Quarry Park Disc Golf Course, Leamington Spa, England

Quarry Park Disc Golf course is quite unique in the UK. An area of 15 acres of pasture land along side the River Avon was purchased by Derek Robins, the first European to be inducted into the Disc Golf Hall of Fame, with the intention of turning it into a purpose built dedicated Disc Golf Course.

Derek's labour of love has turned a farming pasture into a beautiful disc golf course arboretum, with a mix of trees, mainly planted by himself. He has crafted the course fairways and created the disc golf course that Quarry Park is today. 

This is a pay to play course with Adults on the short course paying £5 and Children £3.50. The regular course is Adults £7 and children £5 with a free hire disc 1 per person. There is also a £12 all day ticket. All of these can be booked on line or pay on arrival. There is an active club scene here and the course has been used for many tournaments. Much more information can be found on the course website at www.quarrypark.co.uk

There is ample parking, an eco-toilet with no running water but sanitiser is available. You can buy drinks and snacks on site and there are also Discs for sale. Picnic benches are also available near the shop.

There is a short course of 17 holes averaging approx 147 ft each (45m) which is suitable for beginners or more experienced players wanting to practice their short game. For a bigger challenge the long course offers 18 holes with 2 Tee boxes Red Par 54, 4910ft & Blue Par 54, 5618ft. Tee boxes are signed and are covered with astro turf. On this course there are 3 holes were you are at risk of losing a disc in the river and many do get swallowed up.

We had touched base with Derek before our trip to make sure there was room for our Motorhome in the car park. As we were short of a campsite for one night he had also very kindly offered for us to stay in the car park over night.

When we arrived Derek offered to show us the course and in fact he played 9 holes with us. He made us feel very welcome and we enjoyed chatting with him about the history of the course. We had planned to play here for 4 days and so decided, having had the introduction from Derek, that the course to tackle was the Red Course.

This course was challenging for us. It tests your skills and your nerves. Everything from open space which goes up and down, tight corridors, low ceilings, high baskets, water and a requirement for accurate putts. It battered us on the first time round but how beautiful and amazing to at least try.

I couldn't really figure out from my bag what to use on the tight tunnel shots and after our first day we chatted with Derek about discs. Due to Covid restrictions we unfortunately couldn't go in his shop so asked what he might recommend. He asked if we had tried the Duchess from Discgolfuk . I replied no I hadn't, so Derek offered for me to have a throw on a kind of "try before you buy" principle, which was very kind. It flew so well and straight for me using my forehand that despite walking some way back from the shop, I nearly took out its window! Wow, I'll buy that please. Oops and sorry Derek!

My partner Catriona, tried this disc but found that she couldn't get the same flight from it so she tried a safe-fly version, which is made of a softer plastic, and she could get that one to fly better for her, so we took that as well. The Duchess made all the difference for me on the next few days after having a few practice shots with it. Those holes I'd struggled with first time round I was able to tackle with much more confidence.

Hole 10

Ready to rip the Duchess on 10

We played each day twice round the course and lets just say we slept very well at night. Just when you think you're getting a little fitter and then you try Quarry! This was good experience for us and although I won't bore you with all the score cards, the one below is the best we achieved off the Red Tees. Which considering where we started I think we made huge gains. I guess some of this came from familiarity of the course, as we played it each day, and also we gained confidence that we could get round a course like this. Fear of the unknown can be a negative and we had heard so much about Quarry before hand that maybe we had felt a little intimidated to start with. The one thing we had learned from playing here was just to enjoy the space and the flight!

I was beginning to feel more confident that the predominant forehand play was for me, and to just practice backhand with a view to getting out of trouble. I was getting tired of beating myself up because I couldn't throw backhand as far as Catriona, and to just be happy and positive that I could make a good round of disc golf playing the way I did.

On our last day we decided to see what the short course was like, before we moved on to our next destination. We enjoyed trying the shorter holes and it did prove that the Red Course had been challenging and we could only hope to get better scores in the future.

Our time at Quarry Park was most enjoyable and thanks very much to Derek for the stories and the laughs. We will be back to sample more of Quarry Park in the future. Here are just a few more shots of what this course has to offer.

