Remembering your first time

[ray1970]

So, I have fond memories of my first round of disc golf. I was horrible but hooked from the get go. Only been playing for a little over three years but it's funny to look back on that first time.

I had a brother in law that invited me out to play. Loaned me a few discs and gave me a couple of pointers but bread new to the game at that time as well.

I can't remember all of the discs he gave me to use but I do remember the Destroyer he loaned me. Awesome disc for a first timer, right?

I specifically remember shooting a 5 or 6 on the first hole. I think it's about a 195 foot par three. It went something like 60 foot hyzer off the tee, another 60 foot hyzer, one more 60 foot throw, a missed putt, probably another missed putt, and finally in the basket.

The whole round pretty much went similarly. I was horrible but it was fun so I stuck with it.

Not sure I really kept track of my score that day but I bet I was 20 over for nine holes.

I still play that little nine hole course from time to time just to practice my upshots and putting. These days if I am not down 7 or 8 I am disappointed in myself.

Anyone else remember their first round ever?

 

[McCready]

May 2015 at a course really close to my house, with a friend visiting from Philly who's been playing for 15 years. He let me throw his beat to hell DX Wraith and I was actually decent. I got the x-step down right away, and I was able to chuck it around 200' consistently. At the time I thought I sucked because I was comparing myself to him, but in retrospect and having played with first-timers since then, I really took to it. Biggest issue was nose angle too high (which plagued me for my first year too).

My friend loaned me some discs, then I went nuts researching discs on this board and elsewhere and ordered dozens in the next few months, and I was playing 3-4 days a week from then on. Crazy how that one round hooked me so completely. I was addicted to Jomez/CCDG videos immediately too.

 

[Smigles]

Around the time the swiss DG association was founded me and some buddies from Ultimate took some Ultrastars to the next forest. There were beers and just trees to play to. But i guess that's how way back in the days Steady Ed started it to get away from the serious Frisbee people.

I still know some of the holes we created 25 years ago. We went there quite often. Great times.

 

[Three Putt]

All I remember was that I was in college; it was '88 or '89. Some guys from work invited me and another guy to play; we showed up with novelty Frisbees and had to buy golf discs from a dude in the parking lot. I was terrible; the guys never tried to help me and just laughed and mocked me the whole round. I was not hooked. I didn't start playing with any sort of regularity until five or six years later when I was booted off my softball team for athletic incompetence; I also was not hooked then, but it was cheap and I was bored. I never did have that "I'm hooked" moment. I just got involved with a club, volunteered to run leagues and tournaments, and had stuff to do. It became a habit; it got me out of the house. It still does.

 

[Jay Dub]

We started tossing Frisbees when I was about 12 years old (50 years ago). After high school a friend found out about a Frisbee golf course in a park west of Cincy so we took our Frisbees and played for 2 years. That was either 79-80 or 80-81. I don't recall the first round there but I do remember the course and some of my memorable shots.

It was 1987 when I was introduced to disc golf.

 

[Moose33]

I played first with a friend who had gotten hooked on in Eugene OR around 2012. We got a couple of discs a mr a small shop that doesn't exist anymore and went to a park I still play a lot. I did bad, but not terrible, and on about hole 14 I discovered I could throw it overhand like a baseball and it went farther than my friend.

Bought some discs quickly and got to put up decent scores by chucking tomahawks near enough to baskets as not to need to putt from that far. Actually learned how to play the game over the next few years and caught the bug hard when I started traveling a ton for work, especially in the upper Midwest and northwest where the golf is really good and courses are everywhere.

 

[ThrowBot]

Junior year of high school for me. Girlfriend's dad had 4 discs; we borrowed them all and invited 2 friends along. Everybody was one discing it.

My disc that day was a DX Shark. I played a good bit of Ultimate back then, and I was mystified that the Shark would go left...even when I threw it level!

We played Wakanda Park in Menomonie, WI. I can't imagine what our scores were. Double par seems optimistic.

 

[Riverdog]

I remember it like it was yesterday. 1969, I was a high school junior, she was a college freshman.... oh wait.... nevermind. Wrong forum. [emoji1787]


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Monocacy]

We started tossing Frisbees when I was about 12 years old (50 years ago). After high school a friend found out about a Frisbee golf course in a park west of Cincy so we took our Frisbees and played for 2 years. That was either 79-80 or 80-81. I don't recall the first round there but I do remember the course and some of my memorable shots.

It was 1987 when I was introduced to disc golf.

Yes my timeline is pretty similar, tossing 165 Wham-O Frisbees at Calvert Road. But I was playing other sports (water polo, volleyball, etc.) so disc golf was a once-or-twice-a-year thing until probably late 1990s.

. . . I was mystified that the Shark would go left...even when I threw it level!

That's exactly how we felt switching from 165 Wham-O Frisbees to the Aviar, which I think was considered a driver when it came out. Whoa, crazy overstable! [Disclaimer: terminology probably not invented yet].

