I have just returned home from a 2 week whirlwind adventure in course building. It was a project that was 3 years in the making. One that I (and others) had given up on many times and quite frankly one of the most intense projects I have ever been a part of. It may have also been the most rewarding one yet ( it is at least in the top 3).
Before I get into all the goodies and stories I wanted to take a moment to talk about why I chose to write what I do. I am constantly filled with self doubt, sometimes it is almost crippling. I recently lost a major bid that I really wanted to win. It was the first time I have ever lost a bid and it shook me to my core. I have been writing about that experience steadily since it happened, and one day, when the proper time comes, I will put something out there in the world that reflects my experiences about it. Now is not that time, but it is important to know that this loss was fresh in my mind when I was traveling to this project.
Sometimes I worry that I write about the events in my life as a means of self-preservation. Like I am trying to humanize my efforts so people will feel empathy for me and forgive my mistakes. Sometimes I think maybe I am trying to paint myself in a more positive light. Both of these things make me want to stop writing altogether. I continue to write for one simple reason; whenever I experience something truthful it helps me to write it down. The simple act of writing truthful things, and giving voice to them, encourages me to read them again. Anytime I am lost in this world reading truth helps bring me back. That’s it. The last two weeks have been deeply truthful and for that reason alone I want to share it.
Now this story isn’t just about the last two weeks, no, for this story you have to stretch back almost 3 years. In 2022 the city of St John’s Newfoundland approved a budget to have a disc golf course designed and built at McNiven Park in airport heights. This was a direct result of the then president of Disc Golf NL, Nicolas House and his entire team. Lots of us were watching the city council that day or got word shortly after. This was a huge victory for the disc loving ‘townies’ as the only course they had was a very basic ‘baskets-in-a-field’ type of course. St John’s is a thriving city with a young and very active population. We all knew disc golf would thrive there. Once the announcement was made we all felt like there would be a direct line to having the course built in a timely manner. We were wrong.
Now everyone knows that once the government gets involved things can be complicated and maybe slowed down a bit (to be clear I am a big believer in government and I think it has the capacity to do positive things for our society as a whole). As time would unfold none of us were prepared for the obstacles, road blocks, and challenges that would be thrown our way. From the moment of that announcement to the time the course actually broke ground, no less than 3 of the major organizers basically quit the project and gave up, myself included. Luckily each time that happened someone else picked it back up with the mental strength that was needed and dragged it to the next level. It was a herculean effort to say the least. I have tried to take notes on this project all the way through, and looking back at those early days there were so many things that didn’t make sense to us that it was nothing short of a minor miracle that it happened. So many projects don’t have this many people willing to chip in and that is why they die. This project will now live on simply because of the great people involved. If you are reading this and you are one of those people I hope you know how grateful I am, and how many people will be positively affected because of your perseverance.
Eventually there came a point where the new president (WP) called me this spring and said it’s finally approved, let's start building!! After the shock wore off we made a plan, set a date, and focused on the future. Even after that there were still a few minor bumps in the road, but after a bit of time even those got smoothed out.
So with all that as our foundation early one Sunday morning I packed my truck and headed for the ferry. At first I was hoping to take the ferry to Argentia which is located outside of St John’s but due to some ferry delays and whatnot I had to land on the west coast and make the drive. No worries I thought. I will enjoy a day of driving across one of my favorite places in the world. I left home at 8am, did a public course opening at NRHS on the way, then drove to the ferry, slept on the floor and drove all day Monday to arrive at Mr House’s house in time for a home cooked meal around 530pm. Which if you are counting at home is 33.5 hours after I left my house. Tuesday morning I had a quick onsite meeting with the city and then we were off to the races. I had a machine on site ready to mulch and a 10 day plan that I had meticulously laid out.
Day 1, the meeting went great. The machine was running top notch and my driver and I settled into our rhythm together. Now this particular driver is someone I have worked with before. His name is Wayne Jose Robinson. He is a salt of the earth kind of guy and he and I get along on a deeper level than almost anyone else I work with. We both prefer to work in silence, no radio, no music, just the sound of the machine and the job in front of us. He is slow, steady, and calculated; my version of a perfect worker. He is from a small corner of Newfoundland called Greenbay and he is the youngest of 14 kids. No one in his family has ever drank or smoked, including his parents. When I asked him about his middle name, Jose, and how it didn’t feel like a traditional Newfoundland name, he laughed and said after 14 kids they kind of ran out of those names. That explanation suited me just fine. Now even with the perfect operator you can only make due with the machines (and tools you are given). It was apparent after a short period of time that we would have to make some adjustments to my carefully crafted plan. One issue that I was dealing with right away was that the course drawings were very specific and the restrictions placed on us by the city limited my movements. Not wanting to cause trouble with a city I hoped to work with plenty of times in the future, I worked extremely hard to stay within the confines of what we had agreed on developing. Day 1 started with me arriving onsite at 515 am and leaving at 845 pm. All of my days would end based on the last time at night I could order food. This would be my only factor in leaving the job site each day.
