After several months of playing disc golf regularly, I feel like I’m starting to get a feel for the discs, but I’m still frustrated that they don’t always go where I want them to. I’m taking some baby steps backward and starting to throw more putters and midrange discs, and practicing throwing them straight. So much of disc golf is based on feel, and you can't get the feel if you don’t practice.
I love playing rounds, and that has helped my game improve, but it can be frustrating to learn on the course, especially if you’re scoring!
I try to get to a field or a park where I can practice short, straight throws and short approach shots. I need to work on distance too, but I think that will take longer to develop. And putting, of course.
Drawing a line in the grass
Instead of spraying random shots in an open field, I decided to try to stick to the straight and narrow:
Here are my first baby steps: short, straight throws:
Drawing a line in the woods
I’m lucky to have a park nearby that has some trees, so I can torture myself (and my discs) a bit more realistically:
I’ve been trying to throw down this tunnel, and I’ve also played some object disc golf among these nearby trees:
After being retired for nearly a year, I started a new job today. I'm on the volunteer staff for the MVP Open disc golf tournament at Maple Hill Disc Golf. This is a beautiful course and an amazing tournament. And it looks like we're going to get some nice weather when the tournament begins on Friday.
Today, a group of us started gussying up the course for the weekend with tents, banners, and fancy out-of-bounds walls. During the tournament, I'll be spotting discs on two different holes. It should be an interesting week.
A taste of Maple Hill
Here's my son Ben teeing off from the white tee on hole 1 earlier this month:
Hole 1, white tee. Maple Hill Disc Golf, Leicester, Massachusetts.
The pros tee off from farther back and throw directly across both the Christmas tree field and the pond:
Map of Maple Hill, hole 1, Leicester, Massachusetts.
I would be lucky to make it to the near edge of the pond off the tee. But I saw a couple of pros practicing today make it well over the pond and into the Christmas trees (more than 475 feet!). It's astonishing to see shots like that in real life.
I often find myself standing on a small wood and brick platform at the end of a narrow wood road. I am trying to decide which of a dozen or so flying discs to throw toward the target, a metal basket a few hundred feet away. I make my decision, take a few steps forward and fling the disc. In my mind’s eye, it soars smoothly down the path, curving around several trees before landing gently 20 feet from the basket. Instead, it hits a tree 20 feet away from the tee pad and drops to the ground.
This is often the reality of disc golf, an activity that is exploding in popularity during the pandemic. Disc golf combines the joy of hiking, the complex physics of spinning frisbees, and the frustration of golf into one addictive sport.
A sudden disaster on hole 6 derails my dreams of success
Here’s a case study from my most recent round during a flex tournament at the Maple Hill Disc Golf Course in Leicester, Massachusetts.
I started off well with two pars on holes 1 and 2. I followed this up with two double bogies on 3 and 4, then a single bogey on 5. So, +5 after 5, which is firmly in Bogeyland. Hole 6 is a fearsome par 3 that most people are happy to par (including the pros).
I threw a straight shot off the tee. Straight into a tree, landing barely over the out-of-bounds wall. From there, shooting 3 including a penalty shot, I aimed to get back to the fairway but faded heavily at the end and ended up in the OB pond on the left side. Shooting 5, I released early, hit another tree and bounced back into the pond. Shooting 7, I managed to lay up in the middle of the fairway. My first in-bounds shot on this hole -- Yay! After a decent upshot, I put it in the basket after 9 strokes, scoring +6 on Hole 6. This is the highest score I’ve ever had on a hole (though I probably took more strokes in some of my early outings). The following picture illustrates my travails on this hole:
My path to Hole 6 at Maple Hill. Original drawing credit: DGPT 2020 Maple Hill Caddie Book.
Ben exemplifies a better strategy (that actually works)
There’s a different way to play this hole. Here’s my son Ben after acing Hole 6 in January 2021. You can see the OB stone wall to the right and the basket way off in the distance (to the left of center with a flag). The pond lurks behind the pine trees to the left:
Hole 6 Blue at Maple Hill, Leicester, Massachusetts
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Ben threw that yellow Star Wraith dead straight with a right-hand forehand. It flew right down the middle of the lane. His friend Jack and I marveled: it looked like a great shot, sailing smooth and level, missing all the trees. About 25 feet before the basket, it hit the ground then skipped up and hit the chains. Ace!
Ben’s path to the basket is much simpler than mine:
Ben’s path to the basket on Hole 6 at Maple Hill.
No aces for me yet, and I certainly don’t expect to get my first on this hole!
Disc golf, like its older cousin golf (or ball golf, as disc golfers refer to it) is a humbling sport. It is simple in concept: get a flying disc from a designated tee location to a metal basket located some distance away using the fewest throws. In practice, things get in the way. Mainly trees.
As a novice disc golfer, I am well acquainted with the trees of New England. There are many of them, and they like discs!
Hole 16 at Clement Farm disc golf course, Haverhill, Massachusetts.
I started disc golfing in earnest in December of last year. My first scored round that I can recall came in at 36 over par for 18 holes, meaning that I averaged two strokes over the designated number of strokes allocated to each hole for a par score (known as a double bogey). I played a few rounds before doing any scoring, and I recall throwing way more than double bogey on most holes, so I probably came in at something like 45 over par.
The great thing about being a beginner is that it’s OK to suck. And you tend to improve fast. In the six months since I started playing and scoring, I’ve improved from +36 to a high (or low) of +13 for an 18-hole round. Of course, some disc golf courses are more difficult than others, so it’s hard to compare scores. But in general, I’ve improved from double-bogey to single-bogey (+18) range. So that’s why I’m calling this blog/newsletter Notes from Bogeyland. I expect to be here for a while.
Hole 16 basket (in the middle of the photo) at The Hill, Devens, Massachusetts.
But disc golf is a sport for optimism and high hopes. So while I call this Notes from Bogeyland, I am trying every round to escape from Bogeyland and enter Half-Bogeyland someday. It’s hard to contemplate anything beyond that right now.
I have occasional glimpses of the lands beyond Bogeyland, but they are fleeting. I get the occasional par (which feels like a birdie to me). And once in a great while, I get a birdie. According to my UDisc stats, I have played 1149 holes, and gotten only 16 birdies (1.4%). I’ve gotten 263 pars (23%), 408 bogies (36%), and 264 double bogey or worse (also 23%). So the stats point the way to improvement: shoot more birdies and pars.
If only it were that easy.
Tune in here for more non-expert disc golf musings.
