Welcome to Bogeyland!

July 5, 2021

Frisbees, trees, and me

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.