With the weather finally cooling off here in Texas my thoughts turn to outdoor activites, and what could be more appealing than a few holes of disc golf. You know the sport - like traditional golf, but with baskets instead of holes in the ground, and happy stoners in cargo shorts instead of car salesmen in lime green slacks.
This is the weekend of Octoberfest 7, a big disc golf tournament being held not far from here at Moody's Disc Golf Country Club. A friend who's playing in it convinced me to join him for the Friday afternoon doubles session. He wanted me to play the whole tournament, but with kids and work there's no way I can take a whole weekend to play 54 holes of disc golf, but one afternoon for 18 holes is just about right, so I agreed to join him as his partner for the doubles on Friday afternoon.
Dave Moody's course is a tribute to the ambitious vision of the disc golf entrepreneur. It's in Red Rock Texas, about 40 miles east of Austin and just a little bit south of Bastrop. Not exactly the center of civilization. But he's done everything he can to turn a family ranch into a disc golf mecca with the power to attract players from far and wide.
To start off with, it's a pretty nice course with a nice variety of holes spread over about 100 acres of land with attractive scenery and a nice mix of long leaf pine, pin oaks and cedar trees. It also offers a pro shop and campsites for travelling players. But the real key to getting players there is promotion. It helps that Dave Moody is the course pro at the enormously active Pease Park course in the heart of Austin's university community. That gives him a captive audience to advertise his home course to when they're ready to move on to something more ambitious. With all the players who go to Pease there are going to be more than a few willing to drive a few miles to try out a new course. Another good promotion is holding a PDGA pro-tour event like the Octoberfest tournament. This brings in players from all over who'll spread word of the course, plus it's an excuse to produce promotional discs which get sold and traded throughout the disc golf community, further spreading word of the course.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Dave Nalle
Just for the record, I got the results of the doubles from Friday and we came in 5th, which is better than I expected given the conditions and that we'd never played the course before.
Dave
2 - Scott Butki
I love disc golf. I'm not too good at it but it's very enjoyable.
3 - Dave Nalle
It also involves less of a financial commitment than traditional golf, which is a plus.
Dave
4 - Scott Butki
And it's a great way to visit with friends while also going for a walk.
Of course if your friend's daughter - who is about five - beats you... well, that be a tad akward.
But you can always blame it on an old work injury.
Not that happened to me, of course.
5 - Dave Nalle
Now that WOULD be embarassing. But impressive on the part of the toddler, if true.
What always impresses me is how much dope some people can smoke in mid game and still play amazingly well.
Dave
6 - Scott Butki
I plead innocent to the dope charge though it may have improved my game.
7 - Dave Nalle
Not even second hand smoke?
Dave
8 - Bob A. Booey
I enjoy the softer side of Dave Nalle. It really humanizes you :)
Dumb question, I know, but I'm famous for them: this is played with frisbees, right? That's what it looks like. And you have to get them in the baskets?
That is all.
9 - Dave Nalle
That's how you play, Babs. But not just regular frisbees - the sport has evolved its own variety of specialized discs which are harder, flatter and smaller than traditional frisbees and made from specialized high density plastics. These allow you to throw enormously farther than a traditional frisbee.
Maybe I'll do an article on the history and development of golf discs. It's actually an interesting collectibles market. Some old, rare discs sell for as much as $100.
Dave
10 - Scott Butki
Maybe I would have played better if I'd used frisbees.
11 - Dave Nalle
I hear that if you smoke enough dope you don't need the actual physical frisbees.
Dave
12 - Scott
I played this alot while I was in college. There were two courses very close to campus. It provided an entertaining way to waste time. Plus, we never had to buy any discs because we were constantly finding lost ones, due to the wooded areas in which the courses were located.
13 - Dave Nalle
Ah, lost discs. I remember the days of my youth when I'd actually go swimming in the creek that runs through my favorite course - exposing myself to god knows what diseases - just to retrieve lost discs.
But you know, people do write their phone numbers on the discs for a reason...
dave
14 - Scott
Yes, some did contain phone numbers. But as a poor, starving college kid at the time, unless I could verify beyond a doubt that it was a smokin' hot girl that the disc once belonged to, the call was never made.
15 - Dave Nalle
Now I know who to blame for the loss of my favorite discs, anyway. Vengeance shall be mine sayeth the disc golfer!
Dave
16 - Chris Woj
Finding lost discs is how every new player keeps his small collection up. Its only once you get your own first callback from someone with one of your own losts that you realize the err of your ways.
Or you start playing with a local club and they severely admonish you for your ways as happened to me :-X
As for the pot smoking... I made a pot-induced change to my putting two weeks ago that suddenly has me hitting 30-40 feet 60% of the time... it's quite a genius little plant, isn't it?
17 - Dave Nalle
Someone ought to do a scientific study on the impact of marijuana on sports performance. I suspect there's something there. It clearly seems to narrow focus and calm the nerves, which are a big help in putting.
Dave
18 - Phillip Winn
I love the culture that surrounds disc golf. My introduction came courtesy of a friend visiting town. He took me to a local course where we promptly lost his best driver in a pond.
Later we saw some teens fishing out lost discs and described ours, but figured they'd take it and we'd never see it again. It was a nice disc, after all.
When we finished the course and made it back to our car, there they were, shouting excitedly that they'd found the disc. Finding out I was a beginner, they gave me two of the discs they'd recovered (no phone numbers) and said they hoped they'd see me out again.
Unfortunately, I haven't been out much and haven't run into them again, but it's a warm memory, and I bet I'll see them this fall sometime.
19 - alienboy
I'd never heard of this sport until stumbling across this post and have to say two things:-
Firstly, what a great idea! Love it, and the, er, techniques to improve play.
Secondly, as the similarly natured Bob Booey observed, it's nice to see the non-political Mr Nalle.
That is all.
20 - Dave Nalle
Where do you live, Phillip? I've played DG all over the nation - perhaps not as many courses as the pro tour lunatics, but quite a few.
The pro tour is another amazing aspect of the sport. There are a couple of dozen very good players who go around the country in campers playing every weekend and winning enough money to live on. I'm not sure what sponsorship money is up to now, but I suspect that Ken Climo makes a pretty decent living as a pro. But most of these guys live off of money from the entry paybacks on relatively small local tournaments, and that means they really have to be consistent to do decently.
Dave
21 - Scott Butki
It is great to see a non-political mr. dave
22 - Dave Nalle
Most of my articles are non-political, Scott. Or anyway half of them are. But it's hard to resist dabbling in the political stuff when so much crazy and innacurate stuff is being circulated.
dave
23 - Scott Butki
But where do you live, Dave?
I play in the DC area.
24 - Dave Nalle
I used to live in DC. There's a nice course I've played in Fairfax and a much nicer one in College Park. Where do you play? I go up there periodically.
Dave
25 - es
your blog is not accurate!! for starters hole 10-12 do not have conflicting fairways!! Also, they are each drastically different type holes and there are no 1000'+ holes at moody's!!