I digress, as an excuse for a rest from our 3 days play at ReBoot Bluebell Woods, and took a detour to have a couple of nights near Loch Lomond. We had booked onto the Milarrochy Bay Camping and Caravan Club site, which is on the east bank of the loch. We have often driven along Loch Lomond but on the west side on our way further north but have never been on this side.
We left Dunbar and en route the weather broke and the rain really started to come down, seemed like the storm, now named Francis was getting closer. Despite the weather we made good time and arrived mid afternoon to be given a front row pitch on the campsite and the sun came out.
We had a lovely afternoon and evening and planned our next day around what was looking like increasingly worse weather to come, that was going to hit the whole of the UK. The next morning was going to be fine, so we decided we would take a bike ride along the roadside of the loch, for as far as it would go. The road ended at a car park used by walkers who wanted to climb Ben Lomond, one of the Scottish Munros (a Scottish mountain over 3000ft). A lovely part of the country and it was clearly the calm before the storm was due to come in.
Disc Golf was calling again and after our short break here we headed on towards Glasgow, where the Glasgow Disc Golf Club (GDGC) have at the time of writing, 4 Courses. I had been in contact with one of the members, Patrick, who had been extremely helpful in advising where to park our motorhome for each course, including marked up screenshot maps.
This trip had been organised as soon as covid travel restrictions had been lifted, and of course before we knew of any weather storms. However, the weather was conspiring against us and by the time we arrived at the Strathclyde Park Caravan and Motorhome Club campsite, the weather had worsened. We spent the rest of the day confined to our motorhome sheltered by a large hedge with lashing rain and wind to keep us company.
The following morning it was still raining but not quite as bad and the forecast was for it to ease off for a couple of hours or so. I had previously asked Patrick which order he would recommend we play the courses. He had advised we go to Springburn Disc Golf Course first. With the weather as it was and the forecast suggesting a further deterioration we honestly felt having come all this way that we needed to make an attempt to play at least one course. We got ourselves organised, route planned to the course and headed to Springburn.
Springburn was Glasgows first 18 Holes Disc Golf Course, set in a 64 acre Victorian styled, mixed use public park and the course was only established in 2019. There is only street parking available and recommended on Balgrayhill Road and Balornock Road. There are no toilets (restrooms) on site.
This is a free to play Disc Golf Course and at the time of visiting there was one tee box per hole with either Astro turf, tarmac or rubber mat, Par57, 5059ft. Patrick had also advise that there wouldn't be a Hole 4 to play whilst we were there, as they were in the process of moving it. He mentioned that there was also future plans to put shorter tees in.
Glasgow Disc Golf Club have a very good website where you can see each of the hole plans, click here (Springburn Hole plans) or you can use UDisc. The course has been planned so that it uses the entire park but as this is a multi use park please be mindful of other users, as the park has paths running through it and park users do wander where they like. There are tree lined fairways and water holes to negotiate.
After parking up we headed across the park and found Hole 1. All the tee pads are marked with pictorial Hole maps so you can understand where to throw, with Mandos (M), Drop Zones (DZ), Out of Bounds (OB)s, and Spotter require (S) annotated clearly (all tee maps photos courtesy of GDGC).
The wet conditions on the course were really bad. Not the fault of the course but just the amount of rain that there had been, it had been torrential. Even our campsite had standing water on a lot of the grassed areas (luckily we were on a hardstanding pitch) which was making the maintenance for the staff there really difficult. Hole 1 was fine with a straight forward start, throwing through the Mando. Hole 2, someone has a sense of humour, or at least I think that's what I said when I saw it!
Throwing over water was something we hadn't encountered since playing in Florida and most of the time there we had chickened out over much shorter distances than this, and there wasn't any reeds or rushes that might just snatch your disc. It is definitely a case of confidence and as forehand player I should have been able to throw this hole and land in a safe area, but with a best measured forehand throw so far of 187ft I was extremely nervous to even try and aim this towards the basket area or circle. I didn't particularly want to lose a disc so made a decision to take a shorter route across the water and aimed for just short of the S on the Hole map. I chose a disc I felt confident that I could throw accurately, the Duchess, and I was so pleased with my success when I hit the mark. I had made a choice and executed the shot with conviction. I threw my upshot which didn't go so well and ended in a puddle, shot 3 clipped the basket and missed so then I had a tap in for 4.
Hole number 3, seriously....
Wow this is tough. Teeing off across water in the hope that you can negotiate either the gap between the trees on the far side of the water, or get enough height to get over them with a low out from the tee box!! We both looked at each other and said nahhhh, lets walk round to the S on the map and play our shot from there and be really generous as its raining again and give ourselves just one shot 😀. We were here to enjoy ourselves despite the deteriorating weather, not beat ourselves up.
So having got those 2 water holes out of the way and as Hole 4 wasn't available to play we continued round the course. The rain was on and off but that didn't deter us as we had some sunshine dappling through the trees from time to time.
The course is really very pretty but extremely challenging for us, I must admit. Some of that may have been down to the conditions under foot. My relatively new Oboz boots completely broke down and my feet were wet. I guess any boot that claims to be waterproof can only take so much water and it took 3 days afterwards for these boots to dry out, so that tells you how squelchy it was.
The course has a real mix of holes from technical to low ceilings, extra long holes from what we have encountered before elsewhere, to interesting basket positions.
We really enjoyed it even though it beat us up....
We enjoyed it so much that we decided on a second round whilst we were there, because the rain had stopped and our boots couldn't really get any wetter. This time we went round without scoring and decided that we would use the opportunity to learn from this course, without the pressure of putting a score down. We could also try 2 or 3 attempts if need be on some holes, to try different discs or shots.
The one hole that had really messed with my head had been Hole 2 and thats because I knew I should be able to throw my disc closer having seen how well I'd done the first time. Hole 3 was a none starter and I'd love to see someone tackle that in the future. My arm can't throw that hole from that tee pad so I may as well forget that particular one. So off we went again, Hole 1 fine, Hole 2 water, Duchess again and this time I went for a straighter shot and over much more water than previously, landing it just over the reeds and nicely placed for my next shot which was my Axiom Envy, and then sunk my putter in for 3. Yeah, so pleased that I'd had the confidence to go for it this time and take the risk. Sometimes you just have to try and try again to know whats achievable.
Springburn Disc Golf Course will definitely be a course we will return to to try on a drier day, it is lovely. You should come and try it out. It's definitely one of the most challenging courses we've encountered so far and because of that we are determined to make another stab of it. I believe there may be some changes going to happen to this course in the future and we look forward to returning and next time having the opportunity to meet up with some of the players there.
We returned to our campsite with some decisions to make, we had planned on playing the other 3 courses in Glasgow over the following 3 days. Having experienced the conditions at Springburn, the fact that it had started to rain again when we got back on the campsite and the forecast had now indicated that a Yellow storm warning was in place, we reluctantly decided that we wouldn't get the best of play on the remainder of this trip. So I contacted Patrick and thanked him for his help and told him we would be leaving. We drove home the next morning in pouring rain, a little disappointed that we hadn't completed our aim of playing 5 Scottish Disc Golf Courses on this trip, but we do know for sure that we will be back and next time we may add another course to the list, one out on the islands 😀.
We are both members of the British Disc Golf Association (BDGA), however, since we got home from this trip, we have joined the newly formed Scottish Disc Golf Association (SDGA) in support of Scottish Disc Golf, as we both feel Scotland has a huge amount of potential with regard to developing this sport.
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