BeaversDen

The Basket

As a kid, I really loved riding my bike and hiking on trails out in the woods. Some took a bit of exploring to find, but once I was on it, I would keep coming back if I could. There was one trail with some kind of boulder formation with a short overhang. I’m not entirely sure, but I would bet someone could have taken shelter there, if necessary.

Now the big rocks don’t have much to do with anything exactly; except… it was a great find and it was a catalyst. I never really liked liked being out in the woods, per se. Usually the only thing I find is spiders, ticks, chiggers and mosquito bites on my arms and legs. But when there is something to discover, all the itching and scratching is totally worth it.

Fast forward about 10 years and I will let you in like I let my fellow coastie and friend, Dan walk into my house while everybody was sleeping and his ugly mug looking down at my ugly mug waking up… He was ready to go. He was excited. There was a group of us. Dan, Tom my other buddy, a fellow coastie and some other US Coast Guard guy I don’t really know or remember. But what I do remember of him was that he knew the place well and he was our disc golf liaison. I remember he let us use his discs.

Now, I’m gonna embellish a little bit here and say we were playing in 3 foot of frozen snow, about a half a mile away from Stephen King’s because it was Maine and it snowed most of the year, and Mr. King’s house being a par 9 on hole 9, would be really cool for added effect.

For real, walking through the course, having absolutely no freaking clue what I was doing, questioning why frisbee gold didn’t have golf carts and an expensive pay to play upfront cost. It was mind-blowing. I literally had not heard of it before and I was having a lot of fun.

And I kid you not, as soon as I was honorably discharged and got back to Georgia I was eager to find out if there were courses in Georgia. I found so many. But I went to one that had great reviews and disc rentals. Turns out it was some dude’s property and he was peddling right there at hole 1. He called it a par 3 course and it was only $5 bucks to play. That’s where I bought my first disc. It was used and it was also 5 bucks. It played wonderfully. But I still sucked at it. I had no idea that disc golf, these frisbees, had different uses. Sure enough, like regular golf, you have a driver, a midrange, a putter and a few specialty shot discs. I immediately picked it up as a weekly thing.

The more I learned about it, the more excited I got about it. I immediately got my friends involved and it became a ritualistic get together like every day was 4/20.

I am fond of this hobby, very much so. And some people will tell you to try out different types of discs and within each type of disc, different types of plastics they are made from. But I have my favorites. Innova is my favorite brand and my all time favorite driving disc is the Valkyrie at 165g in weight. My favorite mid-range go to is the Coyote and my favorite putter is the Aviar. And Champion plastic is typically I could find while shopping in person. It’s sad to say that there are so many different brands out there and types like Disc Mania and Gateway, the possibilities are out there. As it turns out there are more disc golf courses in Georgia than there are real golf courses in Georgia, and it took me moving out of state to the wonderful state of Maine to figure that out.

And for a commission…

I’m listing an affiliating link of a few different products. If you purchase it thorough the link, I get a commission. And I’m gonna make my recommendations through the ads you see.