I moved to Orlando to go to UCF back in '97 and all the other cool peeps that lived in my college apartment building would spend hours outside playing catch with frisbees, so of course I did too. Meanwhile, each day on my way into campus I would drive past these strange metal baskets in the woods on campus that I thought were deer feeders or something. I never saw anyone playing, or never looked into it enough to find out what they really were.
Fast forward 9 years to 2006. A friend of my wife had a boyfriend who I became good friends with and he invited me out to play disc golf at Turkey Lake, one of the nicest courses/parks in Florida (4.11 DGCR rating). I had never heard of disc golf, but when I saw the baskets at Turkey Lake, a light bulb went off and I instantly remembered seeing them on UCF campus back when I was attending.
He took me on the "newer course", which was T2, "The Turkeynator". I was always very competitive and athletic so of course I wanted to keep score on my first round ever. Shot +27 from short pads.. my buddy shot like -2. I was hooked and determined to get good enough to give my friend a challenge, so we started going every other weekend or so. Back then, the only shot in my bag was a 200-250ft lefty hyzerbomb that I pretty much tried to use on every hole.. lol
One day while introducing another friend to disc golf we stumbled upon an older gentlemen who was putting the finishing touches on a new cement tee pad on T2 Hole 12. He was just finishing up and asked if we minded if he tagged along. We warned him that we weren't very good but he didn't mind. Turns out, it was Gregg Hosfeld, course designer and long-time professional disc golfer and one of the most well traveled disc golfers of all time. When we finished our round he took me aside to the big field and told me that I had a lot of potential so he gave me some pointers on my footwork and release and gave me a basic field work lesson. I was very grateful and I learned a few things; however, it was still years later before I got rid of most of the O.A.T. from my drive.
Fast forward to mid-2010 and all of my buddies that I had introduced to disc golf had slowly moved away one by one, including my cousin, who went back to NC for a few years before eventually returning last year. I decided at that time to join the local league to meet other disc golfers and so I started showing up for random draw doubles at Barnett Park. Shortly after I was playing Sunday handicaps as well. Not much longer after that and I played my first tournament, the 2011 Barnett Park Championships. That tourney changed everything. I LOVED the competition and comradery and went home and signed up for even more tournaments. I ended up playing about a dozen tournaments all over Florida in 2011 and met a whole slew of new like minded friends and it grew from there..
Now I still play about a dozen sanctioned events each year in Florida and helped start the disc golf club at River City Nature Park in DeBary where I TD'd the inaugural DeBary Open last November. I'm officially a "lifer" in the sport of disc golf and hope to continue improving my game, introducing it to others, and helping the Florida disc golf community to grow and flourish in any way I can. I am a current member of several disc golf clubs throughout Florida and have made a ton of great friends along the way.
If only I had figured out what those metal baskets at UCF campus were back in '97. I probably would have been a 1000-rated player by now!