Thursday, January 7, 2010

Disc Golf

We had a bit of a break from the icy cold today.  My boyfriend and I were both off, so we went just a little further south to Gainesville and played some disc golf.  It is a miserable game to play when the weather is scorching hot, so the timing was perfect.  Everyone else thought so too.  The course was pretty busy.  I had hoped to get more photos, but we had to keep moving so that the players behind us didn't get upset.  We used to play often when we lived in Delaware about 4 1/2 years ago.  There were disc golf courses in every state park there.  They are not as common here, unfortunately.  We have really fallen out of practice.  It was fun to try it again though.
If you aren't familiar with disc golf, its much like regular golf with a ball.  There are just a few minor differences.  You tee off from a concrete pad, throwing discs that are smaller than a Frisbee.  There are even different discs like there are different clubs in golf, long-range drivers, mid-range drivers, putters, etc.
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There are hazards just like ball golf as well.  Sand traps don't matter much, but water is NO fun, and trees really make the course challenging.  My discs seemed to have tree-magnetism today, I hit quite a few.  In Indiana, when I was in college, the only course nearby was one with very few trees.  I find that the trees make the game much more interesting.  My boyfriend found out what happens when you throw the disc really hard and hit a tree.
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We have never had that happen before though... maybe our discs are getting too old.  Another challenge to disc golf is finding your disc when it goes off into the woods or bushes.  One course that we frequented in Delaware had dense brier patches around almost every hole.  Quite often, we spent more time in the bushes trying to find our discs than we did actually playing.  Sometimes we would go into the bushes to find our discs and never find them, but we would find someone else's.  If it doesn't have a phone number on it, its fair game.  Take a penny, leave a penny kind of a thing.  At this course, our only chances to loose a disc were in murky water or in dense areas of Saw Palmetto bushes.  Fortunately, we didn't have any trouble today.
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The "hole" that you aim for in disc golf is a basket.  The chains help to catch the disc when it comes close.  The 'clink' sound of the chains is a very gratifying noise.  It also helps you know when the players ahead of you are done with the hole.
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I did get one quick pretty picture of leaves as we rushed through the course.  We saw a woodpecker too, but I wasn't able to get a clear photo of it.
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2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Jackson just said "what's disc golf?" I forget how little he was when we lived there! When our snow melts I'll have to take them to the course here, thanks for the memory!

Linda said...

Amy, I'm glad you found an opportunity in the cold weather. There's always a good side!