Wirth Par 3

I took off early from work yesterday to meet a friend at the fairly new Theodore Wirth course because I read an article about it in this weeks Startribune newspaper. I think that both of us now regret our choice.

To start with, the cost is $5.36 (with tax) to play this course. Based on that alone I guess I had high expectations. I regularly play many different courses including all three of the 3 River Park District courses (Bryant, Elm Creek, and Hyland). Because these courses are $3 a round, I expected Wirth to be at least comparable to them in variety and playability. I was wrong. I will gladly play Bryant, Elm Creek, and Hyland over Wirth even if Wirth were to lower their price.

The person in the clubhouse was not very friendly. He told us how the real golf players have the right of way so we should stay out of their way. You have to look out for flying golf balls on almost every hole as the disc golf holes are adjacent to almost every fairway on the par 3 golf course.

The tee boxes are just a white or red stake in the grass. The baskets are just stuck in the ground next to each fairway (for the most part). There are no wood chips around any basket, including the ones that are slightly off in the woods. There is no imagination or variety in this course. The scorecard provided has a useless map on it. Every hole on the card shows 2 or 3 basket locations when there is only one basket out there. This is apparently for some future expansion. You will have no idea what side of the fairway the basket will actually be on the first time you play.

It was 85 degrees in October in Minnesota yesterday. I expected the disc golf course to be fairly full. My friend and I saw exactly one other player out on the course at about 6:00 PM when we were on about number 11. Were it not for him, we would have had the disc golf portion of the course to ourselves. We spoke to him and found out that it was also his first time playing the course. All three of us agreed that we will probably not be back.