But the Aviar would go way farther than a Frisbee under low-branched trees, so we persisted.

 

[b-mart]

It took me a while. A county park by my house had a course around 1987 that I really wanted to take a Frisbee to, but my parents never took me. Fast forward to college in 2009 when I learn that a lot of my college friends play, and that a lot of my friends back home have picked up the game at that same county park. But I was broke and had no life in college (class, study, class, work, study, sleep). So no disc golf.

Finally in 2010 my boss started dating this guy who took her on an early date, and they both decided I'd love the game. So they brought me along the next time they went and handed me a Champ Valk and some sort of Discraft putter. Two things worked out in my favor in that round. This guy (now a good friend, coworker, and my boss's husband) wasn't very good. So when my first shot went almost as far as his did it gave me hope that I had a chance at this game. And they played at a pitch and putt whose longest hole was maybe 220' up a slight hill, and the shortest was a 67' thumber or newb spike hyzer over a bush. So I enjoyed myself immensely without feeling outmatched.

I immediately drove to Play It Again and bought three discs and a starter bag. I got a Champ Monster, DX Gazelle, and Star Dart. Obviously nobody at the store helped me as an obvious overwhelmed beginner. And with that little insert that came with the bag that described various molds and skill levels I dove right down the rabbit hole.

 

[Jukeshoe]

At one of my first post-college apartments, the people moving out left a mini in the window sill that mentioned "Disc golf."

I thought maybe the mini itself was some sort of toy frisbee game. My roomie and I already threw a ton of frisbee catch, so for a week or two we'd make up object holes through the apartment hallways and use random posters on our walls or whatever as the object hole, then use the mini to play skins. Promptly got tired of that after some hilariously altered rounds. This was back in early 2003.

Didn't actually start discing until '09 when my boss took me for a round. The real deal had me hooked immediately, even though I was (and still am) objectively terrible at it.

 

[Jukeshoe]

Not entirely sure what happened to that old mini...I think maybe someone flung it into traffic off our balcony. :|

 

[dreadlock86]

in 2006 i moved from LA to Rochester, NY for school (still paying for that, of course). summer 2007 some of the guys i knew said they were going to the park (Ellison Park) to play disc golf. i'd never really heard of it but came along cuz we were getting beers on the way.

Ellison was a fun course to start on cuz it has excellent elevation for a city park and a few signature downhill shots. just about everyone in a group of 5 or 6 was one-discing it. i remember one guy throwing an old stingray that got awesome hyzerflips. i think i was throwing a dx leo that day but i was hooked and after the round i got a dx wraith and an XD putter at the shop down the street (Sonny's Deli). the wraith was a mistake but that XD is still in my bag.

after graduating, i moved to Texas and started course bagging and the rest is history. i regret now not bagging more courses in WNY while i was living there, or making trips to VT, NH, and Canada.

 

[ohtobediscing]

Oct '79, U. of Southern MS. We had an object course that started right at the front of campus, went east into some woods, threw to an island, across the dean's front lawn, between student services and the economics building, and finished right next to our dorm. Hole #1 was the center flagpole; hole #2 was the small enclosed pool under the campus sign.
Most of us played with our 175 ultimate Frisbees, but a few people had the first Frisbee golf discs, glow in the dark with big single digit numbers on them.
Everything was par 3, but none of the holes were tourney length, so we often shot a few under for a round.
Our dorm was right in the middle of campus, between two womens' dorms, "Animal House " came out that year, and we took it to heart, eventually with an end-of-the-year dorm party that got two people kicked out of school the weekend before finals and 20-25 banned from living in that dorm again. Good times.

But I didn't start playing with real golf discs till '02.

 

[Central Scrutinizer]

I played object Frisbee Golf as far back as 4th grade with a Fastback. I remember winning the Frisbee Golf competition at school in our end of the year "Field Day" celebration in 1985 aiming at the various telephone poles and baseball field light poles, etc., at our school when I was in 6th grade.

When I was 16 in 1989 I worked as a playground leader for the Goshen (Indiana) Parks and Recreation Department because I was aspiring to eventually be an elementary school teacher. We organized a variety of activities for neighborhood kids who would show up during summer vacation to the local park, and of course, my main activity was Frisbee Golf. We kept scores and averages and everything.

That summer my boss mentioned a new "serious" course was being installed at Oxbow County Park that had targets that caught Frisbees. I was stoked to find out about this, so I brought my Wham-O 165 in June of 1989 and played there. Mosquitoes, thorns, poison ivy, sweat...I remember my score was over 120, but I was in love with the concept. Didn't know about Golf Discs or anything until a few weeks later running into the designer (PDGA #315) who sold me a Stingray for $6.

With the Stingray I could trim that score way down and I was hooked. Didn't know any different from that course, which was a thick jungle and I'd discover later other courses existed that weren't so horribly punishing. They'd redesign much of it for worlds in 1996 to make it way easier!

