Ox Bow Park in August is a beast.

The fairways are stupid tight. Some maybe eight feet wide if you’re lucky. The rough? Forget about it. Stray off line and you might need two shots just to see sunlight again. Yeah, there are a few open holes, but most of the time you’re playing darts through tree walls, ducking under branches, dodging trunks that seem like they’re personally trying to ruin your day.

But this is our place. Curtis and I have played over a hundred rounds here. I know his lefty lines better than he does. He knows exactly which discs I’m reaching for before I do. We know where we’re good, where we struggle, all of it.

This weekend was different though.

The tournament at oxbow is three fold:

Friday: The Summer Sizzler
PDGA Pro/Am C-Tier – flex start – 1 round of 24 holes – 88° and 48% humidity, no wind. Feels like 92°

Curtis wins this with a -1!
I scored +6. One of my worst rounds. I think I played too much leading up to the event. Almost daily for 2 weeks and Friday was 8 days in a row. I just couldn’t get my releases right off the tee.

Saturday: The OXBow Classic
PDGA Pro/Am C/B-Tier – shotgun start – 2 rounds of 24 – 90° and 49% humidity, 12mph wind. Feels like 95°

My first round was +5, one less than yesterday. Same problem, can get my drives down the fairways. Approaches were ok and putting was ok. Took an hour and 10 minutes for lunch then back at it. The second round starts the same as the first. Then something changes, my rhythm or something. Don’t know and don’t care. I go with it and end with -2 with 4 bogeys on my card. I am the only under par in the division for the day. I get 2nd place. I am more proud of the only round of the day below par!

Sunday: The Dog Days Doubles
Pro/Am XC-Tier – shotgun start – 1 round 25 holes best disc doubles

The Round

We start on Hole 22 (292ft par3), ceiling so low you’re basically bowling. Basket’s hiding behind trees like it owes money. I usually shoot 3.6 here, so par’s fine by me. Drive lands outside C2, we both screw up the approach, but I sink the 15-footer. Even par with everyone else.

Hole 23 (238ft par3). Fairway’s maybe 35 feet wide, OB right, elevated basket at the end of the rising fairway with OB behind. We’ve been nailing this one all week. Not today. Crappy drives, sketchy putts. Par again. Still even.

Hole 24 (198ft par3). The pine rows from hell. Six-foot gap right off the tee, trees planted in rows back when Nixon was president. The problem is that the rows run 45° from your front-left to your rear-right. I thread the first gap clean, then the second, fade down the corridor and park it in C1. Solo birdie rule means it’s my putt. 28 feet, dead center chains. Finally, we’re at -1.

Hole 1 (191ft par3) downhill halfway then back up the other side with this massive maple that eats plastic for breakfast right at the middle of the fairway at the lowest point, and hides the basket from view. The only hole I have ever aced. Hit the tree, kicked forward for a long look. But Curtis? Dude throws his flex backhand like it’s on rails and sticks it to 10 feet. Birdie. We’re at -2.

The A-Hole (170ft par3) yeah, that’s really what we call it, with a tree blocking right and a picnic table cluttering up the left. It is a permanent temp hole and it gets used when the TD needs to open up 4 more slots for a tournament. We both parked it. Birdie. -3.

Hole 2 (300ft par3), mando right of this nightmare called “The Shit.” Three dead trees they dragged together years ago, now surrounded by raspberry thorns on the left side where most righty throwers want to land. Go in there and you’re bleeding, not just losing strokes. My turnover clips a tree at 100. Curtis rides his lefty line perfect for par. Still -3.

The next few holes we’re trading pars and birdies, playing solid. Hit Hole 5 where I’m the only guy to actually land the island green, which is an old barn foundation and that giant willow. Miss my 20-footer but Curt drains his. -4.

Hole 6 (275ft par3), the double gap. One tree splits the fairway into two impossible lines. We take our pars like adults. Holes 7 and 8, we both stick it close, drain birdies. -6.

Check the other cards. We’re all moving together. This is going to be tight.

Hole 10 kills us. Should be automatic, we’ve been crushing it all week. I catch an early tree, Curtis disappears into the woods. We both lay up like amateurs. Bogey. Back to -5.

That bogey hurt. We know the other teams each have one too, but that’s it. No margin for error now.

But we bounce back on Hole 11. My Mamba goes laser-straight, nearly aces, slides past. Curtis parks his flex. Birdie. -6. Back in the fight.

We grind through the middle holes. Some pars, some birdies. Nothing spectacular, just solid disc golf. By Hole 15 we’re at -8. Holes 16 and 17, more of the same. Par, par.

Holes 18, 19, 20. Par, par, par. Still -8 heading into the hardest hole on the course, tied with two other teams. It all comes down to this hole. If we par, playoff on who knows what hole. Birdie and we win outright. But I have never taken a 2 on this hole. Curtis has never taken a 2 on this hole. Even together we have never taken a 2 on this hole.

Hole 21: For the Win

Three hundred feet. Long tunnel, maybe 20 feet wide. Grove of pines at 230ft with a seven-foot ceiling. OB right the whole way and more OB six feet past the basket.

I pull my old beaten GStar Wraith. The one that’s been with me through everything. I let it go five feet off the ground and it flies straight as a ruler. It enters the pine grove at three feet, drifts left between the last two guardians, and slides up the dirt fairway to just inside C1. 32 feet to the basket.

Solo birdie rule says it’s mine. I step in, release, hit high right. It balances on the rim for a second and drops out. I walk away in disbelief as I turn I see …

Curt, who doesn’t even think. Plants his feet, looks up mid-throw, and smashes it dead center.

Birdie. Win. Final score: -9.

Two trophies in two days. My first for second place. My second for first. At 56, after working harder on my game than ever before, I got the reward. And I got it with the one guy who knows my game as well as I do, who, if he wasn’t already as addicted to the sport as I am, he is now.