One of yesterday's posters asked for an explanation of disc golf and why I'm so passionate about it. I'm always eager to spread the love of the game to others, so it's going to be difficult to keep this posting short. I was telling Sean, one time someone at the park district of my hometown asked me what would be needed to make a respectable course in our town and I pumped out a four-page explanation in less than 20 minutes. It's one of my favorite topics.
The basket: The goal in disc golf is to get your disc (which I'll describe later) into the basket. A basket starts with an aluminum pole that is about four and a half feet tall. About three feet up the pole is an aluminum basket that comes out around the pole in a radius of about a foot with six inch high walls. At the top of the pole is a lattice of aluminum, comparable in size to the basket, from which chains dangle. The chains are held together at the bottom by a small aluminum ring that hugs the pole. The idea is to throw the disc into the chains and get it to drop into the basket. (If you land on top of the top lattice, that counts as a made shot, too, though it rarely happens.)
The discs: There are more types of discs than I could describe in this post. First of all, a disc golf disc is not like Wham-mo Frisbee. It is only about eight inches in diameter, and is made out of a harder plastic (unless it's flex-plastic or a supersoft putter). There is x-plastic, z-plastic, flex-plastic and on and on. Most of the difference is just how hard the plastic is, and how true it will continue to fly after hitting a tree. (All discs get beat up, and over time their function changes. For example, I have a Tee-Bird that used to fly straight no matter how I tried to bend it, but somewhere along the way it got chached [a term my friends and I invented to describe all the general mutations a disc can undergo] and now it takes a hard left while in flight. This is nice because if the shot calls for it, I get it to go left to right in the beginning of flight, then watch it helix in the air and turn left to avoid all sorts of trees.) With discs, there are long range drivers that are straight flyers, overstable (turn right to left for a backhand, right-handed player), or understable (the opposite). There are mid-range discs that tend to be more stable, but one could still turn the disc in the air. Then there are putters, which have more squared-off rims, as opposed to the razor-sharp edges of a driver, and are less-subject to the will of the wind. Sometimes soft putters are best because hard putters may bounce off the basket chains and fall to the ground, whereas soft putters absorb the blow and fall into the basket. (This is especially true in winter play when the cold weather makes the plastic stiffer.) And, as I said, as discs get older, they start bending in different ways and you find new uses for them. I carry about 10 discs, and I'll use all of them in a round. Some of the guys who play in big tournaments carry 40 or so discs, but they can do a lot more with a disc than I could ever dream of.
The shots: There are seven basic shots to choose from. They include a forehand roller (which rolls and turns left), a backhand roller (which requires an incredibly specific disc, usually a heavily chached one, and turns right), a forehand drive (done by pressing your middle and index finger against the rim of the disc), a backhand drive, an over the head throw with your thumb inside the disc (which, for right-handers, causes the disc to start left, then dive right), over head with your fingers inside as in a forehand drive (which, for right-handers, causes the disc to start right, then dive left), and the basic, straightforward putt. And there is variations on those shots, for example, on an over-hand shot with your fingers in the disc, a player can intentionally throw a disc at the ground so that the top of the disc bounces off the ground and flies another forty or fifty feet. It's a great way to get under a low hanging branch. Great players are separated from good players by having a fuller arsenal of shots, greater driving distance, and the ability to nail putts from greater distances. As for me, I'm just adding a forehand roller to my game, and I have a weak backhand drive. I use a forehand drive about 95 percent of the time because it's easier to control. Also, my putting comfort zone is only about 20 feet, whereas better players consider a 50-foot shot to be a good possibility. Putting, mid-range shots, and drives also call for different grips on the disc, the details of which I'll spare you.
The holes: A great hole is on the challenges your creativity. My favorite hole of all-time is one where the tee (often a cement pad about 4' by 8', but sometimes different) is about 50 feet higher than the basket. There is dense woods where the drop off is and there is only a circle of an opening about 15 feet in diameter. Some people do regular drives, but I like throw an overhand toss directly down toward the basket. Other holes call for a helix shot (a shot that turns twice in the air) or can just test your courage by putting a basket near a steep drop off. Boring courses are courses that don't require players to shape their shots and have few elevation changes. Sometimes courses will just be one straight hole after another, and that's no fun. Beat-yourself-over-the-head-with-a-two-by-four courses are ones that call for a player to make shots he or she is not capable of. Indian Hills in Columbia comes close to this.
Holes range from 250 feet to 600 feet. Sometimes a 250 foot hole, or even a 200-foot hole can be more difficult than a 600-foot hole if it is deep in the woods with a narrow opening, so a hole cannot be judged by distance alone. An average drive for me is like 330 feet, and I'd say that's about average for amateurs such as myself. Regardless of the length or shape of a hole, though, everything is a par 3 in league play, at every course throughout the world.
Why I love it: It's not a video game, it's a challenge and it's free. First of all, I've made a commitment to never play Halo in my lifetime. I may have touched an XBox controller only 5 times in my life. I spend enough time in front of the television already. During summers in high school, my friends and I used to play 60 holes a day sometimes and it was a chance to meet new people and see new things. We even figured out how to put glow-sticks on the bottom of our discs so we could play at night. None of us really had houses where we could have a bunch of people over at once, so disc golf was our thing to do. We used to drive all over to find new courses and new challenges.
I started playing ball golf (I have to say "ball" now or most people who know me don't know which golf I'm talking about) when I was about 8 or nine years old. I liked, and still love, ball golf. The game is about 90 percent mental and requires focus. I'll never say disc golf is more challenging than ball golf, but it requires some of the same skills. There are shot selections and wind considerations, and you have to block out the bad shots to focus on the next one. There are also new skills I have yet to learn and others I have yet to perfect. So, just like going to the driving range, I sometimes just practice my backhand shot, or just putt for an hour. I enjoy watching my progression, and it keeps me going back.
And the final reason I love it, is that it is free. It's not exclusive or for the privileged. A disc costs about $15 dollars, then one can play all he or she wants. There are no tee times, no apparel requirements, no club houses, none of that. Anyone can play anytime. No one is at a disadvantage if he or she can't afford a $500 TaylorMade R7, and one doesn't have to continue buying $4-a-ball ProV1s. Sometimes I go to the course to practice and I'll find someone who wants to play and I'll end up playing with somebody new. They're always friendly and just looking to talk disc golf, and I could obviously do that all day.
