Wackiest disc save you've seen?

DamtheMan

Birdie Member
Joined
Mar 28, 2015
Messages
325
Location
Oulu, Finland
I seemingly did my best to try and lose two discs in water today. First one a nasty kick, but it dropped near the shore of the river, only needed to wade in knee-deep and actually spotted the disc in the muddy water.

But the "throw" responsible for the thread came on the day's final hole. Water-crossing from higher up, never having failed to cross the water. Better yet, there was a headwind, so at worst I figured, maybe my disc will turn over and go over the path on the left to OB, but no chance of getting lost. Pull out my understable Cannon, rip and somehow into the headwind, it decides to go right instead. River comes in from the right and curves past the teepad. So as soon as I see my disc heading right, I'm like, yep, it's gone. And it is going at the water on a decent hyzer angle, so I head off for the walk of shame to the DZ. I get and my friend says he can still see the disc. I head past the bushes to the reeds by the river and there it is, somehow floating on the surface!

So we end up watching and waiting as the disc slowly floats along the current and wind pushing it, until after about 10 minutes, it reaches the reeds on the side of the river where the teepad is. Time to strip down to my skivvies and wade through the reeds, barely getting my feet wet, but rescuing second disc. It was floating the dome side up, still cannot comprehend how it ended up floating given the angle it should've hit the water.
 
I played LL Woods in Lewisville, TX yesterday and decided to skip hole #7 because the players ahead of me were spending an awful lot of time looking for their throw. This hole is bordered on the right side by a concrete drainage ditch which the fairway crosses 300 ft off the tee. I had to step across this drainage ditch to skip ahead to hole #8, and I discovered the reason why they had a hard time finding their tee shot is because it wasn't where they threw it anymore. There was barely any water trickling along the bottom of the ditch - about an inch and a half deep and twice as wide as a disc - but it was enough to carry their disc which was floating upside down. I suppose they're lucky I crossed when I did since that disc had the potential to continue drifting downstream past the entire course.
 
Had a buddy stick a disc between two twisted utility wires. Probably 20ft or so off the ground. We spent quite a bit of time throwing a rubber hardball at it. We had to hit it a few times before getting it to fall. Left a nasty black mark on the flight plate that never came off.
 
I often play overly cautious around water, but here's a story of things going wrong.

300'-ish hole (18 at Palmetto Bay Village Center in South Florida) with water on the right and between the tee and basket. There's an open, straight-at-it line, but you're carrying water the whole way and I wasn't real confident in my backhand at the time. The left is fairly open, so I typically forego a real chance at a two by throwing an overstable driver RHFH to get pin high with a simple enough approach. Unfortunately, this time I yank it way left and hit a palm tree that I didn't even consider to be in play. I get a 90 degree pinball kick that sends my disc straight into the water that I was trying to avoid.

Of course I'm just watching amazed after the kick, and then gradually realize I'm going to lose one of my "old faithfuls." Not so! It lands perfectly flat with an air bubble underneath, so the disc is just sitting there 30-40' from the edge (which is a concrete wall at least 3' above the water surface, with little ladders every so often to help people get out). If it would have sunk, I'd have left it, as the sun was starting to go down and I had seen the local crocodile (6-7 footer) hanging out on the other end of the lake. BUT it's just floating there taunting me... I can't see the crocodile. No one is around, and my car is pretty close, so I strip down to my "swim trunks" and jump in. I get the disc, throw it back to land, and then remember how fast gators and crocodiles can swim underwater. Needless to say, my 100' swim to the ladder was one of the fastest of my career. Glad I didn't lose the disc, but it's probably one of the stupider things I've done on a disc golf course.

I like to think I've learned something, but just yesterday I retrieved a disc from a creek that apparently has water moccasins. Disc golf may just be the death of me...

That was a story of an interesting disc save in a course in Florida with known crocodiles. It was especially interesting because of both the kick that got the disc into the water, the way the disc stayed flat and remained floating on the surface, and the swim to and from the disc.
 
I don't know if he got it back, but was playing Plumb Creek in Knoxville. I get up to hole 4 and there is a city truck parked in the line. I'm not throwing at a truck, so I skip the hole. The pair a few holes behind me decide to play it. First dude tries to throw over the truck and inevitably hits the limb that extends over the truck. Disc falls into the bed of the truck. The second player steps up and he is in his pre-shot routine when the city worker appears from the nowhere and hops in the truck and drives off. These dudes run to their car and start to follow the truck. No idea if they caught him and got the disc back.
 
Playing old BB Owen with a regular there, we're on one of the open holes that start the back nine. The hole has a parking lot on the left, but it's way to the left and pretty short - only noob hyzers might land there.
Dude I'm throwing with plays big air shots up into the Texas wind a lot to get extra distance, and this one needs all he has so he rears back for a big sky-anny with his prized old school TL. Disc rockets out of his hand and makes a bee-line for a light pole on the corner of the parking lot.
SMASH! Right into the light at the top of the pole. Not only does he break the glass, but the disc sticks sideways into the light fixture at the very top of the pole - about 40-50 feet up. Impossible to climb, can't get it down with rocks cuz it is wedged in there completely, we lament and move on.
Found out the next weekend he got a city employee with a cherry picker to get it down for him 4 days later. They didn't charge him for the new light, either :)
 
I forget which course...

