SOLSC #16 - A Windy Challenge

To read my student's posts on the
Classroom SOL challenge click here

 

Introduction: Hello and welcome to my blog! This is the third year I have participated in the SOLSC and also the third year for my students as well! I teach students, ages 11-14, in a multi-age classroom at The Logan School for Creative Learning in Denver, CO. This year, I am hosting students from all three middle school classes and they are participating on a volunteer basis (with a few prizes thrown in for inspiration). I'm looking forward to being part of this amazing community again!

A Windy Challenge

The last few days have been beyond blustery here in Denver. Trash bags flap above their cans while trash hurtles by to end up along fence lines or in the lee of large objects. Geese wing furiously overhead, zipping by with the wind or barely making headway against it. I moved our Ultimate Frisbee practice into the gym on Monday after we spent more time trying to tackle the discs as they skittered along the ground then throwing them. After school today was just as windy, but it was sunny and I was wanting the challenge of the wind and the local disc golf course.

Disc golf discs are smaller and don't flip as much in the wind as normal Frisbees, but a tempest still does amazing things to their flight. It takes some skill, extra pre-shot planning and a really good attitude to play in 30mph winds and have fun. If you happen to score well, that's a bonus.

I've been a decent disc golf player over the years, playing competitively but rarely in danger of placing in the top five in tournaments. But I have fun, have learned that I tend to play the wind better than many and I try to take extra opportunities to play in very windy conditions so my attitude is right if it windy in actual competition.

I get to the course and it's howling! Few people are outside at the park except for a couple of kids on the playground near huddling parents, the people with dogs (thrilled by the sensory input of the wind), and me.

Exposition Park has an easy course with wide open green grass, few obstacles and no significant elevation changes. What it dos have, is water. 11 of the 18 holes have a lake or creek near the fairway or basket. There are six holes where an errant shot has a good chance of disappearing forever into the murky, stinking depths of the lakes. Throwing a $20 disc away into the lake makes any round frustrating and the wind just adds to the anxiety.

But I am here for the challenge, and the fun, and the chance to watch my shots do crazy silly things, or exactly what I planned for them to do. Either way, it's going to be fun and I LOVE THE WIND!

Me draining a putt in a tournament several years ago.
The disc is just hitting the chains of the basket

Here is a link to my member stats on the Professional Disc Golf Association website, carefully chosen for my most competitive year, 2008.

p.s. Today I played really well with only two out of bounds strokes (leading to two bogies), and six birdies, for a respectable four-under-par.