How did you start playing?

[Star Shark]

A friend of mine I worked with from Wisconsin was already into it and he asked me if I was interested. I gave it a shot and liked it. That was 8 years ago. Odd coincidence. His home course is Vollrath Park also Barry Schultz's home course. My home course is Sylmar also Steve Rico's home course. The odds on us both having home courses with top players in the game are pretty remote.

 

[little oz]

In 1978 my buddy's house backed up against Huntington Beach Central Park, which happened to be the 2nd course in the USA, but we didn't know it. Started to hit the course in the afternoons after going to the beach in my Rambler wagon; we would hop his fence and throw regular beach frisbees. Then a tournament came to town with freestyle exhibition, and these freaks carrying bags of a dozen discs, but we were too cool to take it seriously. Fast forward 30 years and i live in Colorado. disc golf was on the new Wii we bought, and the memories came back. Bought a bunch of terrible discs, hit the courses, strained my elbow, started to figure it out, and now i love to look forward to seeing the fellas at tags at Jellystone in Larkspur on Fridays, and hitting lunch rounds during the week. I love this thread; so cool to hear the stories!

 

[Uncle Matt]

Me and a couple of buddies played all through high school and we just messed around out there most of the time. We parted ways after High School,but I kept playing for a little bit.

I was gonna quit,but one of the regulars by the name of Cornbread said he seen potential in me and said If I wanted he would help my game get better. So I learned the ins and outs and then got together with a Wizard,Comet and a Valkyrie. Best days of my life.

Now I would say I'm an advanced player and I like disc golf much more now than when I first started. :thmbup:

 

[Rocaholic74]

What do you reckon the average rating of everyone's first course would be?

1.8 ?

Lots of people started out on dinky 9-holers.

The first course I played was Tyler State Park in 2000. It's my home course to this day.

I was working at a restuarant in Newtown, Pa as my second job. The bartender/server was a good friend of mine asked me if I wanted to play disc golf. I was a huge ball golfer at the time and spent anytime I was not working or with the fiance, at the golf course. I agreed and he brought me to the park. We started playing and of course I was throwing every disc a mile high in the air and watching it come crashing down to the left. After a few pointers from him, I started throwing some decent shots. I was hooked. I played with Tye one day during the weekend and played ball golf the other day for about a year. Then once Tye moved away I drifted away from the game for a while. I then met one of my then wife's best friend's husband who was from SC and he had played numerous times down in SC before he moved up to Pa. We started playing almost regularly during the week and the weekend. I slowly stopped playing ball golf and mainly playing DG over the last few years. Last year I played one round of ball golf (still shot a 77) but that was it for me playing ball golf. This year I didn't even pick up a club. I was throwing plastic all year and will to the day I die.

 

[BigGAC1]

Like the OP, I also played for the first time in Tulsa, OK. It was my freshman year at The University of Tulsa, and a friend brought me out to play at McClure Park. He showed me some of the technique, and I started to get the hang of it. Within a couple of weeks I had gone out and gotten myself a Birdie, KC Pro Roc, and an Avenger SS from Academy and had played on 3 different occasions. I was quickly hooked and now I've been playing for over 4 years!

 

[Uncle Matt]

Like the OP, I also played for the first time in Tulsa, OK. It was my freshman year at The University of Tulsa, and a friend brought me out to play at McClure Park. He showed me some of the technique, and I started to get the hang of it. Within a couple of weeks I had gone out and gotten myself a Birdie, KC Pro Roc, and an Avenger SS from Academy and had played on 3 different occasions. I was quickly hooked and now I've been playing for over 4 years!

Wait til you tack on 11 more years. :hfive:

 

[RoosterRobb]

A friend invited myself and another guy out to give it a shot. Went to the local course, saw two teepads and was instructed that the closer of the two were for children.(haha super funny Keith) Needless to say I played horribly, got beaten handily, and was instantly addicted.

 

[DinosaurThunder]

My parents took me to Acorn park to play when I was 6 years old. First time out on the course we only had frisbees and were just out for family bonding. Around the same time I had two after school counselors bring disc golf to my elementary school. It was awesome they let us throw a bunch of DX drivers down this large hill and really made the sport fun. Shortly after my parents picked me up my first driver and putter and we played as often as we could.

19 years later we are still playing every weekend when the weather is nice. We had a fun, but windy, round at Lakewood Hills yesterday! My mom still uses her chains aviar and my dad his circle stamp barracuda. Though I have since upgraded their collection extensively and pulled any remaining collectors.

