Part 3... Like a Rock (or Wet Dreams)
Waking in the morning of the second day, feeling decidedly unlike P. Diddy, one topic pervaded my mind... rain. Why wouldn't it rain on the day I had awaited for years? The storm had began the evening before, and by my waking at 6 a.m. the downfall remained. I won't lie; I was getting mighty disconcerted. After all this time to be hampered by the weather was almost too much to bear. In my mind, I ran through the possibilities, and I imagined we would likely need to relocate back to the Twin Cities for any semblance of a bachelor weekend. But I wasn't prepared to give up just yet.
By the time a normal person awakes on vacation, the rains had abated, and in the young morning, a heavy mist lay throughout the area. We decided to give it a go. By 10 a.m. we were heading out to our first sortie of the day, Granite Ridge. The original plan was to hit up the Woodland Green as a nice little warm up. This changed for two reasons. We had stumbled through most of the Woodland course the day before. It also seemed as if the length of the courses were an unknown factor. The length of them were beyond your typical course, meaning any given round is destined to last about twice as long as the norm. So we decided to reassess our options and went straight for those courses we truly wished to play. Number one on the list was obviously the Gold course, but we were saving that for the afternoon.
While Blueberry Hill was high on the list, we had looked at Granite Ridge as our best option for the morning round. With the fog hanging heavy in the air and water soaking our shoes, we trudged out to the course to give it the "what for". Admittedly, I was a little depressed about the situation and felt none too good about my game that morning. So, as we walked up to hole 1 and saw... well, nothing but the tee pad and haze, I volunteered my services as spotter, hoping to avoid being the first up and embarrassing myself. Hole 1 sloped downhill about 300 ft, a fairly straight shot, but islands of trees forced you to take either a hyzer or anhyzer line to get to the basket. I took my place around 200 ft down the hill, allowing me a pretty good vista of any shot to come down. The problem? I couldn't see the tee pad! I'm telling you... FOGGY!
Standing down there, depressed, wet and cold, I began preparing myself for what I thought would be a very long day. Then, appearing out of nowhere, a disc came hovering overhead, landing somewhere beyond me and to the left. Then another. And each time a disc passed overhead, joy slowly started to sneak in. The soft buzzing overhead and the sensation of discs appearing out of nowhere combined with the beautiful surroundings and great company lifted my spirits. When my turn finally came, my blind shot landed right around the putting circle and I finished with a birdie putt. At that point, I was off and running.
While our experience was greatly impacted by the weather conditions, the round was wonderful! Granite Ridge is a wonderful array of options, providing slightly wooded shots mixed with a number of more open shots. The course is aptly named, noting the large rocky outcroppings. Some elevation change and water comes into play. And since I could generally drive the farthest of our group, I loved the amount of longer, open holes! I have the round scores somewhere and I will post them in time, but in spite of throwing into a creek bed marked OB, I still came within striking distance of par. And for my first time on a course, that was a stinking good round for me. This post is long enough already, but let it be known that for me, Granite Ridge was the best course we played... until the afternoon, anyways!
"... But no one here is asking..."
~Diggs
