Lakeview Park Disc Golf Course, Sarasota, Florida, USA

March 14 2020 and just 30mins South of home, we discovered Lakeview Park on UDisc. It certainly looked interesting, with more water than we had come across so far. We decided to go and check it out and play what we could, without losing discs hopefully.

Lakeview Park is a community park with free to play Disc Golf, which is the main feature here. There are other amenities at the park. Some people do walk their dogs through the course, so be mindful when throwing. There is ample parking, toilets (restrooms) but I'm not sure on this occasion if there was a water fountain, as we always take our own water. There is a pavilion with tables and benches. We didn't see a course map so just used our trusted UDisc App.

The course has 2 concrete block Tee boxes per hole, Par 54, 4294ft - 5007ft. Lakeview Park is a moderately wooded course with many holes having a low ceiling (tree branches hanging down, reducing the space for discs to fly). Lots of water, lots. There are small ponds, and a canal type water course which clearly likes to gobble discs up. We saw a guy there, nearly all the time we were playing, going from one water area to another with a specially made pole fishing for discs. He said he finds lots every time he comes to the course. 

There was also a guy in the car park with boxes of used discs in the back of his car that we got chatting to. He had them categorised by condition and priced accordingly. Naturally you have to have a look, don't you. Then you have to pick them up and have a bit of a feel of one or two. Then a test flight and then Oops, just bought in very good condition for $10, an Innova Champion metal flake Thunderbird!!

I must admit I found some of the holes a little daunting because of the low ceilings, but mainly the throws over water that required you to get your disc in a small landing zone, to avoid the next piece of water, due to the shape of the fairway! To be honest we ended up skipping parts of some holes because of this. It's not that the throws were that big, it was more in my head that if I did a duff shot and lose the disc we'd have to go fishing (Oh lets not forget those alligators!).

When we went round the second time we tried to be a bit braver and take on some of the water parts we'd skipped on the previous round. I like to think because I knew what was coming, that I tackled the second time round better. It can be a fear of the unknown, especially when learning, that holds you back a little. However what happens, my partners disc goes in the water followed by mine which lay on top of a water lily pad. Fortunately I was carrying a telescopic golf ball retriever, which we had started to take with us when playing, in case we needed to poke any discs out of vegetation. Not the most ideal implement for retrieving from water, but with a little perseverance we got both discs back. It must have looked quite funny us fishing around for discs with a ball golf retriever. 

To add to the drama, whilst trying to flip one of the discs to dry land, I managed to whack my partner in the mouth with the retriever and we had blood to deal with as well! The retriever came in handy on another hole as my partner managed to throw her Innova Dart, on a "death putt", past the basket and into another piece of water. Think we need to get off this course before something else happens or at least consider a floating disc. Where's that guy in the car park with the boxes of discs 😁.