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Joined: 02 Aug 2006 Posts: 181 Location: Minneapolis

Thinking about a trip there next spring. Anyone got any opinions on the courses and the area? How are the course (we heard they're great). any suggestions on where to stay etc would helpful.

Joined: 23 Jul 2004 Posts: 31 Location: Minneapolis, MN

The courses are excellent. They aren't as plenteful as the Twin Cities, but the quality is top notch. Pickard, Ewing and Walnut Ridge are generally considered to be the best in the metro area. Grandview and Big Creek are really good, too. If you have the time those are all worth checking out. If you have more time Water Works and the two courses in Ames are also fun, but it's not worth missing any of the other courses I listed first over them.

There are a couple hotels right off of I-80 and Jordan Creek Pkwy (74th St) that are pretty nice, not super expensive and are real close to both I-80 and I-235 so getting around will be easy. They're all close to this one:

http://www.marriott.com/hotels/travel/dsmwd-west-des-moines-marriott/

I could be wrong, but I believe for the '04 Worlds many of the recommended hotels were near this one:

http://www.holidayinn.com/h/d/hi/1/en/hotel/dsmdu?&cm_mmc=mdpr-_-googlemaps-_-hi-_-dsmdu&dp=true

The above is a little more of a drive to the south side courses (Ewing and Pickard), but Des Moines is only so big, so it's not that big of a difference. It's quite a bit closer to Grandview and Walnut Ridge, too.

I don't check these forums all that often, but I'll try to keep up if you want more advice. If there are any other considerations as to what you like or plan on doing be sure to mention them, too.

Joined: 11 May 2007 Posts: 82

First and foremost, great post garublador, super helpful. I'm one of the guys heading down to Des Moines for this and have a few other questions.

We're planning on heading down from Minneapolis early Friday morning and are thinking about maybe hitting a few courses. Wondering if you know much about the 2 courses in Ames, or maybe Heritage in Ankeny.

We essentially have 3 full days to DG and are wondering what a good schedule would be? Would it make sense to do both Ames courses on the way down (assuming they are worth playing). Then Saturday doing Ewing/Pickard. Then Sunday close with Walnut Ridge/Big Creek? That's tentatively what we're planning on. This would leave out Colfax which I've heard is pretty good and Heritage. We just want to make sure we hit the top 6ish courses in the area.

Also, we're planning on going out a couple nights as well. Any tips on the rockin' nightlife in Des Moines. We're a pretty chill group and could use some good beers after a day of hurlin'. Any further advice would be awesome.

Joined: 23 Jul 2004 Posts: 31 Location: Minneapolis, MN

I'd play both courses in Ames before I'd play Heritage in Ankeny. It's not a bad course, it's just not anything out of the ordinary.

Your tentative plan sounds awesome. To be honest, it's almost exactly what I would have recommended. I haven't played Colfax, so I can't comment on what you're missing. If you're willing to make Saturday a long day you can try to fit Grandview in there as well. That would be the only local course that you're missing that's one of the biggies, but the other courses take priority (some might say to do Grandview over Carol Marty in Ames, but that makes less sense logistically and not everyone will say the same thing. You'd have to play both to know which one you like more). I wouldn't bank on it as you may be kind of wiped out after Big Creek and Walnut Ridge.

If you're eating in Ames there's a BBQ place called Hickory Park that's the standard answer for, "Where do I eat in Ames." I won't claim it's the best restaurant in Ames but it's fairly inexpensive, the food is good and you get a lot of it. They're also known for their ice cream desserts.

I'm running short on time so I'll post more about DSM later. I lived in MPLS for 5 years so if you have any places there that you guys enjoy and are looking for something similar let me know and I'll see if it helps.

Joined: 23 Jul 2004 Posts: 31 Location: Minneapolis, MN

For DSM nightlife, it kind of depends on what you're after. One of the most popular areas is a couple blocks downtown called Court Ave. There are a couple brew pubs there, Court Ave. Brewing and Raccoon River Brewing, that are both really good, IMO. There's a Spaghetti Works (which I'd avoid), an upscale Mexican restaurant and severalother restaurants and bars including a pretty cool German bar and a place that has lots of live music. The area reminds me a bit of St. Paul.

There's an area called the West Village that's more of an uptown Minneapolis type vibe but I haven't spent much time there. Us West siders tend to shy away from anything with the word "East" in it. Wink

Those are probably the two biggest nightlife areas.

Joined: 11 May 2007 Posts: 82

We're still in the process of deciding on hotels and might end up staying near the airpot. That's the clubhouse leader right now and it's actually very close to Ewing I think which is on our list.