 

[BuzzzChief]

Sometime during college summer break, I was spending the weekend with some buddies down in the South suburbs of Chicago. We played West Park in Joliet, and I played with an Elite XL.

Hungover on a Saturday morning, we were the classic group of one-disc chuckers carrying a case of beer through the park. I had recently learned to throw forehand with ultimate discs, and quickly realized I could throw way further with a golf disc. Almost canned an ace in my first round. It became a regular thing for us over the summer. I did hit my first ace in something like my 4th or 5th round ever, and I was hooked forever.

One thing I remember is seeing "serious" players with full bags and thinking they were crazy. We asked one of them at one point, what did they shoot to par? They said they were 5 or 6 down. We were like, "that's it??" Not realizing they were playing "everything is par 3" and we were going off the wildly inflated sign pars. We were like "we get a 4 or 5 on almost every hole, we must be pretty good" lol.

 

[armiller]

All I remember was that I was in college; it was '88 or '89.

Similar up to that point. For me it was around 2005. My college town had a couple decent courses in town. I don't so much remember my first round as much as the first summer. It was a blast, and I loved being outside and developing my farmer's tan in the Oklahoma summer. I remember having one final exam May of that year where I just needed to show up and put my name on a paper, and I rolled in with flip-flops and wet/muddy shorts after just retrieving some errant shots.

I bought several discs early on, an Elite-X (not soft) Challenger, Pro-D Hawk, and an Elite-X Talon. At some point I purchased a Z Cyclone and Z Predator (old mold, now would be a Tsunami). I played with a number of found discs, but the only one I remember was a Z Reaper. In retrospect, the big loss was losing that Reaper at some point in the following summer. Bummer.

I had played a decent amount of ultimate frisbee in high school and college, and my forehand translated to disc golf particularly well. Like many of you, I'm sure, I got addicted to the good shots, such as a memorable 250-300' frozen rope to park a peninsula hole at NE Lions park. But I have more memories of the impressively bad "learning shots." Early release hyzers into busy streets (

), 90 degree mis-fires when trying way too hard on really long holes (now hole 14), and turning over a RHFH right into the water because I had no idea what an Oklahoma headwind could do to a disc (hole 12 at Lions).

I then proceeded to forget about the game for almost a decade while playing other sports. When I came back (my wife's idea, initially), I got hooked. Now I have way too many discs and include disc golf in as many vacations as possible.

 

[b-mart]

I played object Frisbee Golf as far back as 4th grade with a Fastback. I remember winning the Frisbee Golf competition at school in our end of the year "Field Day" celebration in 1985 aiming at the various telephone poles and baseball field light poles, etc., at our school when I was in 6th grade.

When I was 16 in 1989 I worked as a playground leader for the Goshen (Indiana) Parks and Recreation Department because I was aspiring to eventually be an elementary school teacher. We organized a variety of activities for neighborhood kids who would show up during summer vacation to the local park, and of course, my main activity was Frisbee Golf. We kept scores and averages and everything.

That summer my boss mentioned a new "serious" course was being installed at Oxbow County Park that had targets that caught Frisbees. I was stoked to find out about this, so I brought my Wham-O 165 in June of 1989 and played there. Mosquitoes, thorns, poison ivy, sweat...I remember my score was over 120, but I was in love with the concept. Didn't know about Golf Discs or anything until a few weeks later running into the designer (PDGA #315) who sold me a Stingray for $6.

With the Stingray I could trim that score way down and I was hooked. Didn't know any different from that course, which was a thick jungle and I'd discover later other courses existed that weren't so horribly punishing. They'd redesign much of it for worlds in 1996 to make it way easier!

Ox Bow didn't open until '89? I could have sworn I remember it before that, but I guess I would have been 7 then. I'm a Goshen-ite as well. If you spent any time around the college there was this guy mowing the lawn who'd been there forever. Always had a smile on his face, wore funny hats in the winter, and drove a blue '67 Mustang sometimes. Everyone in town saw him at some point even if they didn't know who he was. He wound up working there for 58 years. That was my Dad.

 

[BuzzzChief]

Like many of you, I'm sure, I got addicted to the good shots...

But I have more memories of the impressively bad "learning shots."

YES! I vividly recall blasting at least 4 different CE Eagles into ponds to never be seen again. Or yanking my 10X Roc onto a highway and watching it get run over by car after car, only to find that it was now the perfect turnover mid.

 

[Buiscutboy]

I feel bad not remembering it well when people remember their first rounds from 30+ years ago.

I got my dad an Innova starter pack for Christmas in 2010 I believe. He used the Leopard and Aviar, I used the Shark. I don't recall the course, but I assume we did terribly.

I decided I wanted to use forehand because I wanted to be different or edgy or something, and my first purchase was a DX Wraith because the Innova website said it was "good for sidearm players". It ended up in a pond.