Derby, KS Outdoor Activities

Paintballers belly crawl through tall grasses and weeds as their opponents hunker behind fence posts, sandbags, and trees. Within wooden structures teammates strategize and hatch plans of attack before flanking the other team and firing off kaleidoscopic-like rounds of eco-friendly paintballs.

Traversing 54 acres comprising six woodsball courses and two speedball fields, players at The Edge Paintball Adventures navigate varying terrain, including a stream bordered by long stalks of golden grass and overgrown, tree-bordered fields full of thistle, shrubs, and dandelions gone to seed. A staff of trained referees maintain order on themed courses such as Assassin's Alley, where snipers lay in wait or Firebase Bravo, which sports a mammoth bunker that encourages use of paint grenades.

The course architect incorporated the area's natural terrain when designing Highlands Golf Club's 18-hole course, sculpting narrow fairways through native tall grass, using sand hills as natural hazards, and enlisting the population of red foxes to serve as forecaddies. The end result is a 6,650-yard labyrinth of zoysia grass that winds through the rolling hills of Reno County. The challenging course makes accurate shot making a premium, as golfers must avoid multiple water hazards in addition to the tough lies that await off the fairways. Golfers can load their Scottish quivers with new golf balls after a preround visit to the pro shop and relax after rounds at the club's onsite restaurant.

Course at a Glance:

• 18-hole, par-72 course

• Length of 6,650 yards from the farthest tees

• Course rating of 73.8 from the farthest tees

• Slope rating of 133 from the farthest tees

Vibrant hardwoods envelop the lush fairways of Fox Ridge Golf Club's nine-hole course as they stretch across 3,174 yards of scenic, secluded terrain. The horticultural haven encircles a central stream, which comes into play on four holes and houses a sophisticated underwater civilization that uses golf balls as currency. Rounds end in dramatic fashion at the ninth hole—a 498-yard par 5 that doglegs slightly left and contains the widest segment of the intervening river, forcing spiky-shoed adventurers to make cerebral course-management decisions. Head golf pro Mike Riffel guides greenhorns on their path to green jackets with a variety of golf lessons. The Club keeps tour-level hunger at bay with Fox Ridge Restaurant, which serves an eclectic menu including steaks, burgers, pastas, sandwiches, and salads that can be made to order and foraged entirely from recovered divots.

To step back in time to when the cedars, oaks, and pines around Wellington Golf Club were first groomed and pared away to make room for fairways and greens would be to see a landscape at once familiar and different. The year was 1919, and the sounds of cattlemen driving herds up the Chisholm Trail would ring through the air, accompanying the sights of a town not 50 years old. Yet that early course's modesty would be recognizable—and very much part of the draw.

The designers kept much of the surrounding growth intact, forcing players to thread their tee shots down somewhat narrow fairways to span the 6,201 yards. This emphasis on accuracy soaks through to the rest of the course as well. The relatively small greens' fast bent grass demands deft iron play and a soft putting touch. And getting there through variable gusts is half the challenge. But Wellington Golf Club doesn't leave its clubbers stranded in that regard—a driving range holds tees at both ends so that drivers can calibrate to different wind directions without relying on their protractors and trajectory calculations.

Course at a Glance:

• 18-hole, par 70 course
• Total length of 6,201 yards from the back tees
• Three sets of tees per hole
• Scorecard

Since its opening in 1973, Suppesville Golf Course's nine-hole spread has enveloped golfers in a pleasant cocoon of low stress through rolling countryside. The design team of Joyce Hamm and Stanley Suppes wove strips of bermuda-grass fairway among its trees and pastures, leaving water in play on seven of the holes. Once on the small bentgrass putting surfaces, golfers must face down circuitous putting lines that, like Shakespearean sonnets scrawled into sand bunkers, are difficult to read.

Course at a Glance:

• Nine-hole, par 36 course
• Total length of 2,783 yards from the back tees
• Course rating of 65.6 from the back tees
• Course slope of 102 from the back tees
• Three sets of tees per hole :m]]

Carey Park Golf Course, a Hutchinson municipal loop, invites golfers to traverse 6,410 yards while unwinding amid its tranquil atmosphere. As they pursue the par 71 course, players must demonstrate firm control over shot direction to avoid the wooded areas lying just beyond the fairways on most holes. Before a round or as part of a focused practice session, players can also take reps on the course’s driving range, putting green, and practice bunker, or head into the indoor practice facility to avoid rain or tan lines from the elbow pads they wear “just in case.”

Course at a Glance:

• 18-hole, par 71 course
• Total length of 6,410 yards from the back tees
• Course rating of 69.9 from the back tees
• Course slope of 115 from the back tees