Pet Peeves

I haven't been playing very long and Lord knows there's very little about me or my game worth bragging about, but I'm nothing if not considerate.

Disc golf is a great game....and one worth enjoying.  I have no qualms whatever about guys on the course taking their time to get every shot right, make every put count, and work their tails off to make their game tip-top. Be you.  Do what you do, brother, and tweak that game into a National Championship.

However, what I absolutely HATE are people who have NO consideration for other players.  

For example, the other day I was playing The Castle with three of my buddies.  We were a foursome and apparently the twosome in front of us started on the back 9.  Slow on 10....okay.  Might've been a bad hole.  Maybe they'll settle in and find their groove.  But no!  We're waiting at 11 and they're literally 25 feet in front of the tee-box throwing TWO DISCS EACH.  One of them even looked back and saw us waiting before he threw his second shank into the woods.  No "Hey, y'all go ahead" or, "Feel free to play through."  Just looked back (no courtesy wave even) and then WENT TO FIND THEIR DISCS.  Didn't even know where they threw them.

This went on until 17.  My foursome waited on every single hole for those two doucherockets.  Finally on 17 we're waiting.  Again.  After five minutes one of them walks out of the woods and says, "You can play through...we're looking for a disc."

As I walked up to my drive I saw the douche who didn't have a beard mad-dogging us seeming to expect an offer to help find his boyfriend's disc.  Nothin' doin', son.  F#@! yo couch.  Walked on like the Man in Black and birdied that bad boy like it was my job.

I guess the point to this post that I took the scenic route to is that I hate inconsiderate people.  If you're slow and people are constantly waiting on you, let 'em play through.  Doesn't matter if they have more people....if they're playing faster, stand aside and let 'em go.  It's just common courtesy.  

That's my pet peeve: Inconsiderance.   And yes, I just made that word up.  What's yours?

Nobody Likes Kyle Very Much: Miracle on 11

Skated out of work a skosh early to take advantage of the type of beautiful day Joe Nichols immortalized in his catchy little country song and, of course, headed to The Castle to get in a round before having to pick up the chirren from tennis practice.  Caught up to my pal Rudy and my disc golf arch-nemesis Kyle on #8 for some company and some competition, respectively.  I proceeded to double-bogey that, so it was shaping up to be a typical day on the course for me.

But Kyle had other plans.  He was determined to make me look bad and that back nine his bitch.  Not necessarily in that order.

#11 from the tee

Carl and A.J. joined us for the back so we were a five-some.  #10 played out normally (meaning I bogeyed and everyone else made par) and we all trudge across the road to tee off on 11.  Truth be told, we all had really nice drives -- though A.J. would have been a lot happier if his new Westside Tursas -- which I'm told is Norwegian for "I'm sorry I shot you but I thought you were robbing my store" -- had come out a little flippier.  Kyle had thrown the hot-pink Champ Mamba I'd traded him for his Nuke SS a few weeks earlier.  It came out even better than normal:  Working the line and turning over perfectly before fading out at the last minute and dropping just inside the tree-line right before the entrance back into the woods.  Really a great shot for us barely (and probably ill-advisedly) post-Rec, budding Am players.

Kyle's more-typical drive on #11

Kyle's in good shape off his drive and walks up to survey his lie.  He checks it out -- a demi-god among men -- doesn't see anything overtly conspiratorial about it, and seems to smell the sweet stench of challenge in the air.  The dramatic, self-satisfied turn of the head he gives to the mere mortals who had to throw before his mighty drive seems to mock the very thought that he could blunder on this pittance of a hole.

You can tell by his expression and the direction he's looking that he's eyeing a controversial (if not downright dubious) line.  His face contorts into thirty different thoughtful cramps like Jim Carrey dropping the biggest deuce of his life in a port-o-potty while he contemplates his options, all within a matter of ten seconds.  It's all:  "Hmmm....might be good....nope....oh, wait...yep....damn.....mmmmm......yep.  Shit is definitely about to go down."  It's a tense moment, but he's not one to keep people in suspense.  He's nothing if not decisive.  

Kyle is a fan of throwing the roller, but is considered somewhat of a wild-card when it comes down to the execution of it.  For those who've played with him and have seen him throw it know that the phrase "YOLO!" is often heard right before it happens.  It's either an epic shot that turns out beautifully, or a disastrous mistake that turns a run-of-the-mill par into a 120-foot jump-putt to save triple-bogey from the jailhouse in the woods.  Today Kyle chose the former.

#11 basket from the fairway

From the left side of the entrance towards the #11 pin, Kyle slams his putter into the ground.  It rolls entirely through the woods unscathed without even a patch of pine needles to slow its trajectory.  The spin was such that it might have rolled all the way across the swamp and made for a bad-ass tee shot on #12 if not for the gigantic tree that served as the goal-line defense 35-feet behind the basket.  I was floored.  The chutzpah of this cat to throw that shot and have it turn out the way it did was breathtaking.  Gotta hand it to the guy for taking his game by the balls with his carpe diem attitude towards upshots.

