How did you start playing?

[nightmare]

Fell in love with ball golf... fast forward 2 years of learning/loving/playing/going broke over it and discovered the joy of disc golf. I also just so happened to be working at a huge summer camp that had a 18 hole course on property. That helped a lot

 

[Smigles]

I first started around 1998 when some guys from my Ultimate team told me to come into the forest and shoot at some trees. But the discs were so strange and too different from the Ultimate disc so I stuck with Ultimate for that time. We played some insane holes in that forest, we still play them occasionally and it is still the toughest course I know of. Even after playing every course in switzerland.

Properly started playing in autumn 2009. Had some oooold discs that were allready old back in 1998, but quickly started buying me multible buzzzes to train with.

 

[wildwing]

I used to eat, sleep and dream about fishing everyday. My wife likes to hike so I would plan a hiking/fishing trip for us on the weekend. One day, she said that she wanted to do something different. I told her that I'd see people in the park, on my way to go fish, throw "frisbees" to baskets. We both love the outdoors so we decided to try it. Bought a starter pack from Big 5 and drove down to the park.

We flung the discs as high as we can and thought, man, this is eeeeasy. It only took me 7 throws to get the "frisbee" in the metal thingy from 200 feet away.:doh:

Some guy walks up and asked if he can shoot through. We said go ahead and I saw one of the most jaw-dropping thing I've seen. He does this crazy run and flings the disc like Tron. It wove through a few trees and landed right under the basket about 320 feet away.

200 discs and watching countless of videos later, I'm still trying to throw like that.:wall:

 

[xlhammy]

Had friends who played casually. My dad had me playing ball golf as a kid, which I enjoyed, but went by the wayside once I had to foot the greens fees. So, I figured I'd give DG a go since you can just go play whenever you want.

That, and a touch of OCD for learning all things I can about the game, discs, flight paths and form, and here I am a year later. Hooked.

 

[Timko]

I started in 2003 when I was at the University of Arkansas. I lived 4 blocks from the now gone course at Gulley Park. When the course moved to Northshore, I did a little to help put it in the ground. Then I moved to Iowa City, where I got pretty serious about playing.

 

[All Day]

I started three Octobers ago with my brother and his wife. Been hooked every since the first hole.

 

[namar]

Back in high school my dad and I used to go on some pretty gnarly bike rides around Lake Macbride and the Coralville Reservoir (Iowa), one of the few nearby places with decent elevation changes. This one route took us up and across the dam and then up some more hills, pretty gruelling so we took a break at the first picnic table we came across, which happened to be at the entrance to Turkey Creek DGC (3.66 btw).

A couple guys were playing as dad and I sat and caught our breaths and since I had been tossing regular frisbees for quite a few years at this point I thought "hell, I can do that!" Bear in mind this is shortly after turning 16, so of course I'm looking for any reason to hop in the car and head out for a couple hours. Luckily I had buddies who were happy to drink & smoke, errr, disc golf with me. Of course none of us had any real discs, but there was a bait shop on the way to nearby Sugar Bottom (3.90) course that sold discs, and I'm sure that's where I bought my first plastic. Wish I still had those discs.

It's been on ever since.

 

[vectortec]

My good friend moved back to Toledo from Colorado. I hit him up to shoot some hoop and he mentioned playing disc golf. My exact words to him were "I'm not interested in your limp wristed, string twanging, hippie game"! He convinced me with a pitcher of beer but I was still skeptical. The next day I called him up and asked if he wanted to throw. I've played every chance I can for the last eleven years.

 

[Maxpsych]

Summer of 1978. My brother and I were vacationing in Nebraska visiting relatives with our grandmother. Obviously as two teens we were really bored, so we grabbed our frisbees and went out to throw. We found a disc course on accident, and played it with our frisbees. One of the best days of that vacation. :thmbup:

 

[NCK1990]

My uncle has been playing since he was in high school. I guess they had trees for tees and targets back then, where my home course is now. There's a sign on a tree(hole 5) that was part of the old course. He came back from Olatha(KC area) and was somehow involved in helping design/set-up the baskets and tee posts and invited a bunch of my cousins and me out to play, once they finished it. That was back in '03 or '02 I believe.
For the first couple years, whenever I was up at my grandparents house, my grandparents, brother and I would go out every now and then and play a round or two. Now it's just my uncle and me as the disc golfers in the family. I went to a few tournaments after playing for 4-5 years with him and some of his in-laws and that was a really cool experience.
I had heard about disc golf when I was 7 or 8 but it sounded difficult to play so I stayed away from it. So glad my uncle got me hooked on this amazing sport. I like to drink with my buds on the weekends but for a weekend disc golf trip somewhere in Nebraska or Kansas or anywhere for that matter, I WILL skip the booze for that. Just haven't got my beer thirsty buddies sold on the frisbee golf yet but I'm working on them. Best sport out there ahead of auto racing. And racing is WAYYY too expensive to participate in.

 

[pacanova]

Started here with some co-workers. We were all running the food service at a nearby camp and had to kill time on days off.

 

[jfrosty42]

Beers.

 

[billtvshow]

My roommate in college introduced disc golf to me at Reedy Creek in Charlotte. I actually didn't take to it right away, as I was really into ball golf at the time. About 5 years later, my home town put in a course and my brother and I both bought beginner sets and gave it a go. That was when I took it up as a permanent activity and consider that as my "start date".

 

[ChrisWoj]

When I was 20 a college dorm neighbor introduced me to the game. I played my first couple of rounds of disc golf in early March. We played target golf around campus. When my birthday came around later that month my parents annoyed me by getting me disc golf discs for my birthday - they'd heard I was playing it and bought me some. What I really wanted was a set of ultrastars for practice with since I was playing ulty a whole lot more, and had been playing that for a few years, but only with the campus intramural discs and friends discs.

But... once I had a set I was hooked, and would drive up to Ohio Northern University to play constantly over the next month or so, which led me to my first tournament in April.

http://www.pdga.com/tour/event/5194

No ratings next to my name, but it looks like I shot a 757/733 split ratings-wise. For me at the time it was ugly - I was regularly shooting about a +5 to +8 on that course at the time... But that's how your first tournaments go. Never quite as good as you expect. Funny part was I figured only the top 3 would pay out. I went out and ran a speed round after I saw what my place was (and shot a +5, with more birdies than both rounds combined... I think I made 3 of them during the speed round). So I never got my payout. 1 whole disc.

 

[crusadersounds]

Started playing while working at a camp in Louisiana. Played with a #2 putter that first summer (cam discs bc they floated and we had a lake. Ended up shooting a -21 through 18 holes by the end of the summer with that putter. I'd love to go back now 5 years later to see what would happen. I hope I could kill it now!

 

[chainedwraith]

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!

 

[Loomis]

July, 2007. Fort Steilacoom in Tacoma, Washington. I don't remember the how or why we went out there and started playing, I just know that was the day everything changed. Two months later I moved to Kansas City. And the rest, as they say, is history.

 

[tstack10]

I played once when I was in high school. This senior asked me and a couple do other buddies of we wanted to play. I barely remember that day except my friend threw a disc in the creek and had to go in after it. Lol

I really started playing when I went to college in Austin. We would play doubles after class for a couple of beers. I've been hooked ever since.

 

[nolangherity]

i dont actually play, but its fun to talk about!

 

[Tjamesd]

I played the for the first time in high school in a sport/activity class, just with ultimate frisbees. Didn't really play again until about a year later when I was in college and my dorm was a few blocks from a course here in Boise. Didn't fully fall in love with it until I lived in South Lake Tahoe 4 years ago, been hooked playing at least twice a week since then!