Meet the Blogger
Each of us has a unique story of how we found disc golf and what has helped to keep us engaged. In this post, I’d love to share with you more about my background in disc golf and where it all started for me. I’ll take you back to that first time I played and share with you the moment I truly fell in love with the sport.
Back when I was in college, I played just about every pickup sport you could play. I was playing basketball with the same group for years. Soccer games after our afternoon class were common. Flag football in the quad was a no-brainer. It’s no wonder that I was so receptive to the idea of playing ultimate frisbee. Our group met up once a week in the summer and played for hours.
That night, I went to the local sporting goods store and picked up an Innova player’s pack. It included four max-weight DX plastic discs. The pack was made up of a white Aviar, orange Roc, blue Gazelle, and yellow Beast. Over the next several years, I would throw these discs more times than I could count. My ultimate group played a few more times before the summer was over and everyone had returned to school while I was already graduated. That’s when I got one of my best friends interested in disc golf.
Before we knew it, we were playing object golf all over the place. Our go-to property was at Sunbury Bible Church. They had two soccer fields, a softball field, a full playground, and lots of other space. We started with point-and-throw style holes. We made them up on the fly. Then, we decided to make an actual eighteen-hole course that we would play endlessly. We each kept trying to come up with the wildest and most outlandish shots. “Hit that rock” quickly turned into “Throw between those light poles, down the parking lot, past the flagpole, through those four trees, over that basketball court, along that field, and into that soccer net.”
The best part of this whole thing was that neither one of us knew that disc golf was a legitimate sport. We didn’t know the PDGA existed aside from what the underside of our discs said. We played because we loved competition and spending time hanging out. If only we had known how big of a deal our favorite game was eventually going to be. For me, this was the start of something.
After a few summers and falls of doing this consistently, my friend showed up to our make-shift course with a big smile on his face. That’s when he pulled out a new disc. Except, this wasn’t baseline plastic like we had been seeing up to this point. This was a multicolored champion plastic disc. This was a 12-speed. Enamored by this new piece of equipment, I watched as my friend began to slightly out-throw me on drives. Just like before, I finished the round and determined that would be the last time.
I went home that night and did something that would inevitably change my life. I opened up YouTube and typed in the words “Disc Golf”. I wanted to know how to throw farther. I went searching for information. What I found was a future filled with this sport, a passion for plastic, and a burning desire that wouldn’t soon be quenched. My first ever disc golf video was the first Starter Pack Challenge on Central Coast Disc Golf. You can watch that video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mk0-E2eFP8E
Looking back on that moment, it’s crazy to think about what has happened since then. For the next part of the story, you’re going to have to wait until part two, where I’ll tell you about my first experience trying out new discs and the inevitable start of my tournament career. It’s got ups. It’s got downs. Most of all, it’s a story I’m happy to be able to tell.
- Gary Daddario III