But that's not even the good part.

So now he's looking at a long, uphill 35-footer for the bird.  I'm standing by the bridge waiting to tap in my bogey, curious to see if Kyle can pull off another miracle shot.  Then I see him gripping his putter like he's a homely version of Beth Fullwood, one of our fellow card-mates during the monthly tournaments who's considered somewhat of an expert on thumbers and weight-loss.  

"No way he's gonna thumber that putt," I think to myself, "There's a tree right in front of the basket....not a good look."  Silly me.....Kyle's full of surprises.

He switches grips at the last minute and tomahawks the disc at the basket.  Hard.  Not even with finesse; more like he hates the pin like it owes him money from his old neighborhood.  Just as I thought, the disc hits the tree with a gangster ruthlessness, but then -- like Arlen Specter's magic bullet -- it seems to defy all laws of physics, change course in mid-flight, and BANG into the chains, settling into the basket for the three.  I was stupefied.

I know that birdies on #11 are just another day at the office for many people, but for guys like Kyle and me it's an accomplishment.  And seeing it done with such a devil-may-care attitude was truly a sight to behold.

I hate Kyle.

This is Kyle

Back in the saddle again...

Seven years.  That’s how long it’s been.

Wasn’t in Tibet.  Didn’t break a mirror.  Didn’t declare bankruptcy and crawl under a rock until my credit score got back into the triple-digits.  Truth is, I just didn’t have anything to write about.

Well, I do now.

As you may or may not know, I got big into chess in 1999.  I played in and directed tournaments, ran the website for two local clubs, and even sat on the board of directors for the Iowa State Chess Association for a couple years.  I loved it.  It was (and still is) a great game, one which I still enjoy from time to time.  However, after being so absorbed with the game, the players, and the organization of the sport I became disillusioned with it.  I hated the fact that I needed an opponent, and the vast majority of the avid woodpushers I encountered over the years weren't exactly the type of people with whom you would choose to have a beer.  Sure, you can play against the computer, but that’s hardly the same thing.

I played my last “official” game of chess in 2006 (which, ironically, is also seven years.)  Since I came back from Kuwait in 2007 I've moved three times and toyed with a few other hobbies, but even the excitement of Geocaching didn't capture my attention and inspire my imagination the way chess did.  Now, this isn't necessarily a bad thing since, as my wife Amy will tell you without hesitation, I have a very “addictive personality.”  She doesn't mean that I’m “irresistible” or that people get addicted to me personally (actually the opposite is true).  What she means is that once I get absorbed by something I become fanatical about it.  It’s all I want to do.  I was that way with chess.  I was also temporarily that way with Geocaching and with guitar, but to a much lesser degree.

Enter Disc Golf.

A few of my friends played disc golf back in Iowa during high school, so I’d heard of it but never picked up a disc before.  Never saw the point.  I figured if you wanted to smoke weed it was more fun to do it at your apartment in front of your Sega Genesis playing Madden ’92 than walking around chasing a Frisbee.  I have since seen the light and on the Fourth of July 2013, with my brother in law Josh as my encouragement and supplier of equipment, I played my first round of disc golf at Arrowhead Park here in Wilmington.

Wow.  I was blown away.  Not only by how cheap it is, but how much fun I had doing it. 

The concept is exactly like “ball golf,” but with modifications:  Throw a Frisbee (a disc) from a tee pad at a basket with suspended chains in the fewest throws possible.  This video is probably the best introduction to the game I’ve seen:

I play almost every day and the benefits are already paying dividends.  Since I’ll be 65 in just over 26 short years, my knees and back aren’t what they used to be.  Disc golf has gotten me back down to my “fightin’ weight” without having to bore myself into shape by running.  The kicker is that disc golf is free.  To play, anyway.  You have to procure the discs, but a beginner pack of three complete with a driver, a mid-range, and a putter (yes, there are different discs for different shots) will only run you about $20.00 at your local sporting goods store.  There are no green fees, no requirement to set a tee-time, and there are over 3,000 courses around the United States.   Compared to ball golf where people think nothing of shelling out $400.00 for a new driver to have a terrible round they played $50.00 to play 18 holes, I’ll take disc golf every time.

So, that’s what I’ve been up to.  I know this isn’t the most interesting blog post, but I didn’t want to start up and switch gears too fast without an explanation.  I don’t know if I’ll have any readers or not, but I’ll be writing more here regardless.  I’m more than likely going to retire from the Navy in the next two years, so in between my next career and playing copious amounts of disc golf I need to sharpen my writing skills to conjure up that New York Times best-seller I’ve been meaning to write.

Chuckers rule, golfers drool.  See ya on the course.