By day 2 we figured out our bad spots, adjusted the plan, and had my hired help, fellow bluenoser Adam Berry arrive. We made huge progress and accomplished almost everything on the list. The majority of the holes were roughed out and everyone was feeling good.
Side note - In my opinion there are 3 major parts about building a disc golf course, each of them are equally important. They are designing, projecting management, and physical labour. Now almost every single person who has ever played disc golf probably dreams about some version of the first aspect. Whether it is the desire to design a course or a single hole we all dream of that perfect line or the ideal basket placement. Designing is a dream and maybe the most ‘glorious’ part of course building but it is also only a piece of the puzzle. So many great holes have to be compromised because of the land and all the factors that have to be considered. It is always funny to me when people say. ‘ Oh this hole would be so much better if you did this and this’ because many of those ideas don’t factor in safety, water (for heavy rains, snow melt etc), course flow, or any of the other things that go into overall course building. If I am a professional course builder my commitment to understanding as many of the things that contribute to what makes an incredible course aside from just the design is what sets me apart from the amateur builders. Even after 42 permanent installations and another 10 designs that are permanent in people's minds (think Wallace River) I still worry I am not qualified for the title professional. I am working on that.
However, the skillset I am 100% certain on is my project management skills. You might not think about it but this is an art all in itself. I used to dream about what shot shapes I would throw on the next tournament but now I dream about what route the machine will take and how many trees I can save by following an alternate route. The only time I used my disc golf bag or discs in Newfoundland was as a pillow when I had to pass out in my truck from sheer exhaustion on my drive home. During days 1- 6 it was all project management. I learned so many things about myself during these days that it was remarkable. Maybe it was because I was so far from home, or without my usual support that I felt a more intense pressure to succeed. Maybe it was because I had lost my last bid, or maybe it was because I am only now fully starting to understand the gravity of these projects that I felt a heightened sense of awareness, but for whatever reason I was in a mental space I had only occupied a few times in my life. One of the things that I really noticed was how mathematical my brain is. I don’t think many people would refer to me as a ‘smart’ man, I can barely navigate the most basic of computer tasks, I still can’t figure out how to bank on my phone, and compared to my brother or cousins I have so little understanding of complex math and physics theories that it is laughable. I do however love me some simple math formulas. I am constantly calculating the square foot areas that we cover each day and then trying to project the following day's progress. I map out the land as many times as I can and then try to calculate the shortest path to each basket for the machine to travel. I am constantly running numbers in my head to calculate the cost of any machine that will show up and what jobs it can do efficiently. It is hard for me to have conversations with people during those days because my mind is just numbers, numbers, numbers. I usually don’t talk on the phone or take breaks. I just try to stay 400 feet ahead of the machine and constantly update the map and route I want him to take. During this job I created a mathematical formula for calculating the sq foot that an industrial mulcher, a loader/ backhoe, a skid steer, or a single person with a chainsaw can accomplish per hour, including down time. Normally this is something I would just share with you right now but after the events of the last few weeks I am actually scared to share information that I have collected because I am worried about giving away too much of what I have learned to people who wish to bid against me. This change in my perspective really concerns me and I am not sure I like that about myself. I have always lived by the idea that information is meant to be shared and by doing that we will all make the world a better place. I am still wrestling with this idea and will continue to do so until I can find the confidence in myself that I believe I am capable of.
