Surly Open

A month or maybe even two at this point ago, Nate told me about a disc golf tournament sponsored put on by Surly Brewing (best MN beer to those of you not from here) and it wasn't too expensive to sign up.  So we decided to be bold and take a chance on it.  And then we promptly forgot we had signed up until a week ago when I remembered and was like "hey, when is that disc golf tournament again?"  It was a good thing I asked, we looked it up and found it was scheduled for this past Saturday, so we remembered just in time!

It ended up being a ton of fun.  The weather appeared that it was going to maybe be uncooperative, but by the time we dropped Oliver off at Nate's parents and drove the almost half hour north of the cities to the disc golf course, the rain had pretty much ended and the sun was even coming out.

It was a shotgun start, so basically everyone signed up at a hole to start and at 10:00 you went to your hole and started launching your discs.  Being that this event was put on by Surly, the Surly Beer Truck was open for business so we grabbed a glass to take with us, because when else can you drink beer at 10:00 in the morning?  Each group could have up to five people, but no one signed up with Nate and I - or maybe they never found us - so we just went with the two of us, but that was ok with me, much less pressure!

The name of this disc golf course is The Pines - and you can tell why.  Pine trees are EVERYWHERE.  It is absolutely gorgeous though.  The holes are paved out between the trees and some of them are very unique!  The trees provided some awesome shade as the sun came out too.

The course has 27 holes (!!!) but we only had to play 19 of them.  My only one complaint was that Surly had it's own scorecard for the event that marked the holes we were supposed to play, but due to an Ultimate Frisbee event also going on fields we had to throw across it got confusing in some places.

19 holes of disc golf doesn't take nearly as long as actual golf but let me tell you, by the end you'll find yourself quite exhausted.  Most of the time when we play on the weekends it's at a course with nine or twelve holes, so this was a lot more than we're used to.  But as I said, the course was so unique and beautiful.  I'd really like to go back there sometime!

I had to take a picture of this tree carving.  Rocky the Flying Squirrel with a tennis racket?  Not sure what that has to do with disc golf, but hey, why not right?

And naturally I had to get a selfie with my hubby in the woods.  We really had fun even if we didn't score super well.  That part wasn't actually that important.  At the end of the event Surly did a drawing for every participant to chose a raffle gift and I ended up with a $25 gift card to the Surly Merchandise store and Nate got an awesome ultimate frisbee.  So hey, the points don't matter and everyone wins!

We also each received a free disc golf disc and free lunch.  And of course there was beer.  It's a Surly event, there is always beer!  I would definitely play this event again, it sounds like next year will be their 10th Anniversary too, so you know they're going to do it up big!  And I have a whole year to improve my game, ha!