Buddy's disc lands in the stream that's like a 30-foot drop from the fairway. Stream is only a couple of feet wide, and shallow, but on this day, it was deep enough that we couldn't see anything from our vantage point. We all figured that if it was going to be findable, we'd see it somewhere on the edge, but after a while, we were all saying, "Welp, hate it for you, but we can come back later..."
About this time, another buddy's dog (an Australian Shepherd) starts nosing her way along the creek. She goes into the middle of it, and stands there, chest-deep, looking up at us. One of us says something like, "Do you think she's...." and at that moment, her owner goes, "Get it!"

And that dog stuck her head completely under water, ass up in the air, tail wagging furiously. She's down there long enough for me to actually worry for a second...And then she comes up with the disc in her jaws. Looks like she's smiling from ear to ear...

Damn near the coolest thing I've ever seen. Right behind Lollapalooza '93. :D
 
It was floating the dome side up, still cannot comprehend how it ended up floating given the angle it should've hit the water.

Surface tension. It just happened to not break the surface. I've seen that happen a few times and it's fun...until you start to grab it with a retriever, break the surface tension, and miss grabbing the disc.
 
I forget which course...

About this time, another buddy's dog (an Australian Shepherd) starts nosing her way along the creek. She goes into the middle of it, and stands there, chest-deep, looking up at us. One of us says something like, "Do you think she's...." and at that moment, her owner goes, "Get it!"

And that dog stuck her head completely under water, ass up in the air, tail wagging furiously. She's down there long enough for me to actually worry for a second...And then she comes up with the disc in her jaws. Looks like she's smiling from ear to ear...

Damn near the coolest thing I've ever seen. Right behind Lollapalooza '93. :D

We had a dog who was crazy about chasing balls, and our property had a pond. When a ball would roll into the water she would go right in after it, sticking her head under the water and searching around for the ball. We would also paw around until she found it, and then up she'd come with the ball. No matter what! Tail wagging the entire time. She would have been a dynamite disc-finding dog!! RIP Brandy...
 
That's so cool. Dogs are the best...(I like cats too, and while I used to have one that would play fetch, she damn sure wouldn't go into the water for ANYthing.) :D
 
That's so cool. Dogs are the best...(I like cats too, and while I used to have one that would play fetch, she damn sure wouldn't go into the water for ANYthing.) :D

Never say never. I've used a laser pointer to get a cat into a bathtub
 
I tossed a disc back on the fairway from the edge of the woods and it disappeared. Asked the people behind if they saw it and someone pointed to the rocky drainage ditch.

Turns out it bounced into the drain pipe barely wide enough for a disc -- something I could never repeat in a million tries :|
 
Last edited:
Someplace on the web, there is video of Terry "DG Guy" Miller attempting to retrieve a disc of his from the pond at Crystal Lake DGC at Beaver Dam WI.

He used to run a spring/winter event there. Probably was one of his Ontario Rocs...
He is laying (belly down) on a saucer sliding across the mostly frozen water, if memory serves me he has couple of friends on opposite sides of the pond on ropes to help him move back and forth.
I don't remember the actual outcome...
 
Well not much of a story but I came up short one time on a pond, right in the middle, one of two fr inertia 155 stormtroopers. Watched sadly as it splooshed down way too deep to reach.... And skipped! Made it to the shallow reeds where I only got my arm wet!
 
I play throughout MN winter's and had a Teebird land probably 150 feet out on a slightly frozen pond, definitely not frozen enough to walk on. I didn't even bother trying to get to it initially but on the way home I was brainstorming on how I could get it. Came up with what I thought was an awesome idea; the next day I bought a small cheap rc truck and drove it out on the ice hoping to push it back to the shoreline so I could grab it. Didn't quite work out though; the pond had thawed during the day and then froze some over night so the disc was stuck to the surface. I couldn't get it to move, my little truck would bump it and drive up on top of it. Playing the course a couple days later it was gone; I saw a lot of broken ice and it looked like someone waded out to grab the discs sitting on the ice. Of course the person didn't try to return the discs as my info was on it...
 
No. 8 and 9 at Munden Point in Virginia Beach is a shared fairway that has a river that runs along both sides, and a disc watery graveyard. I've lost more discs on those two holes about 2 dozen, than all of the other courses combined. About a year ago I threw a Pro Valkyrie into the river on 8 on the left side. It was high tide (river flows into a sound) and couldn't see a thing, but thought the disc might be caught up in tree roots. I checked the time for low tide in the morning and decided to comeback first thing in the morning to play a round and hoping low tide didn't pull the disc out deeper into the river. I was the first one on the course, and sure enough the disc was hung up in the roots, and I was able to walk out to get it and stay dry. The disc was the longest in my bag at 18 months until a few weeks ago when, yep I threw it into the right side of number 8, no chance to get it there, its too deep.
 
This may not be in the same vein as the OP but was reminded today

I once left an MD on hole 18 at westcreek dgc and the group right behind me found it, called me and returned it before i left.

A week later I left the same disc behind on hole 17 at fehringer dgc, a course 30+ miles away, the very same people found it, called me and returned it before i left.

Same disc, same people. Good stuff
 
Top