We're still shuffling around course order. We now may do Walnut Ridge & Big Creek on the way down Friday just to make sure we get them in before we're broken down. Then do Pickard & Ewing on Saturday. Depending on how we feel we're trying to figure out if we'll play a couple rounds at Ewing or Pickard or if it's worth trying to sneak in Grandview that day. Then we're thinking on Sunday we'll determine which courses of Heratige & the Ames courses that we'd like to play. Maybe we'd just do Grandview & Heratige and just skip Ames right now. It'll really probably all depend on what shape we're in.

As for night life the brew pubs sounds right up our alley. We're all married guys so it's more for the beer and bar games thing than it is for the hip, female laden scene. Although don't get me wrong, we do like eye candy. It's just we'll be window shopping. I guess what we don't want is to be sardines in a bar. We'd rather just chill, enjoy the scene, maybe even hear a band and play some darts, foos, etc. We'd only be going out one night with the other spent playing some cards in our room as well.

You're a huge help so far garu. Thanks for the expertise!

Joined: 23 Jul 2004 Posts: 31 Location: Minneapolis, MN

I'm glad to help. It's not often I get to talk about DSM as a tourist destination. It's kind of exciting.

Keep in mind that DSM isn't very big. Ames is only about a 45 minute drive from most places in Des Moines. I live in a north-westish suburb and it only takes me 20-25 minutes to get to Ewing, which is on the south side.

If you're worried about being worn out (which I would be, too), the revised plan is another winner. One thing that is nice about Heritige is that it's right off the freeway. You can get off, drive over and check it out and if it's not what you want or is flooded or something, you can be back on 35 all in 5-10 minutes.

Joined: 11 May 2007 Posts: 82

We're a little more than a week away from our trip to lovely DSM and I'm just wondering if there are any last minute things we need to know?

We're currently planning on playing Big Creek & Walnut Ridge on Friday and then either hitting Prairie Meadows or Court Ave/Raccoon River area that evening. Then on Saturday we're planning to play Pickard and Ewing. Sunday is a lighter day and we plan on hitting Grandview and potentiall Heratige depending on how ambitious we end up getting.

Just wondering if there are any course updates that we'd need to know about or if anyone has some last minute ideas here. Garu, thanks for all the info here, it's been a huge help.

Joined: 02 Aug 2006 Posts: 181 Location: Minneapolis

We're gonna hit up the Ames courses this year. Anyone know anything about them?

Joined: 08 Jul 2008 Posts: 20 Location: Coon Rapids

Carroll Marty is awesome, similar to Acorn (I believe). Don't play McHose Park in Boone Ia, unbelievable to find the next hole. On the way down on our trip last June, we played Owatonna's River Rock DGC (awesome), and other than Carroll Marty in Ames, I recommend Waukee Centennial Park (W of Des Moines) if you are there, and I liked Bancroft Bay # 2 in Albert Lea, really solid course.

Joined: 11 May 2007 Posts: 82

djschnabel wrote:

Carroll Marty is awesome, similar to Acorn (I believe). Don't play McHose Park in Boone Ia, unbelievable to find the next hole. On the way down on our trip last June, we played Owatonna's River Rock DGC (awesome), and other than Carroll Marty in Ames, I recommend Waukee Centennial Park (W of Des Moines) if you are there, and I liked Bancroft Bay # 2 in Albert Lea, really solid course.

Really intrigued by the comments on Boone. We were strongly considering heading out there for this but had some minor concerns with how rough it might be. Sounds like you are saying it's not worth it. Care to expand on that?

We were actually thinking of doing Todd Park in Austin over the Bancroft Bay courses. Seems to have higher ratings on dgcr.com with a little more variety. Any chance you guys have played that?

Joined: 08 Jul 2008 Posts: 20 Location: Coon Rapids

the first 6-7 holes of Boone (McHose Park) are great. Then you move one. The holes aren't played at all. The tee shots become blind. Hole 8 or 9, which is 850 feet total (100 feet straight, then a 90 degree angle to the left, with a 10-15 foot wide path through the woods for 750 more feet) is where we quit. We played for idk how long, until we came upon some teenagers in the stream (which is in play on 3-5 holes in a row), and asked them where the basket was. They said it was "back there", but it was stolen. It took like 15 minutes to find the next basket and determine which hole we were shooting at for each hole.

It sounded incredible to us, and if we were a little more prepared, or the baskets weren't stolen, it would have been a great course. When we left hole 8 or 9, which ever it was, we didn't see any more holes on the way back, the woods are so dense. Big disappointment.

We did not play Todd Park in Austin, and I don't remember if I mentioned it in my previous thread posting, but I highly recommend playing river rock in Owatonna, it was in an open park, played around a river, over and through it, and you don't really have any issues w/ losing discs. I actually plan on driving down there from Coon Rapids to play sometime this year...