A couple of years ago, my cousin’s husband, Alvin Erb, told me that he was going to introduce me to a sport called “disc golf” and that he thought that I was really going to like it.
For those of you who don’t know me: I don’t ever like anything new... at first.
However – perhaps it goes without saying – I became very interested in disc golf that first day, and I’ve been playing ever since.
But back to that first time.
After finding a few courses on the internet, Alvin settled on a course in Watkinsville to try out.
Still skeptical that I would enjoy the experience, I accompanied him out to a course in Watkinsville without knowing a thing about the game.
At the car where we parked, he handed me one disc out of a bag of about 20 and began to explain the basics of the game to me.
The explanation went something like this:
The game is played like golf, except you play it with discs, or frisbees.
Normal courses have 18 holes, except, in disc golf, they are known as “baskets,” since the discs are thrown at and, eventually, into baskets.
The player stands at a tee pad, which can be anything including two marks in the ground or a concrete pad to stand on and tries to throw a disc into the basket, which is usually 250-350 feet away.
After the first shot, or “drive”, the player finds their disc and throws from the location of the disc after its first landing and so on until the disc is in the basket.
Just like in golf, each basket has a par, usually three throws, and the player tries to make it into the basket in that many throws.
In its basic form, that is all disc golf involves.
But even the average disc golf player uses a variety of throws and discs to achieve the best shots.
The three basic types of disc are “drivers,” “mid-range” discs, and “putters.”  
All a player needs when starting out is a reliable mid-range disc (also called “all around” discs), such as Discraft’s Buzz-Z (a personal favorite of mine), even though experienced players will typically carry a dozen different discs or more.
(Disc costs range from only $9-$20 a piece.)
Additionally, different types of throws cause the disc to finish its flight patch by curving left or right, depending on the players’ handedness and the throw itself.
Unfortunately, I don’t have much more room to discuss the finer points of the game, but a quick search on the internet will find you all of the information you need for buying a disc to start off with and learning on your own the proper way to throw the disc for maximal results.
And, best of all, the course right in our backyard at Indian Creek Park in Rutledge is one of the best – albeit most challenging – courses that I have played.
If you are interested in more information about disc golf, feel free to email me at morgancountysports@gmail.com. I’ll be more than happy to direct you to some links, where you’ll be able to read more about disc golf.
And if you make sure to like the Morgan County Citizen on Facebook, I might even be inclined to loan out some discs so you can try out the game for the first time for free!

Printed in the March 14, 2013 edition