Now we head to Cotswold View Disc Golf Course where, if you you read my Blog entry "Where it all began", you will know that this course it what lit the touch paper that started this Disc Golf journey. So follow me there for the return......

Mendip Disc Golf Course, near Cheddar, North Somerset, England

We made our plan for July 2020 to do a circuit of 3 disc golf courses using our motorhome(RV) as our base, and booked onto 3 campsites. In this segment I will talk about each course under a different blog heading, along with details of the campsite we used.

Mendip Disc Golf Course can be found within a 250 acre site owned by the Mendip Activity Centre, which affords activities such as skiing, snowboarding and tobogganing to name a few. This is a pay to play course, designed by Matt Cutler. At the time of writing the cost is £5 for one person £8 for two. Play for up to 2 hours, but they didn't seem to enforce that. You can also rent discs here.

There is ample parking, toilets (restrooms), showers, baby change facilities, lockers and a cafe where you can buy food and drinks.

We didn't see a welcome sign for the Disc Golf Course but you can get a score card at the Activity Centre Reception which has a map of the course on it. You could use UDisc as well as the course is mapped on there. This is one of the courses that is home to the Yeti Disc Golf Club. 

There is an 18 holes (Green) beginners course (Par 54, 2272ft) which is a short fun course for families and groups, a 10 Holes (Blue) Intermediate course (Par 30, 2075ft) and a 10 Holes (Red) Advanced course (Par 31, 3308ft). The Tee boxes are signed and are made of either, gravel, dirt or grass. 

The course winds through a beautiful woodland and over an open field on top of the Mendip Hills with stunning views. It's a very hilly course and the open holes can be extremely challenging on windy days. I would say you need to be relatively fit to tackle this course with its undulating elevations. It takes about 5mins or so to walk from reception to the 1st tee along a woodland trail. 

To get to Mendip DG Course was a 4.5hrs drive for us. As part of our planning I had been in touch with a member of the Yeti DG Club regarding one or two practicalities regarding the parking of our motorhome, and he had very kindly arranged to meet us on our first evening to show us the course and play. We met up and he had invited 2 others to join us as well. This was wonderful. Although we had to abide by social distancing guidelines, we still had a really fun time and as we were in a group we decided to score. Apart from doing some scoring at Manchester, as a measure to see if we were improving with my partner Catriona, Sister and Brother in Law, this was the first time we had been seen playing and scored with anyone else. They were all very encouraging and we had a blast playing off the Blue Tees. Thanks to Fran, Crissie and Del for a great evening. I was really pleased with my score of +5 (CF Disc Golfer 59).

We had planned to play at Mendip 3 times, so headed down there the next day from the campsite. We stayed at the Cheddar Heights Camping and Caravan Club site near the village of Priddy, about 30mins drive away from the course. Campsites had been allowed to open but could only have their toilet/shower facilities available for use if they could comply with strict government covid guidelines. Many sites were open but not their facilities. We were self sufficient, having a small bathroom in our motorhome. All we needed was fresh water and a place to dispose of our toilet contents and grey water, which all sites were still providing.

We played on our own the following day and really enjoyed what Mendip had to offer as a course. Technical shots in the woodland and then open space to let your discs fly. There was more wind than the previous evening so that also added to the challenge. I improved by one shot despite the wind and those up hill holes which are tricky to master, as you have to throw higher to compensate for the elevation and yet expose your disc to that wind!

Basket on the hill

Following our posts on Facebook to the Yeti Club page, we had contact from another player to come and join us to play on our 3rd and last day at Mendip. Thanks to Ash for joining us and putting up with some bad language. Yes, Mendip is renowned for some really steep slopes, especially by one of the baskets in the woods. Still learning the game you begin to understand the term "death putt" when you attempt to make a putt into the basket, miss and then your disc goes rolling down the hill!! Guess what, I did it twice which did impact on my score that day.

We had a fantastic time and would love to return to Mendip again. A lovely course and we've made some new friends.

Basket in the distance, tip of my finger

We now drive for a couple of hours to our next destination on our July trip, and that's on to the famous Quarry Park Disc Golf Course.

