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DISC DRIVE
Originally published August 17, 2005


By Stan Goldberg
Sports Editor

	Dan Becker takes his putt, attempting to place the disc into the steel basket.

AT FIRST GLANCE it looked like four men tossing a Frisbee around on a recent hot and humid Thursday evening at Middletown Park. But in this case, looks can be deceiving.

They were playing disc golf, a sport that has been around since the 1970s and claims more than three million participants.

There are about a thousand disc golf courses in the United States. There is a league for the 20,000 pro players (the Professional Disc Golf Association founded in 1975) and close to 400 sanctioned tournaments.

But the four men that were at Middletown Park weren't interested in turning pro or playing in tournaments. They were just four men who come out to the park at Middletown several days a week to play disc golf. Every Thursday during the summer they play doubles.

 

Usually they draw 12 to 16 people, but on this day only four showed up. It as a busy day at the park as hundreds of people were at the Frederick County picnic in one area and a youth football game was going on in another area.

The four men had the disc golf course to themselves and few people even took notice of them.

"It's a nice walk in the park," said 50-year-old David Eagle, who has been playing the sport for 20 to 25 years. "I could take my grandmother out and she would be able to play. I try and come here every single day unless it is raining. You don't get frustrated like you do in ball golf. I love it."

"I used to play Ultimate Frisbee, but got too old for that," said Dan Becker, who is 42 and has been playing the sport for about 14 years. "It's just a lot of fun."

"Any time he goes on vacation he finds the nearest disc golf course," said Dan's wife Danielle. She and several other members of his family were watching Becker play. "We've played in North Carolina. Florida, California. It's good fun and he likes it."

Jonathan Bowles of Thurmont has been playing the sport for two years. He said a friend got him into it.

"It wasn't hard to learn," he said. "I play every day at lunch. I work in Middletown and come out here and squeeze in 11 holes."

The other member of the foursome was Shawn Wirth.

"I've been doing it for six years," he said. "I try and play three or four times a week. There are so many reasons why. The camaraderie, the exercise and it's free."

SO WHAT IS disc golf you ask? It is basically golf played with a disc. There are no clubs or balls. But there are 18 holes on a course. You tee off and you putt. Instead of trying to get a ball into a hole you try and get a disc into a basket. The basket is at the bottom of a holepole, a four to five foot metal pole. Hanging from the top of the pole are 18 to 24 chains. The disc can hit the chain and fall into the basket.

Becker figures there could be as many as 200 disc golfers in Frederick County. Middletown has the only public course, but there are several smaller private courses.

The first thing Becker warns is to not confuse the disc with a Frisbee. The discs are made of plastic. They have sharper edges then a Frisbee which you can find out if you try and catch one.

There are all sorts of discs. There are long range drivers, mid range drivers and putters. There are discs that can go to the right and ones that go to the left. There are discs that can go on water and discs that roll under trees.

Bowles had 18 different discus in the bag that he was carrying.

"It's almost like (regular) golf," Becker said., "You tee off with a driver and then use your putters. There are all kinds of throws -- backhand, sidearm and tomahawk. I can usually throw a disc about 380 feet. Most pros can throw it 450 feet. The record is 810 feet. You also hardly ever lose a disc. That is a good reason to play."

"The key is to get a good spin on it," Wirth said. "If you do that it will stay in the air longer."

Each hole has a par score. The average disc golfers will shoot between a 50 to 60 on 18 holes. The good ones will shoot in the low 40s. It usually takes about an hour and a half to play the game.

There are no sandtraps, but there are obstacles such as trees. Discs have been known to get caught in a tree.

"They are the equivalent of sandtraps," Becker said. "You can get stuck in a tree."

If you do there is a penalty stroke.

The course in Middletown has been around since the early 1990s. It is one of 10 in Maryland. The first was built in College Park around 1980.

According to longtime disc golf player Rick Millward, the Middletown course was built by a girl named Christine Thompson as part of a Girl Scout project. He said as far as he knows, she never played the sport.

Until the local course was built, Frederick County people had to go to Montgomery County to play.

Millward began playing the Middletown course a year or two after it was built and noticed there were some problems.

"A lot of the holepoles were located toward the high school end of the park and they were taken out of the ground at night," he said. "Other parts of the course crossed over the football fields and picnic areas."

So Millward got together with the Frederick County Parks and Recreation Department and re-designed the course.

On this particular Thursday, the four men at the course were just glad it was there. They teed off at the first hole and then spent the next hour and a half playing the sport they have learned to love.