, Arizona. It's at Ski Valley, the southernmost ski resort in the U.S. It took about 8-9 hours to finish the 27-hole course, with a brief lunch break after playing either the 14- or 13-hole side in the morning and then switching to play the other side in the afternoon. Because of length of time needed to play this extremely rugged course, we expanded it to 36 holes (each with a different basket with double chains, 36 of the 80+ that I've tested and approved for the PDGA since 1988). Now you only have to play 18 holes (54 in three days) instead of 27 (54 in two days). You take the ski lift up for each of these sides and then play mostly downhill from 9,000 ft to about 8,000 feet, using both ski runs and the adjacent thick ponderosa/spruce/fir/aspen forestl (ski resort leased from Coronado National Forest).

One measure of how rugged this mountainous course is the attrition rate in the tournament. I played one year when only 80 of 100 players that started the tournament finished (has anyone heard of a higher attrition rate than that?). If you have a bad knee or ankle, don't even try to play in this tournament. One reason it is so rough is that there are no seasoned trails other than a few cat tracks used by the ski resort operators. Because so much of the land is untrampled and covered slight undulations caused by the back dirt of animal burrows, many players fall over, even while putting on the rough, steep slopes.

But Lemmon Drop is great fun for those physically able. I should warn you though, that because of its popularity, this tournament can be very difficult to get in. Online registration can fill in less than 10 minutes!

Although Lemmon Drop is the most extreme course I've played, the most extreme one I've heard of is the temporary course in the Black Range of the Gila National Forest in southwest New Mexico. Long time disc golfers Pete Fust and Tom Lander used to run a non-PDGA event there called Geronimo Disc Golf (I recall an article on this event in Disc Golf World News about 15-20 years ago. This course was so rugged that there was a hole that took about two hours to play, requiring players to cross a deep and extremely rugged canyon (who knows, maybe a canyon that Geronimo himself once crossed.). Who knew that disc golf can require mountain climbing skills?!?!?

 

[jeffmonty]

The most extreme course I've played is the temporary course used for the Lemmon Drop tournament on Mount Lemmon in the Santa Catalina Mountains, an hour drive from Tucson, Arizona. It's at Ski Valley, the southernmost ski resort in the U.S. It took about 8-9 hours to finish the 27-hole course, with a brief lunch break after playing either the 14- or 13-hole side in the morning and then switching to play the other side in the afternoon. Because of length of time needed to play this extremely rugged course, we expanded it to 36 holes (each with a different basket with double chains, 36 of the 80+ that I've tested and approved for the PDGA since 1988). Now you only have to play 18 holes (54 in three days) instead of 27 (54 in two days). You take the ski lift up for each of these sides and then play mostly downhill from 9,000 ft to about 8,000 feet, using both ski runs and the adjacent thick ponderosa/spruce/fir/aspen forestl (ski resort leased from Coronado National Forest).

One measure of how rugged this mountainous course is the attrition rate in the tournament. I played one year when only 80 of 100 players that started the tournament finished (has anyone heard of a higher attrition rate than that?). If you have a bad knee or ankle, don't even try to play in this tournament. One reason it is so rough is that there are no seasoned trails other than a few cat tracks used by the ski resort operators. Because so much of the land is untrampled and covered slight undulations caused by the back dirt of animal burrows, many players fall over, even while putting on the rough, steep slopes.

But Lemmon Drop is great fun for those physically able. I should warn you though, that because of its popularity, this tournament can be very difficult to get in. Online registration can fill in less than 10 minutes!

Although Lemmon Drop is the most extreme course I've played, the most extreme one I've heard of is the temporary course in the Black Range of the Gila National Forest in southwest New Mexico. Long time disc golfers Pete Fust and Tom Lander used to run a non-PDGA event there called Geronimo Disc Golf (I recall an article on this event in Disc Golf World News about 15-20 years ago. This course was so rugged that there was a hole that took about two hours to play, requiring players to cross a deep and extremely rugged canyon (who knows, maybe a canyon that Geronimo himself once crossed.). Who knew that disc golf can require mountain climbing skills?!?!?

We have a winner! This is just insane.

 

[jeremyhilss]

Two hours for one hole? Better have a $10,000 CTP or something on it...

 

[mfcastillo17]

I've heard of the Black Range (kingston, NM) course. I don't think its there anymore.

 

[Martin Dewgarita]

I played some pretty extreme courses that were object courses, that nobody will ever play again. I remember one hole in particular took about 5 hours to hike to the tee pad, and a good 30 minutes to hole out. You know how they go - ok, the tee is on top of that mountain and we'll play to that rock down there, a half mile in the distance. Of the 3 of us that played the hole, I was the only one to hole out...

https://youtu.be/kBkJMYEHxBQ?t=1m32s