Allison Chains DGC – Tonn’s Travels
Today was a hard day emotionally. We ventured back from Minneapolis to the town we used to call home for nineteen years (Springfield, Minnesota). A lot of good memories there, along with my mom still living in the community. But a lot of painful memories there too. The tremendous bullying our oldest faced in the school. Our youngest being viciously attacked by a dog in the park across the street from our home. And a wonderful girl who was friends with both our daughters, commiting suicide a few years before we moved.
I didn’t even want to drive past the school, the park, or our old house in town, and our two daughters couldn’t get out of town fast enough. It’s hard. Having a community we built our home and family in for nearly two decades, now being a place where we don’t even want to visit. But we try and look forward, not backward, in our lives. And we’ve landed in a wonderful new community along the Pacific Ocean in Oregon.
Before our brief visit to Springfield, my wife needed to do a bit of work for her employer in the neighboring town of Sleepy Eye. A new nine-hole disc golf course called Allison Chains had opened in that community since we moved, so it was a golden opportunity to get Course #2048 played while we waited.
I actually had the opportunity to design the tee signs for this course. One of the hundreds of sets of tee signs I have designed for courses around North America and Europe via DGA! So it was fun seeing the artwork I created for their signs installed and in use around the park. I wasn’t a huge fan of how close the signs and sign posts were installed to the tee areas themselves! But the signs look great, and seem to be holding up very well.
I played fast, dodging raindrops and mosquitoes. I got all of my deuces except for Hole 6, where I missed a 16-17 foot putt. Annoyed by that missed putt, and knowing my wife wouldn’t be ready for me to pick her up for another ~45 minutes, I decided to give the course one more try. This time, I got my deuce on Hole 6! But I missed a 16-17 foot putt for deuce on Hole 1. I guess the disc golf gods didn’t want me to hold the course record for what would have been one of the closest courses to where I used to live…shooting an eighteen or MAYBE the occasional seventeen if someone aced one of the holes?
Tomorrow, it’ll be on toward Sioux Falls, South Dakota, to get together with inlaws. With me hopefully getting a couple of courses played along the way.
Magic Number = -48 (2,048 Courses Played)
ABOUT DEREK
Derek Tonn is a member of the DGA’s Ambassador Team. His company, Mapformation, LLC, has been DGA’s partner in the development of disc golf tee signage since 2012. The longer our two companies have worked together, and the more Derek has gotten to know all the great folks at DGA, the more he has wanted to formally sing the company’s praises. The more he has realized that “Steady” Ed’s (the father of disc golf and the modern-day Frisbee) vision for the sport and his company perfectly describes his own interests and priorities related to disc golf, and the more Derek has recently been encouraged to share his story.