Backhand Form and Technique

Playing at Manchester made me realise more than ever, that the practice on our local park was one thing but playing on a course and negotiating the various shaped fairways was something else. I had managed to get around the course using my forehand throw, but sometimes a backhand would have been a much better option. 

I’ve always been a sporty, outdoor loving person, right from being small and winning my first race at school sports day. During my life I have been a champion Field and Track Athlete, breaking and making new records. A champion Powerlifter, breaking and making records as well as placing 3rd in Britain, and a champion Bodybuilder competing and winning competitions nationally, including Miss Northern and Miss Southern Britain. I’ve played sports such as Table Tennis and Pickle Ball and Ball Golf recreationally, took up Skiing at age 40 and now I'm analysing my new sport of Disc Golf at nearly 60!

I was still having problems with my backhand throw, and although I'd watched lots of competition Disc Golf videos, my technique was clearly off and I wasn't throwing anywhere the distance my partner was. I'm very much a visual learner, so decided to search You Tube to see if I could find any technique teach-in type videos. The videos below I thought looked promising so decided to use these as a starter to try and understand where I might be going wrong and see if watching them could help.

How to throw Backhand

Add Distance to your Throw

After watching these it was back to the park to practice. Its only when you take a photo breakdown (or maybe a video slowmo) that you can see where the problems are.....

So self analysing and my first mistake is, don't try and throw like a pro with an X-Step in the equation. Too many things to think about and go wrong, and neither of the videos showed this for starters, so why did I think it was OK to include it. I should be starting with no run up and concentrate on pure technique. I also think I'm turning my body much too far round when I do the reach back. We do have hip issues in the family and I'm not sure whether I'm overcompensating for that or I've just not understood how my body is behaving when I do this move. Also, I can see I'm holding the disc like a wet rag! Clearly not in the right place to get any kind of spin. It's no wonder I'm not improving, I must be using complete strength rather than true technique. I think all I can do is watch the videos again and keep practicing.

Meanwhile, we've decided as Covid lockdown has eased and there is no restriction on travel within the UK, we will plan a trip with our motorhome (RV) and try out some other UK courses. Now let's see, where to head for first.....

Manchester Disc Golf Club, Longford Park Disc Golf Course, Stretford, Manchester, England

Manchester Disc Golf Club has a course at Longford Park set in a community park on the site of a former pitch and putt golf course. There is ample free parking, although there is a five minute walk from the larger car park. The smaller car park close to the 1st Tee can get full quickly, with families wanting to use the playground areas. There are many facilities on the park for other users and it is adjacent to an athletics stadium.

Many people walk their dogs in the park, and although there are warning signs that you are entering a disc golf course, regulars tend to just wander where they like keeping a watching brief, if you're lucky, on whether anyone is throwing. It is a shared use park so just be considerate to others and use spotters where you cannot fully see.

There is a cafe close to the 1st Tee, where you can buy food and drinks and a there is also a toilet (restroom) adjacent. 

There is a welcome board showing a map of the course as you approach the first tee.

This is an 18 holes course, designed by the Manchester Disc Golf Club Committee, with concrete Tees, Red Par 57, 4298ft & Blue Par 56, 5635ft. Some holes have a shared Tee box. It is a lightly wooded with regard to mature trees however, over time, the many many new trees that have been planted will make for interesting play in the future. As a result you will find enclosures to protect the young trees, with access points to enable the retrieving of discs. Please respect these areas and use the access points and don't climb over the wire fence. These areas are classed as Out of Bounds (OB), at the time of writing this Blog. If there has been a lot of rain you might want to wear boots of some description, as some areas on the course can get water logged.

Manchester Disc Golf Club (www.manchesterdiscgolf.co.uk) has a very good website that shows you the course layout, as well as each individual Tee, so you can view these on your smart phone. I had been measuring in feet from our time in Florida, so my UDisc is set up that way, however in the UK and Europe Disc Golf holes are measured in meters. You can of course use UDisc as well, set up as you like. Each Tee Box on the course has a well designed graphic tee post, showing the throw line of the fairway and any OB.

 

This was probably the best course we could have started on for our first experience of a UK course. It was very different to our previous experience in Florida with some interesting features as seen in the photos below.

