It’s a calm spring day at PSC and as you gaze into the blue sky you see birds building their nests while soft fluffy clouds float hazily through the air. Then suddenly a large white disc flies across your field of vision nearly taking off the left side of your face. Realizing someone had nearly killed you with a stray Frisbee©, you decide to turn the other cheek, be the better person, and toss it back to them. Bending to pick it you hear shouting from behind you, “don’t touch it, don’t touch it!” Standing there in confusion another disc flies menacingly toward you. Stalking away you grumble softly under your breath, “assholes.” Damn, disc golfers.
Ed Headrick, “The father of disc golf,” invented the modern day Frisbee© in 1964. Shortly after its creation there was a large surge of interest in this strange new flying disc. This fascination with the Frisbee© caused immense growth of the sport in the 1970’s. This boom inspired the creation of Headrick’s
International Frisbee Association, with over 100,000 members by 1972, as well as Headricks invention, the disc pole hole. This mainstay of disc golf currently consists of an elevated metal pole surrounded by ten chains hanging from a dish shape circle, which then drop to meet at an upturned catching basket. With the advent of an official hole for disc golfers, no longer did people have to throw at trees or dent-free cars. This eventually led to the creation of the Professional Disc Golf Association (PDGA) who just recently celebrated their twenty-fifth anniversary in 2001. Much like golf’s Professional Golf Association the PDGA set the standards on course design, disc weights, and rules of play. With sixteen thousand members strong, disc golf is the next up and coming sport.
With my disc in hand I carefully test the breeze. Waiting for the windy gusts to subside I turn my beat-up white disc in my hands. Brushing dirt from its surface I look to it’s underside where the words “the good Frisbee” are scrawled in black marker. I carefully remember the correct throwing stance as I prepare for my throw: four fingers clutching the underside of the rim tightly with my thumb riding the top edge, wrist rolled back to provide correct rotation, evenly spaced footing. I then draw my arm slowly across my chest and release with a straight forearm carrying the momentum up into the disc. Grunting with effort, I let my throwing arm hang in the air while I watch the lazy flight of my disc. Sailing through the air, the disc narrowly misses the wall on the side of the library entrance and comes to rest past the library but annoyingly underneath a small scraggly tree. I realize that I am in a tough spot and need an ace to come back in the back-nine. This hole being a par three begins at the library drop off box and runs down the length of the library to hit a lamppost just around the corner to the right.
We are all out today, Rob, DJ, Seth and myself, the Frisbee four. DJ throws his disc second and reaches about halfway up the library path with his “backhand, arm-twisting” shot. The next to shoot is Seth, who has one of the longer shots out of our group, making him a killer on the front-nine. Letting go, his disc flies beautifully straight… in the wrong direction. He comes to rest farther down than my shot, but it has tragically curved to the left leaving him with a farther distance and tougher shot. Rob, who I call “Mad Man Masse,” gets up to the tee after a delay of game for pedestrians. A cute brunette looks at us as if we have two heads.
“Fribee golf,” I say simply with a smile. She then nods to me as if I am her simpleton little brother and hurries past. Laughing to ourselves, Rob tosses out his disc to land just short of mine. In this game the farthest from the hole shoots first which brings up DJ’s next shot. Having a rough game this day, DJ lofts his disc with a shocking right curve that drives violently into the library. Shouts of “Wall! Wall!” rise from my competitors as we joke with him. DJ swears softly under his breath and takes the one stroke penalty for hitting a building. Seth steps up next and takes aim. With his dead eye shots he has quickly charged through our ranks and now holds a commanding lead by eight or more strokes to his next opponent. From forty feet away he lets loose his disc watching it fly just shy of the lamppost and landing on the hill in front of Pemi. Rob is next to shoot. He steadies himself and takes aim letting his disc go. Lacking enough power he lands barely three feet from the lamp.
“Mind if I tap out?” he asks.
“Nope go ahead,” I reply.
Picking up his disc and stretching his arm Rob casually tags the post and easily makes par. Realizing this is my chance to move ahead of Rob, my only competition for second place, I put one foot where my disc landed in the tree and stretch my body so that my shot is mostly clear. I line up my shot and take a deep breath. One key to good throws is to shoot without thinking. The more you concentrate the more chance you have of knocking out the guy standing twenty feet behind you. I let go of my disc and watch it sail in my patented slow left curve toward the goal. To my surprise and pleasure I hear a loud “Ting.” Throwing my hands up in victory I dance around while my friends cheer for me. Hitting the hole in two I score a birdie, my first ever. “That is one of the best shots I have seen all day,” DJ tells me.
I feel my head growing bigger.
Disc golf is not that much different than normal golf in its basic rules and course layout. Just like golf the point of the game is to complete an eighteen-hole course in as few shots as possible. The only real difference is the holes and the discs. Discs range in many styles sizes and makers. Ranging from 150 to 180 grams, a disc golf disc has three main types – a driver, midrange, and putter. Differing from Ultimate discs (or lids as disc golf geeks call them) a golf disc is curved smooth like a bowl on the top with a straight underside and a largely reduced rim. These discs have been specially designed for their purposes and the results show for themselves, with the disc golf longest shot topping at 713 feet by Scott Stokely.
Recently taken in by the evils of pdga.com and other disc golf website my friends and I find ourselves shopping for our very own official discs. Sitting together in a small circle around a glaring computer we sit talking stats, grip, length and speed while our other friends try to figure out what’s wrong with us. Slowly we con each other into buying our first starter pack.
“Of course we are going to use them after this,” DJ spouts. “There are twenty-four courses in New England and I intend to hit ten of them.”
“Ya man we can all meet up and play the course in Durham.” Rob convinces us.
Looking to Seth with a grimace, realizing I am giving up on eating food for a week, for discs, I acquiesce.
“Alright sign me up.”
So here I sit writing this article and waiting for my fresh-plastic-smelling discs to arrive from the UPS man. I will carefully unwrap my new babies and proceed to give them a tour of campus. Really, he should be here any time now…Wait I see headlights outside…that has to be him. Moral of the story? Play disc golf.