Disc golf - not just for hippies anymore

From the dry creek bed I found myself in, I watched as my frisbee sailed promisingly over the embankment toward my target.

But the disc had its own plans, changing directions with a gust of springtime wind. It came to rest farther from the hole than before.

“The wind is the biggest challenge,” offered Michael Schuette, encouragingly.

That’s what he said about the trees, I thought, which had also spoiled many promising drives.

The game was disc golf, which Schuette, president of the of the Pikes Peak Flying Disc Club, was patiently trying to teach me. We met at the course at Cottonwood Creek Park on a sunny Tuesday afternoon, one of two public courses in Colorado Springs.

It’s a sport that may have reached its pop-culture zenith 13 years ago, when George Costanza took it up on “Seinfeld.” It’s a sport more commonly associated with hippies and college dudes taking a break from Hacky Sack.

But it’s come a long way.

“That’s our roots. That’s where we came from,” said Brian Graham, executive director of the Georgia-based Professional Disc Golf Association. “If you look at the demographics of our members, that’s not at all who we are.”

Before exploring this sport, I was expecting the hippies and college dudes. What I found was a dedicated group of players who spend a lot of time working on courses, organizing and competing in tournaments and who do things with frisbees you probably never thought possible.

And some dudes playing Hacky Sack.

Time to grow

Like the acrid-smelling smoke that occasionally wafts out of the trees on a course, the source of disc golf is difficult to trace.

It evolved in the early 1970s out of frisbee competitions that involved several events, including one similar to golf, in which players made a succession of throws across a long distance toward a target, usually a tree or light post, trying to get to it with the least number of tosses. The mid-’70s invention of the elevated metal basket, which has chains to absorb a disc’s impact so it can drop in, made it a bona fide sport of its own.

Disc golf courses began to be built in parks across the country. The Cottonwood Creek Park course opened in 1992 and the public course at Widefield Community Park was built in 1995. Several private courses have also been built here.

Since 2000, membership in the Professional Disc Golf Association has more than doubled, from 6,230 to 14,000.

“The sport’s really taken off in the past 10 years. We attribute that to the low cost to play and the fact that parks directors around the country see what a great benefit disc golf is to the parks system,” Graham said.

The number of courses nationwide has tripled since 2000, and there are today more than 2,600. Players compete in 1,200 sanctioned events in 20 countries each year. The average player is between 20 and 40 years old, and three-quarters of players have household incomes of more than $30,000 a year.

Serious players may have up to a dozen frisbees in their satchel – drivers, designed to soar long distances; mid-fairway drivers, which offer more control but still fly a good ways; and putters, good for short throws and made of plastic that won’t bounce off the basket.

“In golf, you’ve got drivers, you’ve got irons, you’ve good woods, you’ve got putters,” said Schuette. It’s the same in disc golf.

Though all are, in reality, made of some kind of plastic.

Attraction in simplicity

Playing a typical hole at disc golf goes like this: Since the courses are small, you figure out which of the crisscrossing fairways is yours. You peer in the distance for the basket and pick a route among the trees, keeping in mind any water hazards and neighboring fences.

People who live next to disc golf courses long ago got sick of people chasing frisbees into their yards.

Then you throw, going for maximum distance. From where it lands, you recalculate your strategy, consider which disc you need and hopefully land it as close to the basket as possible. Like golf, each hole has a par, a benchmark for the number of throws needed to sink it, and the player who finishes the most under par wins.

At Cottonwood Creek Park, for mid-day on a Tuesday, there were an awful lot of people out on the course.

“If you were here on a weekend, there would be 8 people waiting on every hole,” said Schuette, who also defies the disc golf stereotype, with a doctorate and the title of VP of Technology Development on his business card.

His group has about 100 members, a “very gregarious community” of serious players.

But you don’t have to be a serious player for disc golf. And all you need to get started is about ten bucks for one disc, though Schuette recommends buying at least three or four. After that, playing in the public courses is free.

Try getting into golf for even a fraction of that.

“It doesn’t cost anything. If you go play golf, the tee fees, at some point it gets ridiculous. And it’s a great workout,” Schuette said.

Those two qualities seem to be what most players appreciate most about the sport.

“It’s being outside. It’s just like playing golf, except free,” said Chad Elliott, teeing off at Cottonwood Creek.

“You walk 18 holes and you’re going to feel tired afterward,” said player Alex Tsitsilianos.

It can be frustrating at first to attempt to throw a frisbee with precision, especially if your only prior frisbee experience involves throwing to a dog that does most of the work.

Said player Craig Scheler, “It’s a high learning curve, but with practice, anyone can do it.”

Where to play:

Public courses

-Cottonwood Creek Park on Montarbor Drive in Colorado Springs

A mix of wooded and open fairways, with moveable basket placements to give the course different looks.

-Widefield Community Park on Drury Lane in Widefield

Small brook on the course creates a water hazard, and private yards border the course.

 -Colorado State University at Pueblo

Course in a natural arid landscape, with cactuses and tall weeds. Pants recommended.

 -Pueblo Community College in Cañon City

Wide open fields, woods, historic prison terraces, and cactus strewn hills.