Overall this job ran at a success rate of about 85%. Truthfully it felt like it was close to 90%+ but a few things didn’t go exactly as planned. Still this number is staggering as so many things could potentially go wrong. After day 2 I stumbled upon a mantra that would end up saving me throughout the project. Simply put I followed the rule of ‘do what is right in front of me’ (or do what is easy). You see, my normal mentality is to do what is hard first to get it out of the way. If I had bags of concrete that needed to be put in place over the entire course I would carry the one farthest away first so that throughout the day my jobs would get easier, but on this project that would have killed me (maybe literally). So instead I would look around and say, ‘what is right in front of me?’ Whatever I would see that could be accomplished is what I would do. Over the course of 11 days there was always something right in front of me that needed doing. I still had to follow an overall plan to make sure that those things were on my list but this constant movement to do what was easiest helped me accomplish so many things. There was also a healthy amount of serendipity that happened to me on this job. Most of the things were extremely personal and happened on such a micro level that only I would notice but it did make me feel like I was on the right path. However I would like to share one of these things with you. After a couple days of compromise on some minor parts of the design and the understanding that this course could easily be expandable I decided to build wooden tee decks to put the turf on. I went to two places to get quotes. At hardware store number one I decided to pick up materials to build two decks while I waited for the deliveries that would come in a few days. I did some calculations and asked the guys at the store if they would cut me 10 pieces of 12’ x 2” x 4”. Somehow they cut 2” x 6” instead and although it threw a bit of a wrench in my plan I made due. This ultimately decided to go with the quote from store number 2 and asked them if they would cut me 150 pieces of the 12’ x 2” x 4”. I would pay them for their labour and we worked out a price and timeline. Somehow they instead cut 150 pieces of 10” x 2’ x 6’ and didn’t notice until the delivery was scheduled to go out the door in a few minutes. They called, and I accepted the changes and made another new plan to build tee decks that were 5’2” wide instead of 6’. Now the serendipity comes from the fact that when the skid steer I rented showed up it had a bucked size of exactly 5’2” meaning that a fully built tee pad could fit in there perfectly and be moved around just with me and the machine. If they had been 6 feet like I planned, they would have not fit and would have been a lot more trouble. This is just one of about 10 situations like this that happened during this trip.
On day 6 the machine wrapped up and it was time to move on to the final stage of the project; physical labour. This is the part of the job I feel the most at home with. I have been doing physical labour since I was around 15 years old. Most of the last 15 years I have made my living owning a contracting company who took the motto of, ‘yes, we can do that’ (actually our official motto was, Quality work, Naturally which I still resonate with). I love the feeling of being exhausted after a day of productive labour. I like how you can see your progress and how knowing what you are going to do all day is a gift. Nothing is better to me than realizing all I have to do is cut trees or rake or whatever menial task is in front of me for the next 6 hours. I find it liberating and full of purpose. From day 6 on I could generally turn from my brain to my back and go out there to knock things off the list. Cutting small trees, moving brush, raking tee pads flat, etc. From the earliest moment I could wake up until just before whatever restaurant I was ordering from that night closed I would be on the course with some tool in my hand doing whatever was right in front of me. It was pure bliss.
Now there is something you should know about St John’s. The weather there is turbulent to say the least. It has warm (by Newfoundland standards) winters that usually hovers around 0 degrees Celsius and lots of wet foggy days. Anyone who has had to fly into the city knows how often flights are canceled due to extreme fog. It rains a lot… But for some reason when I am there it doesn’t. I have been to the city roughly 30 times over the last 20+ years. In all of those visits it has only rained once and those were the days I was there with my wife and family. Now I am not trying to blame them, I am just stating the facts. This trip was no different. For 12 straight days I saw nothing but sunshine including back to back days of 27+ degrees. Had this not happened I don’t know how I would have made the machine work or get to the places I desired. But it did happen and we made it work. On day 7 though I experienced a mental breakdown that hasn’t happened to me since I was 21 years old working as a tree planter in Northern Ontario. The bugs came out and would not leave no matter what I would do. I generally think I am pretty zen when it comes to bugs. I don’t use bug dope or anything like that, I just keep moving at my pace and try to think about how all these bugs feed the birds, etc… But on 2 particular days in St John’s any peace and serenity that I had thought I had achieved was shattered. I remember a moment when I was putting the sleeve in concrete for hole 7 that I looked down and there were at least 1000 small blackflies just on my pants. So many in fact that it changed the colour of my legs. I would have taken a picture if not for the fact that the act of picture taking would have required me to stop and reach in my pants to get my phone and that act of slowing down would have been too much. If the great maker in the sky happened to be listening to my innermost thoughts at any point during the two days of bugmaggedon I apologize for the things I thought and words I may have uttered under my breath. I was not mentally prepared for bugs in my ears and eyes and hair and beard and toes and any of the other places I did not think bugs wished to enter. Every night the shower I took when I got home washed out half dried bugs from every part of my body. On day 9 the heat came and so did the skid steer. I realized that I could get in that bad boy, shut the door and return to my blissful state for 14 straight hours. I can’t remember a realization that brought me so much joy in a very long time. As the heat came the bugs left and for the last two days of my time there all I had to contend with was the sun.
