Flippin' Discs

I played in my first tournament today. Just a little, local outing with 15 players at the municipal park under the "whatever the weather conditions happen to be for this 2 hour stretch" kind of pattern we get so often in Southeastern North Carolina. I came...I saw...yeah, that was about it. While there was no chance of crossing streams (since we all know that "it would be bad") there was some potential for crossing fairways and this Newbie, had a few O.B. crossings as well....So, I didn't kick anyone's, well, you know. I managed to finish dead last . However, I rebounded with 3 shots better on the last nine and birdied the last two, with a shot at CTP on number 3 . Here's my scorecard from the two nines. I played with a great bunch of very experienced players. I tried to learn as much as could watching them run at putts, which was a terrible part of my game today, but they were encouraging all along the way as I faltered. That's the great thin...

There are several ways to learn new skills. Depending on what corner of the Internet you stumble into, there are anywhere from 3 to a thousand. As is customary for me, I'll take you somewhere in between, but I'll spare you the agony by falling toward the first figure. When acquiring a new skill, there are 3 types of learning: auditory, visual and tactile. More simply put, hear it, see it, do it. Teachers know that some students lean more toward some of those rather than others, and physical activities favor the see it, do it formula. The explanation comes along with illustrating a correct example, and it's the images that tend to hold more weight. And while Disc Golf heavily favors the tactile, you have to gain at least some basic understanding of what that looks like, no matter what technique you are using for your throws and putts. Case in point...the reason that the sport of soccer is in about the same place developmentally as it was when I was growing up more than 3...

The purpose for this blog is to share information, and I love to write, so this works out well for me; it's a win-win. One of the reasons I got into disc golf so quickly is that there is so much information to absorb, the equipment, the techniques, the throws, the physics and an abundance of opportunities to play and get better. The first thing you need to do is get some discs. If you know someone that plays, go out with them. Disc golfers are really a cool bunch and will certainly allow you to borrow a few, even recommending what discs are right to get you started. I didn't have that so much, maybe you're on your own too. It's ok, you'll make plenty of friends later once you get going. Time to get some discs I had a feeling I was going to hooked on this game, so I jumped in with both feet, looking for discs. My recommendation is to get a basic starter set and I'll talk about two here. Franklin makes a basic starter set that will cost you around $10-20 de...

It wasn't supposed to be anything. Just a stroll through the woods during a trip to visit my brother in Pennsylvania for his birthday. He had a few discs and I picked up an inexpensive starter set before I went up to give us a few more. We still went to a sporting goods store for two additional discs when I got up there. I think that gave us nine to split among my brother, myself and my son, for our round of disc golf. Yeah, I'm pretty sure we had 3 a piece. Anyway, so we set out on July 8th with the GPS guiding us to South Mountain Disc Golf Course in Bethlehem, PA, near Lehigh University. I had already downloaded about 4 apps to use as a scorecard. (I've never been good at playing for fun and I ALWAYS keep score...it's a curse.) We grabbed our discs and made our way across the parking lot toward the first tee and the map of the course layout. This was my first time playing disc golf, so I had no idea what to expect. I approached this with the same mindset I had a...