Seeing how Necessary Cool strives to put the well deserved spotlight on all things cool, I thought I would steal that same spotlight momentarily and focus it on a great outdoor activity you may not have heard of.
It’s called Disc Golf or as some people like to call it “Frisbee Golf” (cringe). The sport itself started in the 1960’s and has steadily been growing quite steadily and silently for the last four decades. I myself started disc golfing about eight years ago. What started out as something I did about four times a year evolved into a time where I was playing about 150 games a year and participating in two or three tournaments each year.
That may sound like a lot of games to people not really familiar with the sport, but actually it’s not a drop in the bucket. Die Hard Plastic Slingers play close to a 1,000 games a year and participate in weekly tournaments. As the name implies the game is very much like golf but instead of clubs you use plastic discs and instead of holes in the ground you throw your disc at “baskets” made of chains. The above picture was taken today at a local Disc Golf Course…Buck Creek State Park…this is the new/redesigned Hole #9.
Just like golf there are discs designed for driving, fairway shots, and putts as well as discs developed to bank left or right and those that cut through the wind and yes even float. All of these characteristics are very important depending on the course you are playing.
Ohio has more disc golf courses than most other states in the nation, but until 2007 my hometown of Springfield Ohio was without a full 18 hole course within city limits. Springfield does have a very challenging nine hole course on the Wittenberg University campus but if you wanted to enjoy a full 18 hole course you had to drive about 45 minutes to either the west side of Columbus or the north side of Dayton.
I wasn’t content with that. I wanted a 18 hole course here in town and in early 2007 I lobbied for and was given permission to secure land for a 18 hole course at Buck Creek State Park. As of March 2007 I made contact with Sean Mier a high ranking member of the Dayton Disc Golf Association (not to mention an all around swell guy) and he was able to come up with the founding to install the course.
Construction of the course started late May 2007 and the construction crew for most of that summer consisted mostly of just myself and one other guy. (Doug Huff…a good friend and fellow disc golfer and one hell of a guitarist…we played in several bands together.)
September 2007 Sean started to organize work crews made up of several area disc golfers and progress easily tripled. The course itself was completed and ready for play early November 2007. I dropped the last basket into the ground on a rainy Sunday morning and there was people playing the course just minutes later. Yes…in the rain.
Disc Golf can be played all year round and many people do just that. I played late into the year the 2007 season, mostly at Wittenberg and Buck Creek and early spring 2008 but by May 2008 my father’s health started to decline and I eliminated a lot of things in my life to allow me to spend more time with him. That meant no more out of state comic conventions, no more playing in bands (I ended up selling all the music equipment), and no more ghost hunts. And less time on the bike trails.
The amount of games of disc golf I was able play in a year dropped from about 150 to 50. As my father’s health continues to decline with the 2009 season almost over I doubt if I have played 30 games this year.
I gave up hosting Friday night games at Wittenberg, tournaments, traveling to out of town courses and being the course pro at Buck Creek. In my absence the course went through a couple of transitional maintenance teams and the current people involved with the upkeep of the course are doing a great job making it the course that Sean and I originally envisioned early 2007.
The recently redesigned Hole #6 at Buck Creek State Park.
If you’re reading this and never played the game before, what are you waiting for? It’s easy to learn, inexpensive and quite fun.
Want to learn more about Disc Golf? Everything you need to know can be found right here…the best Disc Golf website that I know of.
http://www.daytondiscgolf.org/courses.html
Now you have no excuses. Get out there and throw some plastic!
You can read more from Bill by checking out our friends over @ Comic Related.
That’s right. Disc Golf is Necessary Cool! Thanks for running this , Jef!
Sure thing man! Anytime, I think I have another from you hitting the site this Friday….
The quality of the info is what keeps me on this site, thanks!
Greetings from Tim.