Most Exhausting Courses....

[holotone]

Blue Mountain here in Missoula, MT is pretty grueling - In fact, it's ass-kickery is a large part of why I started playing disc golf in the first place; I was looking for good exercise and a place to run the dog. One round from the blue tees is ~7,000ft distance with ~800ft vertical gain spread over three climbs of two giant hills.

 

[rd.bittle]

Duncan lake west. Duncan, OK. Just go around tournement time or winter. Otherwise it isn't mowed very often. Head high grass makes for a bad day.

 

[brian sed]

has anyone said iron hill or carousel...how bout 2 rounds of each in one weekend in 100+ degree heat!! i must have lost 10 lbs during this year's DDGC

I was waiting for someone to mention these 2. Iron Hill at 10175 feet is a monster. The most technical course in Delaware for sure. Lots of uphill par 5s. I also played Carousel with ALL the long tees the other day. Good lord. When you finally get out to hole 14 (some would think you were almost done at this point) the last 5 holes are NOT shaded, unless you go into the rough, very unforgiving, and 18 is another uphill battle, with an elevated basket nonetheless.

 

[inourdr]

^ Agreed - those pix look intense.
One would have to think that playing at altitude also adds another way to wear on you physically, which can in and of itself, tax you mentally as well.

thanks for 2nding.

Yeah, that course really taxes you. Never thought about the altitude as I've live most of my life in the Rocky Mountain range but it's a very good point for those not use to it. In fact, that alone could make it the most exhausting course! It truly is like no other course IMO. Some of the best nights of sleep I've ever had have come after playing 36 holes at The X.

 

[elevated plastic]

I play alot of mountain courses and Reno Adventure Red course tops them all as far as effort. Alot of hills and steep terrain and the heat.....It can take 3-4 people 4+ hours to play if not longer.

 

[paramaniac]

Lake Nockamixon is for me the most exhausting. the terrain is pretty rocky, long walks and hills make for a great course, but a tough walk.

 

[Rescue]

Haven't read all the posts, but there are a few I've played that are a workout. Top of my list is Crystal Mtn. in WA. It's at a ski resort so as you could imagine there are some steep slopes involved. Now if you take the lift up to the top and play down it's not to bad, but the bottom course is pretty brutal. Heck the last hole is so steep going up. Some people take the fire trail down instead of trying to climb back down. One missed step going down that slope, your not going to stop rolling until you hit the bottom.
Lake Tahoe is pretty tuff to (any course), but that's more about playing at altitude there.

 

[John Rock]

Sipapu, New Mexico is pretty demanding. The course starts (it's actually listed as hole #20?) at the bottom of the ski area by the lodge and works it's way up and down the hills (mostly up until you get past hole #17). Holes #18 and #19 are nice downhill shots that are loads of fun.

Historical trivia question:

Who was the first player in Sipapu's tournament history to turn in a scorecard with no score higher than a 3?

 

[humchris85]

I play alot of mountain courses and Reno Adventure Red course tops them all as far as effort. Alot of hills and steep terrain and the heat.....It can take 3-4 people 4+ hours to play if not longer.

I mentioned this one. It's a beast!

 

[giles]

Sipapu, New Mexico is pretty demanding. The course starts (it's actually listed as hole #20?) at the bottom of the ski area by the lodge and works it's way up and down the hills (mostly up until you get past hole #17). Holes #18 and #19 are nice downhill shots that are loads of fun.

Historical trivia question:

Who was the first player in Sipapu's tournament history to turn in a scorecard with no score higher than a 3?

was it you

I'm glad you are here. Thompson park would be one of what I've played, at least the way my wife and I played it on Monday after taking an unintentional scenic rout accidentally heading towards Las Vegas, NM from Santa Fe then turning South and driving through the middle of nowhere NM and almost running out of gas, only to arrive at the curse with our little dog and our 20+ pound toddler with no stroller to find that someone mistakenly planted glass instead of grass (easy mistake I guess) and had to carry them both around the course. Fun course though.

I didn't find Sipapu as bad as Beaver Rach in terms of the hike up hills

 

[John Rock]

was it you

I'm glad you are here. Thompson park would be one of what I've played, at least the way my wife and I played it on Monday after taking an unintentional scenic rout accidentally heading towards Las Vegas, NM from Santa Fe then turning South and driving through the middle of nowhere NM and almost running out of gas, only to arrive at the curse with our little dog and our 20+ pound toddler with no stroller to find that someone mistakenly planted glass instead of grass (easy mistake I guess) and had to carry them both around the course. Fun course though.

