New Back 9 open at St.Olaf

[Mjolner]

Well, this is my first post here, so I figure I ought to bring good news.

St. Olaf College in Northfield, MN has had a pretty nice 9 hole course for awhile.
There used to be an additional 9 but that had been taken apart and overgrown for years now.

A couple months ago we heard a new back 9 was going in, but we didn't think it would happen before spring, so it was a pleasant surprise to discover it's in.
I played it today, very compact, but it has some really serious challenges and good distances.
Crazy dogleg on 2, low hanging branches on a few T-shots, big rolling dropoffs from the baskets on 4 of the holes, and a contour that makes the wind do some really funky stuff.
Oh, don't forget about the fenced in tennis courts along #4.
No water. There are a couple spots that you could chuck it where you would need to search for a bit, but I doubt you'd lose one for good.
(Watch, now that I said that I'll lose one tomorrow! ;) )

I got several pars (calling them all 3's), and mucked up the rest enough to finish 8 up first time around and 10 up the second time. Very narrowly missed two nice birdies, so this course really has potential.
Granted, I'm no expert, but the other guys I played with didn't do much better, and two of them have played for a decade or so.

I had my GPS along so I'm gonna figure out the distances, and try to get a map posted here as well.
The baskets are new, I think they are Mach 3's.
The tees are marked by a 2x4 about 4' long pounded into the ground.

I'm gonna play again tomorrow, maybe I'll drag my camera and laser rangefinder along (it's a pain, but would be nice to document the course at least once).

:)
-Kris

[ERicJ]

Well, this is my first post here, so I figure I ought to bring good news. [...]

I got several pars (calling them all 3's), and mucked up the rest enough to finish 8 up first time around and 10 up the second time. Very narrowly missed two nice birdies, so this course really has potential.
Wait a minute... you were playing all par 3's...? Disc golf needs consistent par defined!

ERic

P.S. Had to chime in with that for this thread: http://www.dgcoursereview.com/forums/showthread.php?t=931

[ERicJ]

I'm gonna play again tomorrow, maybe I'll drag my camera and laser rangefinder along (it's a pain, but would be nice to document the course at least once).
Please do. The more people we get doing that sort of thing the better this site becomes. It's already the best online DG course guide and with help from folks like you it'll stay that way! :D

Welcome to the forums.

ERic

[timg]

I updated the course listing to show 18 holes. Also, welcome to the site! :D

[Mjolner]

I updated the course listing to show 18 holes. Also, welcome to the site! :D


Cool, thanks!

Here's a rough map I just made, from memory. Tomorrow I'll take it along and make it better, as in, exactly where the tee's and pins are in relation to the trees.
But, this'll give you an idea of the area.

http://i96.photobucket.com/albums/l185/emandpee_2006/DiscGolf/HolesOlafBack9.jpg

As you can see, 1 and 2 are very short holes, but the trees and the doglegs make these, especially 2, the hardest holes on the course.
To give you some idea of overall scale, it is 90 yards from the tee to the basket on 8.
:)
-K

[Luke@DiscTrips]

Okay, so I was SHOCKED when I opened up DGCR and saw "St. Olaf" in the title of the first thread...

I designed this course. Well, sort of.

A week ago, this course was the unnamed subject of my very frustrated thread, "De-nied! Last-minute overhaul of my course design!"
(http://www.dgcoursereview.com/forums/showthread.php?t=889)

I was working at St. Olaf from 2006 to 2008, and having played over 200 courses, I got the gig of designing the new "back 9" after the science complex was built on top of the original back 9. (many of those pins are still in the ground over there, mjolner, by the way...) So, from summer 2007 to about a month ago, I worked carefully on a design of a much more challenging, spread-out course that worked its way back along parts of the cross-country trail north of the practice fields. (Anyone not intimately familiar with the St. Olaf campus is probably bored by now... sorry)

But at the very last minute, some coaches spoke up and complained that it would interfere with the occasional CC meet or soccer game, so they threw out my year's worth of work and just slapped together a new layout in a few days' time without my knowledge. (A couple of my holes survived, it turns out.) So I was pretty bummed and sort of expecting to see an ill-conceived course when I visited next, but based on your sketched map, I think it actually looks pretty good! It's still in a very compact area, but it looks like they made good use of the land. And this is coming from someone who got to know every square inch of that area over the course of a year... crazy times.