 

[AceOnBase]

I was introduced to this fine sport by my best friend in high school. He had 2 sets of 11x Aviars, Champ Mambas, and Leos that was handed down by his sister and brother-in-law who use to play in college. We have an awesome course called Johnson Road Park that's about 10 minutes from both of our houses that we played every day for 6 months, meeting new people and learning tips along the way.

On our first outing, we had another of our best buds tag along who wanted to play, so we dove into the pond on hole #6 and searched around for a suitable set of discs. We ended up finding around 30-40 discs in 20 minutes, divided them up, and started to play. Looking back, we should have called the numbers that were on a few of the discs, but we were high schoolers who had a "finders-keepers" mentality that has thankfully been outgrown.

That summer will always stick out in my memory as what freedom feels like, having few responsibilities and doing what you love every single day. Like many others, my friends have moved on to other hobbies, while I continue to chase the chains and let the plastic fly.

 

[bobmcnelly]

A friend of mine introduced me to it. We played a few times a week throughout the summer. He then moved away, but I still wanted to disc. So started playing alone, which I still love to do. But then of course I started meeting people all over the course. Joined the local league and now I am a board member of the league. Everyone just needs someone to put a disc in their hands.

 

[Fraser]

Love these stories...

I've had a few starts and stops in my lifetime. It started in 1978 in middle TN where my parents owned some acreage. Mom had about a half dozen of those old plastic laundry baskets, the ones that are about the same diameter and slightly deeper than the tray of a modern basket. The folks would put those baskets around our land and the three of us would make up "holes" to throw Frisbees at. We did this during the summers of '78-'82. We moved to OKC in Dec '82. We didn't play our game any more after we moved.

In either 1993 or '94, my friends and I were bored one day and thought it would be fun to play "Frisbee Golf". We went to the store to get some Frisbees and noticed that there were "Frisbees" made for Disc Golf. We picked up some of these unconventional "Frisbees" and went to the course. We all had a great time, but it was only something to do to pass the time. We would get together and play a few times a year until 2001. I then met my future wife and life went on. I put my discs in the closet and never really played again until...

After I got divorced in 2010, a buddy of mine (Shane) asked me if I had ever played disc golf before. He had played with his cousin (chrismalatesta on DGCR) previously but it always bothered him that Chris would utterly destroy him on the course. The two of them are very competitive. Shane and I decided that we would get some discs and play the next weekend. (I had completely forgotten that I still had my small bag full of discs so I bought completely new discs.) We had an absolute blast and Shane had someone he could compete with. This is when I absolutely got hooked on the game and have since devoted a lot of time in developing my game. Shane and I are still fairly equal in skill so it usually comes down to the last hole to determine who will win that day's round.

The folks started to realize my addiction to this game in the fall of 2010. They began to ask a lot of questions about it. Prior to that fall, they had no idea that Disc Golf was an actual sport. They thought it was something they made up in the late 70's to play with their son.

 

[ru4por]

Wait til you tack on 11 more years. :hfive:

Wait till you tack on 15 more years. :hfive: :gross:
Oww, I think I pulled a muscle high fiving.

 

[bfowler]

I played with a few friends from high school when I was in college but didn't really get hooked for whatever reason. Then about 3-4 years ago one of my coworkers started playing where I work. For over 2 years he tried to get me to go out and play but I just wasn't interested. Then a good friend of mine moved out of state and we used to have a guy's night out once a week or so.

Since he moved I was looking for something to get me out of the house and shoot the breeze with buddies. I took my friend from work up on his offer and played a small 9 hole course. This caused enough pain from playing badly to instill a need to get better.

I watched a Scott Papa video on youtube and purchased a Avenger SS and a Buzzz off of Amazon. After I started playing with those it was all she wrote.

1.5 years, over 50 discs purchased, 3 bag upgrades, and hundreds of rounds I love it even more. I play at least once a week to 4-5 times a week depending on work and the weather.

 

[DannyThunders]

Me and my friend had been playing the disc golf game on psmove for a while and decided to try it for real. I bought a Boss, Valkyrie , Nuke, Spider, and classic aviar and it went from there. The boss and nuke left the bag immediately :doh:

 

[Horsman]

I was took broke down from physical sports to try and compete at a college level. My coolege had a course on campus that was about a 2 minute walk from my dorm. Thts all it took.