I didn't find Sipapu as bad as Beaver Rach in terms of the hike up hills

Yeah, the glass is a bummer. Grass does grow in that part of the park during most years, but the drought has taken a toll on the vegetation. It's an old landfill (1920's-40's) that's been covered with dirt before all the EPA regulations were invented. Regardless how many times you pick/rake up the glass, it just keeps coming up again. Then again, that may be one of the convincing reasons of installing a DG course in that area, nobody else wanted to try to make anything out of it. Now we have a nice course (except for the glass and recent tree removal) that's free to the public at very little cost to the city budget since the local DG'ers paid for most of the installation.

 

[General Scales]

Four Mounds Disc Golf Reserve - Jumanji in Spokane WA. That course is tiring, huge elevation changes. Huge amounts of nasty rocks to climb up and down. Nasty thorns off the fairways, nasty mosquitoes during the early summer. Awesome course to play but will make you regret not being in shape. Especially when you hyzer out a shot that continues to travel down hill for a good 1000-2000 feet. More then one person has just let the disc go and never gone to find it.

 

[sidewinding]

The Hill at Twin Parks wears me out. Cimbing up and down those rocky hills with not much shade and there's no grass so the sun reflects off the rocks and back up at you and just drains your energy.

 

[giles]

Yeah, the glass is a bummer. Grass does grow in that part of the park during most years, but the drought has taken a toll on the vegetation. It's an old landfill (1920's-40's) that's been covered with dirt before all the EPA regulations were invented. Regardless how many times you pick/rake up the glass, it just keeps coming up again. Then again, that may be one of the convincing reasons of installing a DG course in that area, nobody else wanted to try to make anything out of it. Now we have a nice course (except for the glass and recent tree removal) that's free to the public at very little cost to the city budget since the local DG'ers paid for most of the installation.

I figured it was on a landfill and asked the guy who joined us. He said "nope, just people used to party here a lot." :\

 

[John Rock]

Who knows? People may have used that area as a party place years ago. I've only been walking that area since about 1988, so I'm not sure what happened before that. As you're walking around out there you can still find whole antique bottles of all sizes, mostly with the cork type tops. But usually if you find a screw type top of a bottle, it's probably a new one that a drunk dg'er or a chucker has left. It has definately come a long way since I first laid out the course there. It used to get mowed only once a year, and that was right before Memorial Day to get it pretty for the annual 3 day Fun Fest. Now we've got nice, brand new bathrooms in the main parking lot, a decent port-a-pot at the top of the hill by hole #9 & #14, and regular mowing many times a year.

And don't put too much confidence in what stories you hear out there, a lot of the haters just make up their own stories to suit their own fantasies.

 

[TylerM]

Pawhuska's Lodge Courses

I just played the 2 Lodge courses in Pawhuska, OK and was reminded of this thread. Very brutal (at least for intermediate players like me) . Moccasin Creek was especially tiring. We played both courses in 20-30 MPH wind (typical Oklahoma) and were exhausted afterwards.

Awesome experience none the less!

 

[Sunday Mike]

Snowbowl in Flagstaff is quite the hike.
Also, Buffalo Ridge in Phoenix is brutal in the summertime. Try playing 27 hole in the desert on the side of a mountain when its 110. That's a loooooong round.

 

[Murderous Monkey]

Justin Trails Big Brother in Sparta, WI. Played that this morning and it destroyed me. Tight fairways with fairly nasty wooded drops off one if not both sides. I thought I was OKAY until I played and any semblance of confidence went into the pooper! It's got a ton of elevation and I'd recommend checking it out if you're in the mood for a beautiful course but EXHAUSTING!

 

[the_pwnerator]

Idlewild destroyed me when I played it.

 

[heartman]

My vote: Perkerson Park (temp layout), ATL, GA

I've played two rounds at Flyboy in one day and been fine afterwards. Two rounds of the temp layout at Perkerson is just exhausting (and this was in February too). If you're not going directly up/down hill, then you're walking "along" the hill which reallllly wears the ankles/knees down. One of the few times I've woken up the next day and been sore from disc golf.

Back 9's of Jim Warner and Indian Creek are just brutal up/down hill holes one-after-another with ~100' elevation change.

I love JP Moseley, but playing it in 109 degree heat and tons of humidity is not advisable ...