Anyway, THANKS for posting this map -- It makes me happy that a solid-looking course, if not exactly the one I envisioned, did indeed get built. I hope people like it!

[Mjolner]

Wow Luke, I can see why you're bummed. Sounds like you put alot of effort into it.
We did get the sense when playing it that somehow the design got tweeked, and one guy actually guessed that the soccer and CC crowd might've complained. Because really, there are some awesome looks that would've made great holes, but they utilized some of the paths and or went over the fields.
So far I think it turned out pretty swell, it's always nice to have another 9 so close to home. (Literally minutes.)
And, we can always pick different spots for T's and make it more interesting if we want. By "we", I mean the dozen to twenty townie regulars that I know that are often up on the hill.
I'd be interested in seeing a drawing of your original plan.
For instance, today I thought it would be cool to throw from the plateau with the yellow shed back across the soccer field to the basket for #8.
That sorta thing.

Anyway, it'll be interesting to see what the rest of the townies think as this gets more traffic. Probably won't really know how it goes until next season.
Thanks for your contribution, even if it's not the way you planned it I would bet you are a big reason this finally got put in at all.
:)
-K

[Luke@DiscTrips]

Cool, it's really good to hear your firsthand reactions to it. They're gonna put in tee signs soon, if they haven't already. (A local high schooler & his dad are doing the work on it for his Eagle Scout project.) We bought the baskets & signs from Augustana College (SD), when, strangely enough, my brother (who went there) helped to design a 9-hole course on their campus that was abruptly cancelled! Those baskets must really have something against my family...

Here's a map of my original layout... (8 and 9 were slightly tweaked from in my final design) Pretty different, huh? :)

[Luke@DiscTrips]

Oh, and it would be AWESOME if you could refine the map you drew, as you said you were probably going to, and send it to me off-line when it's done. I still have ties to the St. Olaf folks, and I was planning on asking them to post a map (along with a map of the other 9, which I've already drawn up) on the college's website. So yeah, whenever you have it you can send it to the contact address of my website, disctrips@gmail.com. Thanks, man.

[Mjolner]

Oh, and it would be AWESOME if you could refine the map you drew, as you said you were probably going to, and send it to me off-line when it's done. I still have ties to the St. Olaf folks, and I was planning on asking them to post a map (along with a map of the other 9, which I've already drawn up) on the college's website. So yeah, whenever you have it you can send it to the contact address of my website, disctrips@gmail.com. Thanks, man.


No problem.
-K

[Mjolner]

Okay, I got out there with the GPS today.
Indicated estimated accuracy was generally around +/- 10 ft.
So, not surveyor-grade accuracy, but good nuff.

T1 N44 27.792 W93 11.146
1 N44 27.815 W93 11.151
T2 N44 27.810 W93 11.159
2 N44 27.799 W93 11.186
T3 N44 27.794 W93 11.176
3 N44 27.762 W93 11.194
T4 N44 27.776 W93 11.200
4 N44 27.832 W93 11.200
T5 N44 27.847 W93 11.199
5 N44 27.901 W93 11.190
T6 N44 27.909 W93 11.198
6 N44 27.939 W93 11.174
T7 N44 27.951 W93 11.142
7 N44 27.912 W93 11.186
T8 N44 27.889 W93 11.198
8 N44 27.867 W93 11.139
T9 N44 27.855 W93 11.168
9 N44 27.799 W93 11.211

And what that looks like:
http://i96.photobucket.com/albums/l185/emandpee_2006/DiscGolf/olafnorth9course.jpg

If you actually take my coords and enter them into Google Earth you'll see that they're don't line up with the Tee and Pin icons I've labeled, because when I put this on the computer I saw some obvious errors and so I placed the icon where I thought it should go, for example, T5 shows up as in one of the tennis courts, when it is right outside it.

I haven't calculated distances yet, but I'll post them when I do.
:)
-K