 

[Paintray98]

On 7/2/2013 my brother and dad were heading out to play our local course and asked if I wanted to come see what it was all about. I told them I'd watch them play, but when we got there and I stood on the teepad for hole #1 at Wickham Park

I said to my brother "Do you have a disc I could play with" and he handed me a Leopard. I fell in love with the game because it felt so easy to play compared to ball golf. After our round of 18 we went by a local shop that sold discs and I bought a Viking as my first official disc. I now have around 30 discs of all different manufacturers and models. Primarily still an Innova bag, but I have a decent mixture of Vibram, MVP, Gateway, Discraft, Westside, and Salient now. I've gone from a 90+ strokes/throws per 18 to 80-83 per 18 and had my first sub 80 round a couple weeks ago, ended up with a 77 at Cross Farms as Wickham Park is closed for the winter. I absolutely fell in love with the two Westside discs I purchased that week and primarily used those two discs for nearly the entire round. Those discs were the Underworld and Tursas.

 

[Midnightbiker]

I used to drive all night making deliveries around central Texas. I would listen to XM Radio, and they had a show geared towards truck drivers called, "The Trucking Bozo Show". Mainly truck drivers called in to this talk show, and a lot of regular callers would call each day.

One night I heard a caller ask the host of the show, "Hey, when are we going to play some frisbee golf again?". I thought it was a joke at first , because there were many running jokes on the show, so I didn't give it much thought. About a week later, the same guy called back, and brought up "Frisbee Golf" again, and it got me thinking about it. I couldn't figure out how you would play it. I thought maybe you threw a frisbee at the holes on a real golf course and tried to cover the hole with a frisbee. I really had no clue.

I got home that morning, and did a Google search, and was shocked to see it was a real sport, and it looked like fun. I didn't know where to buy discs, so I looked on Criags list,and found a lady selling 15 discs for $30. I went over and got them, along with a rule book. My friend and I went to a local disc golf course, and just started tossing them around.

I finally got a bag, and more discs, and learned more and more about the sport, and now, 6.5 years later, I am addicted to this darn sport, and I love it.

 

[TonyVonDoom]

I had played a handful of times a year half heartedly with friends over the years and I was always horrible. One of my best friends has had two double lung transplants and he started playing very little this summer. I tagged along with him! His lung function had dropped again after the second transplant and he was very sedintary. I viewed disc golf as an oppurtunity to help get him out of the house to be physically active. He only played a handful of holes to start. I kept insisting he add another hole every week. As the summer went on he was able to play more and more and I started getting a little better! Now I play all the time! I play so much now it's hard to get him to come with me all the time but I still try and get him to come with me. I'm sure he's done till better weather comes back around but as soon as it does I'll be harassing him to get back out there! I'm officially addicted now and looking at a basket for home

 

[coldsweat]

Well my sophomore year of college I got a summer job at sleepy hollow state park. And was placed in charge of the disc golf course maintenance there. Eventually my partner asked if I wanted to play a round with her some time. So we went after work and borrowed the disks from the explorer guide stash and went out.

I'm sure the score was awful. Prob. 100 something to 100 something but it was a hell a lot of fun. I got my buddies to come out with us one time. And they were hooked....on her. Lol. My ranger partner at the time was a collegiate volleyball player and she was rather easy on the eyes. Needless to say that summer a ton of disc golf was played. My buddies and me still play. My partner well we kept in touch for about a year after but have since grown apart. Last I heard she was working at a zip line in Alaska.

Was a great summer and I picked up a great hobby.

 

[Three Putt]

I think I have two stories.

In '88 or '89 I was bartending in a pizza joint while I was in college. The place had a weird floor/kitchen split where all the floor employees were college kids and all the kitchen/delivery staff were townies. They used to give us Hell. I did something that made the kitchen guys invite me to hang out with them, and at some point they invited me to Albert-Oakland to frolf. I sucked and I hated it.

I played a few more times when I was bored over the next five years.

When I moved to St. Louis I got an interview with Hazelwood Parks and Recreation, and the job oversaw White Birch. I BS'ed like I played disc golf in the interview and got hired. I quickly found out that the disc golfers were not going to respect me unless they saw me as one of them, so I got a bag and some more discs and started showing up enough to fake that I was a disc golfer.

By the time I left that job, disc golfing had become a habit. It's just something I do. It's cheap and it's less boring than taking a walk.