colin sproule :-);-)

I have many fond mem­o­ries that include toss­ing a disc (fris­bee) around. In ele­men­tary school we played jack­pot on a big grassy hill. When I worked as a camp coun­selor I spent count­less hours sim­ply throw­ing a disc around with kids and fel­low coun­selors. There is some­thing mag­i­cal about a piece of plas­tic that can keep you enter­tained for hours.

Recently a friend intro­duced me to the exis­tence of Disc Golf. Disc Golf is exactly what it sounds like; golf but with discs. The sport incor­po­rates smaller discs than your aver­age fris­bee and metal bas­kets with chains in place of holes. The object is to get your disc into the bas­ket in the least amount of throws.

Golf With­out the Golf­ing Part

Like reg­u­lar golf, disc golf is played on a course with chal­lenges in the form of trees, water and dis­tance. To over­come these chal­lenges an array of discs are avail­able. Dri­vers, fair­way dri­vers, put­ters etc. These discs come in a vari­ety of shapes, weights and mate­ri­als all of which effect their flight path.

Now this all may sound very dull, but I assure you disc golf­ing is awe­some. Imag­ine if golf had been invented by hip­pies and cost a lot less money. Discs run any­where from $10-$30 and you really only need two or three discs to start. Most disc golf courses are actu­ally secretly hid­ing in pub­lic parks so they are free to play and often easy to get to.

Oh you thought it was going to be easy?

On my first time out I had lit­tle idea of what to expect but I cer­tainly felt con­fi­dent that play­ing Ulti­mate and hav­ing a decent throw would mean I’d be shoot­ing par no problem.

Boy was I wrong.

In fact I think this effected me neg­a­tively. Throw­ing a disc golf disc is entirely dif­fer­ent and the first cou­ple holes I was whip­ping lit­tle discs a hun­dred feet into the trees. You need to use a lot more arm in your throws and the way a disc fades and cuts in the air is com­pletely unlike an ulti­mate disc. These lit­tle guys are built to go fast and far, not gen­tly float in the air for catching.

Once you’ve got that nailed you’ll still have to mas­ter your short game, no easy feat.

Hey this sounds pretty fun

Yes it does doesn’t it! I’m a big fan of activ­i­ties and sports that are easy to start but dif­fi­cult to mas­ter. With almost no bar­rier to entry, why not go give it a try? If noth­ing else it is an excel­lent excuse to enjoy some good weather and drink beer.