A raised basket on a mound

High stakes protecting the line of flight to the basket

Even a druid like stone circle

Practice on our local park had been very useful but now playing on a proper course presented different challenges for us, especially when your disc landed in a spot where you had to get around bushes or under trees. I had had a throw of my partners Innova Mamba at our local park, just for a try, and I had seen an improvement in distance from when I had measured a throw in Florida in February. I feel I'm progressing with the forearm but still behaving like I have spaghetti arms with the backhand. 

With new discs in the bag, it was time to start and see how these faired in a course environment. The Latitude discs, for me did fly better than the previous Innova Discs I'd used. They had more glide and it seemed that to throw, I didn't have to try quite as hard. I guess not being as young as I used to be, I'm learning that you haven't got the same power and speed as maybe you did when you were 30 or even 20 years younger, so take advantage of what's available. I know it's really still early days, and those players you see in the competitions have been playing for many years and subsequently have had lots of conditioning to the sport but I want to throw better.

We had great fun learning the course and being there early on a week day, we were able to do two rounds before too many people came to enjoy their daily exercise too, including having a picnic in the middle of the fairway. Strangely we didn't see any other players, but these Covid times have been challenging. Still our plan was to come back to this course weekly and continue with practice on our local park. 

Disc Golfers can never have too many Discs

MORE DISCS!!

Disc Golfers can never have too many discs, so it would seem. I had returned from Florida with only 5 Discs, as mentioned previously, and during lockdown I had been looking on line at a variety that you could buy in the UK. My bag of discs in Florida (see Blog instalment - "This is turning into an addiction!!") had comprised of all Innova Discs, influenced by the starter pack I had bought. However, in reading more about discs I decided I would venture into other brands as well. Latitude 64 offered some discs aimed at players with slower arm speeds and beginners, in lighter weights, so I thought these might help me with my throwing. I was either getting stronger or something, as I was now starting to see the length of throw I'd seen in Florida. May be it was throwing 5 out of 7 days that was helping. So over several weeks and to cut this short, I accumulated the following additions;

Innova Rhyno - Gstar plastic

Innova Rat - Star plastic

Innova Roc X3 - Champion plastic

Latitude 64 River - Opto plastic

Innova Teebird - Metalflake

Latitude 64 Diamond - Goldline plastic

Latitude 64 Jade - Goldline plastic

Innova Sidewinder - Gstar plastic

Innova Starfire - Pro plastic

Innova Destroyer - Blizzard Champion plastic

Oh and I nearly forgot the mini marker that I bought (mini - used to mark the front of your disc on the ground so that you can pick up your thrown disc and then take your next shot from behind the mini);

ANOTHER BAG

My partner Catriona, also had a buying session and we both then had to get another bag each, courtesy of DiscGolfUK.

UDISC APP

I have mentioned UDisc in a number of my Blog instalments, and at this point opted to take out the Pro subscription as it offered more than just navigating around a course.

For those who haven't discovered the UDisc App yet, try it out. You can find courses to play and get directions to them. See course reviews, view course/hole maps and uploaded photos, track your scores (even via your smart watch), chart your improvement by measuring throws and much much more. It's a great App and the developers are constantly improving its use. You can even log which discs you have, especially "In Your Bag".

Now it's time to venture out with our bag of discs and try our first UK course, as lockdown has eased to allow you to travel as far as you like to get your exercise for the day. So Longford Park, Manchester Disc Golf Course, here we come......

Myerscough Disc Golf Course, Bilsborrow, Lancashire, England

 

A slight diversion from my Disc Golf journey is some respect. 

I began my research of Myerscough Disc Golf Course in May 2020. I had posted the photos you saw from my last Blog instalment, to the British Disc Golf Facebook (BDGF) page as an update and confirmation that indeed Myerscough was unplayable. 

This is what Myerscough Disc Golf Course looked like when it was first installed. 

And had its own logo...

On the same day as the post on the BDGF page I also wrote a message to Myerscough College using Facebook Messenger, in the hope that someone would pick it up and at least acknowledge it. I wasn't too hopeful because of the obvious pandemic situation and college was also out. I explained who I was and that I was a local, very keen on Disc Golf and wondered if someone was available to chat to about the course.

