Register

  • Discover new ways to elevate your game with the updated DGCourseReview app!
    It's entirely free and enhanced with features shaped by user feedback to ensure your best experience on the course. (App Store or Google Play)

I Am Digitizing My VHS Tapes of Late 1990's Michigan Disc Golf

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6L5kCjb9gw

Hey, here you go, a new 1999 video from my archives. It's me and Wildman, today's owner of Wild Haven on a blustery, cold, damp day in early April. There isn't enough sunlight to finish the round, but we get through more than half the Original course layout.

Just got back from a trip there today. Mercy, the trees have gotten HUGE! And many of those fairways are TIGHT compared to the old days. I loved it so much and didn't want to come back home! And my son made some amazing shots!
 
Okay, Larry LaBond just said Gipe didn't make them. All these years Wild and I called them "Gipe Baskets." Waiting to hear who made them...
 
From Tim Sylvain:

>>Pretty sure they were made by Pen****er Wire. 98 was 10 years before I started playing but the company I worked for did business with Pen****er. When they found out some of us played in the early 2010s, they brought out the engineering drawings to show us.<<
 
Central Scrutinizer said:
Hot off the press, just uploaded a video I took of Cass Benton when it was pretty much brand new (April 8, 2000). I did the best I could despite the quality of the raw video.

https://youtu.be/GfuiQpolhD8
Click to expand...

Dang, we were playing Cass Benton like three or four times a week then...and the winter before. There are soooo many trees missing now. Many pros felt it was far too technical to be part of Worlds, and indeed, there were a LOT of trees. Cass was a unicorn in this area, providing the usual tree laden challenges with elevation...a feature not seen much in SE Michigan. Great video CS, loved it.
 
I think there ought to be one really tricky, technical course at worlds. The world champ should have to persevere through all of the game's challenges, and Cass was that one in 2000.

I seem to remember Tony Kroes (who I believed helped with the layout?) telling me that they intended Cass to make you feel like you're doing a puzzle. There weren't a lot of courses that actually made you think as much as Cass did at that time.
 
Central Scrutinizer said:
I think there ought to be one really tricky, technical course at worlds. The world champ should have to persevere through all of the game's challenges, and Cass was that one in 2000.

I seem to remember Tony Kroes (who I believed helped with the layout?) telling me that they intended Cass to make you feel like you're doing a puzzle. There weren't a lot of courses that actually made you think as much as Cass did at that time.
Click to expand...

I agree. I loved that course. Playing from the back tees provided for a challenge, that was new around here. It was a test of all parts of your game. A club of two have made an effort, as of late, to do a lot of good work out there, but without the Ash trees, it will really never be the same.
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jsAClXjXj2U&feature=youtu.be

Hot off the press, this is part 1 of what will become my Early McGraft Park series. My pal Wild (now the owner of Wild Haven in Manton, MI) used to live in Muskegon in the late 1990's. I'd frequently visit him there from Kzoo to party, but the next day we'd have to drive either to Ludington or Grand Rapids to play Disc Golf on a course with real baskets. So we decided to get a course in Muskegon, and that's how McGraft Park's course came to be.

This is the earliest rough draft we had on paper, and it was only my third trip to the park. We had a long way yet to go, and not much of this earliest version would go in the ground when the baskets came half a year later in the summer of '99, but here you'll get a glimpse into our first thoughts and ideas. Apologies, as always, for the rough video and audio on my primitive equipment. More to come with McGraft Park stuff from 1999 and 2000!
 
Some good news, Larry LaBond gave me a couple of VHS tapes to digitize he had from a local player who was an Am-1 player in my era: some home footage of the 1999 worlds and also the local 1998 Cracked Plastic Classic. I'm eager to see who is playing on the Cracked Plastic video.

It's going to be a little while, though. We just started the process of finishing our basement and my setup has been taken down temporarily. I hear the carpet is scheduled for early March, so it'll be at least until then. Stay tuned! (Hopefully it's good footage!)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Latest posts

Top