My ambitious goal was to work as much as I could during 10 full working days and leave the course with at least 1 tee pad per hole and the basket permanently in place. Since I had Adam as a helper I was able to do that and on the day I left he took over and completed this task and then some. Once I was gone Adam and his team completed 29 out of 24 tee decks and made sure all the baskets were firmly in place. They crushed it and made it so league could be played there on Sunday afternoon on a modified layout. From what I gathered the energy was high and people loved the course.
As for the course itself it is a wonderful blend of open and wooded shots that use elevation, trees, and all sorts of unique natural features (like a rock quarry) to challenge the players. It is short with most holes on the Blue tees averaging about 275 feet and most holes on the Reds coming in around 235. Don’t let the distances fool you. This is a version of CDT on steroids. It also perfectly encapsulates the spirit of the city. There are beautiful vistas and wonderful nooks and crannies. There are walking trails and cool rocks and more than one opportunity to see a moose. It is a real St John’s experience.
Another really cool thing happened. We decided to give all the holes individual names. This was inspired by my very first onsite meeting with city staff and the local councilor. We were standing on what is now hole 3. It is a former rock quarry with solid rock on two sides and a gentle slope at the end. It also has lupins that line the small sections of grass. We talked about how the machines would move and the ground we would cover. She replied that we could not cut the lupins because there are people in the city that enjoy them. I replied that many people would enjoy the disc golf course and she shook her head. It was the exact moment I gave up on the project and if it hadn't been for Nick standing there beside me the project would have died right there. To me it felt like she was trying to put roadblocks on everything we wanted to do. There is no way to build a course without cutting some trees (or weeds) and at that point I had already flew or drove to the city multiple times without really feeling like we made progress. So with that experience in mind I started calling that hole ‘Lupins’. As we started building the course I talked to Adam about some hole names and we started coming up with some really great ones that were Newfoundland / disc golf crossovers. Names like Heave Away (hole 2, uphill, full pull), Single Hill (hole 1), and my favorite Great Big C (which of course is a hole in the shape of the letter C). This idea came from something that was kind of painful but ultimately led to the course being better. Trust me the names are awesome and they do make the course that much better!
During the 12 days I was away from home I spent 10 full working days and logged 135 hours of onsite labour in addition to burning 42 liters of diesel for the skid steer, 10 tanks of gas with the chainsaw, and drove (or spent on the ferry) for 44 hours. I love to work like this, because the way I see it, if I am going to be gone from home I want to work as much as possible. I wonder if this is the only way I can get things done or if this mentality is unsustainable. I feel like I am motivated to do good for the world and that course building is one of the gifts I possess.
This project isn’t done yet and it will require me coming back to do the finishing touches and to mount all of the signs, but it is open and playable, and it is something that I am extremely proud of. I hope that it births so many new disc golfers that it helps change the face of disc golf in Newfoundland forever.
One last little story before I go.
Originally I had booked a plane ticket to fly home Friday morning but after seeing the progress we made and adjusting my plan it made more sense to drive home for a week then return for the Triple Crown and fly back to finish the course. So on Thursday evening after working the aforementioned 135 hours of labour I decided to start driving back across the island to catch a Friday afternoon ferry (1:15pm local time). I drove from 730 pm to a little after midnight, when I pulled over and slept in the back seat. I woke up at 5: 30 and decided I had tons of time to make the ferry. As I have mentioned before I have been in extreme dad mode (maybe??) of driving lately, which is to say I have become obsessed with fuel economy. So I was basically driving around 87km per hour getting a fuel economy of about 9.6 L/100km in my Tacoma. I stopped for breakfast, I stopped to meet Darrell Chipp on the side of the highway, I even stopped to take a phone call because the reception is so bad on parts of Newfoundland's west coast. All the time I was watching the clock in my truck thinking I just have to arrive before 12 noon and I will be fine. The problem was the clock in my truck was on NS time so I was a half hour later in Newfoundland. Through maybe the last series of serendipity that karma would allow me when I stopped to get gas (to kill a bit more time until I got on the ferry) a voice mail memo popped up on my phone. I didn’t think much of it so I gassed up, chatted with the folks at the station, then hopped back into my truck to enjoy the last 20 minutes or so on the island. I decided just for fun to check that voice mail. Boy was I glad I did. It was Marine Atlantic saying I was late and was going to miss my ferry. I panicked. I called them right back, and in between the call dropping I got all my information and told them I was on my way. They said there is no chance you will make it. So, despite my previous efforts to maximize my gas mileage I put the hammer down and headed to the ferry. When I arrived there were no cars to be seen, the ticket attendant just shook her head and said good luck and I pulled up to the boat seconds before we were set to leave land. I apologized profusely and made my way to deck 7, just in the nick of time.
