During Thanksgiving break of 2011 I was back home in Utah. Three high school buddies and I had arranged a "guys day out". We went to Gold's Gym and had a raquetball tournament. Then we had planned on going to the Flowrider in Ogden (an indoor simulated wave that you can surf on). But, my friend suggested we borrow his dad's discs and try out disc golf. It was free and no waiting in lines so we went for it. We pulled up to Riverdale's Riverpark(http://www.dgcoursereview.com/course.php?id=4190) and each took a disc.
We picked Beasts and Wraiths because they said "distance driver" on them and we wanted to throw as far as possible. We left the Leopard in the car because it just said "fairway driver" on it (in retrospect, I'm sure that if one of us had taken the Leopard, that player would have been throwing the farthest--I'll talk about disc selection more in another post)
I got back to Memphis a week before my wife and kids so I had a lot of time on my hands. I googled something like, "how to throw a disc golf disc straight." A dozen youtube videos later I realized that these discs could do some amazing things if you had some know how and experience. Right away I went to ebay and bought an assortment of drivers and a couple putters. When I got them in the mail a couple days later I went to the local park and practiced throwing them. I threw them back and forth working on what I had seen on youtube and finally one of my shots took off straight and flat. As it gently gained altitude, my body was contorted, leaning forward and to the side a bit with my arms balanced out to the side trying to keep my disc balanced in the air through some kind of instinctive magic. And it did. The disc stayed in the air until finally slowing and fading gently left and easing onto the ground. That was it. Since then I have been hooked on disc golf.
I have liked and played many sports, but I have never had one command my interest like disc golf. I can't stop thinking about it. I play by myself if I can't find someone to play with. I wake up early to squeeze in 9 holes before work. I take my small children to toddle after me through the woods so that my wife doesn't have to bear all the burden of my addiction. The strangest thing is that I had played real golf (called ball golf in the disc golf community) many times, but it was usually at the invitation of friends and I never had enough interest to go play by my own will. Though traditional golf and disc golf share a lot of similarities, there was something about disc golf that hooked me. What it is that hooked me, I'm not sure (that's a discussion for another post). But the point is, I love disc golf.