I had many messages of thanks for the update on the BDGF page as well as messages of sadness. One popped up from one of the original installers and main drivers behind the course, known as JM for the purposes of this Blog. We arranged to private message each other, which was then followed up on another evening with a Skype video call. JM was very helpful in explaining how the course came about, the installation, how beautiful it had been and about how in the past it had been used for Disc Golf competitions (Lancashire Hotshot 2015 & 2016). 

He mentioned that he had been a lecturer at the college and had moved away to another part of the country. It would appear that following on from that, as students moved on and there was no one else at the college to continue with the momentum and knowledge of Disc Golf that it just seemed to fade away in its use, despite discs for hire at the campus cafe. JM offered me any help he could to try and move forward its restoration.

In the meantime, a few days later, I had a surprise message via Facebook Messenger from the College inviting me to get in touch to chat more. I leapt at the opportunity and sent an email, as agreed, with more information on what I was looking to achieve. To briefly outline my proposal, I discussed two options, 1) reinstate the course with pros and cons, 2) Donate the baskets and tee box posts to another disc golf project in North West England. The gentleman I was communicating with said he would discuss my email with the Leadership Team. At this point I will now move forward in this story to the beginning of August 2020, following several follow up emails and me writing a full paper to present to the college Leadership Team, to save the gentleman I was corresponding with having to do this. 

I had decided I would not give up on Myerscough until I got an answer. I contacted JM again to see if he had the contact details of the College Principal, as I wanted to copy her into the history of communication and my paper on options. Following submission of that email, in a very short space of time that day, I got a reply. This advised me that the Senior Leadership Team had come to a decision, they would not donate the baskets/tee posts elsewhere. However, once the college re-opened they would look to combine the new students union sports committee, new Commercial Director and new group of Garden Volunteers to take it on as a project, looking at the suitability/safety of the course design, through to promotion and management of the course. I wrote back immediately and thanked them for their consideration and the positive news they had delivered.

Myerscough is still on my radar and I have agreed with the Principal to contact her in November to see where things are. Obviously the ongoing pandemic may hold things up but I am optimistic that by next year we will have some kind of update on how this course will move forward.

Now back to my Disc Golf journey.....

Pandemic Disc Golf

Living in a village where the park is relatively quiet first thing in the morning, apart from the occasional dog walker, we were able to continue walking there through April and throw discs as part of our once a day exercise on our made up course, coming into contact with hardly anyone. We had our new Innova travel basket but didn't want to exceed what we thought was permissive in public, so used this in our garden for putting practice. A combination of the two turned out to be a positive low risk solution which protected ourselves as well as keeping our fitness levels up.

We began to adapt to the change of conditions to throw in and started thinking that maybe would could continue with disc golf in the UK. We loved it too much. So started looking and browsing on websites for discs.

Moving on a few weeks and our government decided we could take unlimited exercise. It was at that point, around about mid May, that we took our basket to the park. The local dog walkers and those taking their exercise on the park had got used to seeing us throw discs, however the introduction of the basket brought positive curiosity and questions. 

Those questions naturally started with, "I've seen you throwing things on the park but what exactly are you doing?" After explaining that it was a game/sport called Disc Golf and all about it and that it's played internationally on courses, the next question was "Is there a course near here?" As I have mentioned in a previous Blog instalment, there had been a course 20mins drive away that had been reported on-line as unplayable, so my answer to the question on a course was Manchester, a little over an hour away. As soon as the answer was given you could see the interest slide away. This happened numerous times.

As lockdown restrictions on travelling eased in late May, we decided to take a drive to Myerscough Course and check it out for ourselves. Nothing like first hand research. Set in the grounds of the College Campus and once we found someone to chat to and ask of the courses whereabouts, we were left to wander around to see what we could find. The course was a sad state, totally neglected, overgrown and the tee boxes, which had been carefully installed with astro turf, where a complete mess. The positive, the baskets were in good order as were the Tee information posts.

I decided I had to write to someone at the college to find out if there was any feasibility in restoring this course. I also wanted to find out about its history and why it had been allowed to fall off the radar when the north west of England was in such need of courses to play on. That would be my little disc golf project until such time we could get out and play a course, which naturally would be Manchester Disc Golf Course.