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Pablo was getting restless this week so me and Earl (my disc bag) joined Pablo for a drive to Hannah's Bend Park located in Cannon Falls Minnesota. Like a lot of Minnesota Parks, Hannah's Bend sits up against a river and in this case it was the Cannon River. How many disc courses have you ever watched a person land a fish as you were playing disc golf? It was like a scene from the movie "A River Runs Through It." Unfortunatly this is not a park I would recommend to drive off the interstate for. I'm getting a head of myself let's begin with the directions. PDGA Online Disc Golf Directory says: Directions: About 6 blocks north of Main St. on 9th St. via 6th St.; by swimming pool. What the hell is this? I almost expected the directions to go on and say, "on tuesdays there is a mexican with a sombrero selling fajita's, take a left at his stand." These are not directions. They are 16 words that are code for, "come to our town and ask a local how to get to the course." Speaking of locals, We stopped at a gas station, walked in and was greeted by what seemed like a movie extra from the Mad Max movie. When you drive to a sleepy little Minnesota town you don't expect to be greeted by a 5 foot one inch black lesbian girl with a pierced tongue and a green bushy mohawk. At first I thought she was Ruffio from that Robin Williams movie, "Hook." Regardless she was nice and gave me great directions to Hannah's Bend Park. If you go, I would do the following: Off Hwy 52 take the Hwy 19 exit. It's the exit north of Curts Cannon Ball Truck Stop. Go east into town, through town Hwy 19 is Main St.. Take a left onto South 4th Street then a left onto Mill St. Drive on Mill Street until you see the City Pool on your left and the Cannon Valley Fairground entrance straight. PARK IN THE POOL PARKING LOT. For some stupid reason Hannah's Bend Parking lot is located in between Basket 6 and tee box 7. You have your choice, walk across the park from the parking lot or park at the city pool, walk across the street and tee off. Description: Scenic holes with dual tees overlooking the Cannon River. Very good for beginners, sometimes teasing experts if it's windy. Some trees, hills. Not that bad of a description but this doesn't tell me why I want to pull off of the highway to play this course. The river thing is pretty but it never comes into play like some great disc parks. Whatever on the description. The annoiance of parking aside. The first tee box is a HUGE TEASE. Your first throw is from the top of an embankment a big oak tree comes out of the side of the hill to keep you from having a clean shot at the basket. My kind of hole, scenic, elevation and challenging. With a hole like this, what could they do to screw this course up? Hole 2 - Each hole has very worn dirt tee boxes and very nice hole description markers. The problem is who really believes a 225 foot hole is a par 4. Straight shot along the river with one tree in play 50 feet in front of the hole. Fairly simple hole if you stay out of the wooded area to the right of the fairway. Hole 3 - When standing at the number 3 tee box you can almost hear an audio of the two city workers standing there trying to figure out where to put the Tee box. "How 'bout we put this one ten feet behind this cedar tree." "Great idea, only six more of these things to go. The basket is straight but hidden behind a gaggle of trees. Basically your choice is to go around to the left and dog leg right. Hole 4 - Straight, little obstrucitons, stay low. Hole 5 - Here is another teaser. The city workers pulled one out of their ass on this one. This is a dog leg left that goes up a hill and into the woods. It's a fun hole. If only they could have more hole like this. Hole six - STUPID HOLE. The marker shows a dog leg left around three trees. The dumb thing is that this route is not mando and from the worn tee box everyone has been throwing straight across. I suppose you could be californian and play safari but the worn tee box makes footing a little tricky. Not impossible but annoying. Hole seven - Maybe this was by design but you have to walk across the little parking lot from basket six to get to tee box seven. The upside is you can drink a beer out of you cooler or play your car stereo while you pack your oney or do both. It does have a little reasoning. Maybe the park workers did it this way in order to stay union compliant. Breaks are important don't cha know. Hole seven is another brilliant 215 ft par 4. The sign shows trees in the middle of the fairway but reality shows a straight alley shot. Stay low due to trees. Hole Eight - this was the hole where I was walking to the basket and watched a kid land a big fish from the near by river. The scene was like a post card. The hole is straight 240 ft. par 5 (whatever) with a small tree in the way 3/4 of the way to the basket. Hole Nine - THE SIGN IS FINALLY ACURATE. Two big trees in the way of a clear shot to the basket which is located on the side of a hill. At best three holes are fun to play. The rest are "what-ever" holes. There is a great biking trail system that follows the Cannon River and is the main tourist draw for Cannon Falls Minnesota. If you were to come to Cannon Falls for the bike trails and then stopped to play Disc Golf, I would say this is a great destination. If you were to drive just for this course, your a fool. But then how many little towns have a short, fat, black lesbian with a green mohawk. That may be worth it just to go check out. At least you can buy a red bull and some pickle flavored sunflower seeds while you check out the freak show. Hannah's Bend Park? I give it a 2 out of 5 discs. Johnny Rocket.
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