Moments of Greatness
Posted by Tricia Lafferty
No matter what level of player you are, from beginner to pro, we all have bad shots. If you watch any of the numerous rounds of disc golf on YouTube, all players experience this. I have noticed over the 2 years that I have been playing, the bad shots are happening less often. Even when I do have a bad shot, I am usually able to recover pretty easily. I also noticed that great shots are becoming more frequent as well. I call these my “moments of greatness”, and this is what I play for. No matter how many bad shots happen in a day, there is always that one shot that can make they entire day memorable.
One of my most memorable moments recently was at a fun non-sanctioned local tourney. The tourney itself was pretty ordinary, good shots, bad shots – and I won my division. I always buy in for the Ace Pot, just in case I get that lucky, or even someone else does. And like normal, no one hit an Ace that day. There was a CTP shoot off for the Ace Pot money, which was around $75 or so. A lot of times I look at the shot and know that I can’t even reach it, and don’t even bother throwing. I am a female, and a beginner, and sometimes going up and throwing in front of a bunch of guys is really intimidating. But this day I decided to go ahead and give it a chance since it was such a laid back atmosphere and I knew many of the players since it was local.
I don’t really know how far away the basket was, maybe 250-350 feet, but slightly downhill. They set up a teeing area near the tournament central pavilion and shot to basket #2, which we could see. There was a gauntlet of trees in the way. I stood and looked and considered the best path for me to take with a shot a knew I could likely hit. Without seeing any others throw, I decided to spike hyzer to the right where there was a larger gap and let it glide and fade to the basket. I chose to throw my Latitude 64 Jade for this shot. That disc has become my go to driver and I really love the feel of it so I was confident in using it.
The first guy gets up to throw, grip locks, and sends it about 300 feet to the right in the wrong direction. The crowd got quite a laugh, me as well, even though I felt bad for laughing because I have been in that same situation before. This is my biggest fear with these shoot offs, having a bad shot and everyone assuming that you can’t throw based on that one shot. I sometimes feel like I have the responsibility to prove that women can be good at this sport as well, and showing a bad shot doesn’t help. About 2/3 of the group threw before I decided to go take my shot. It was a mix of good and bad shots: too short, too long, tree hits, and close calls.
I walk up to the tee and envision the shot I initially decided to take. I lined up my disc at the release point I wanted to take, took a few warm up swings, and then let it fly. As soon as I released it, I started to smile because it was taking the exact line I was hoping for. As it got further away, it sailed it’s way through the gap I wanted to hit, missing every tree. It reached it’s high point and turned and started gliding and fading to the left. Everyone watching was starting to get excited because they knew it was going to finish well. I could hear whispers and gasps behind me as I stood and watched, my heart started to flutter. It started to finish its flight and looked like it may very well crash into the chains. The noise behind me grew, and the disc dove into the ground as my heart was pounding. A cheer erupted as well as congratulations for the shot. From where were were standing, we couldn’t see where exactly the discs were landing. My hands were sweating and heart racing while the final few people threw. I couldn’t wait to get down there to see where I was because I knew I may actually be the closest.
I grabbed my extra ball of string from my Golden Retriever, just in case we needed to measure shots. As I walked to my disc, others were picking up their shots on the way. As I got close to the basket, I could see it was sitting about 4 short from it. The smile on my face grew, it really was an amazing shot! When I got there, I could see another disc laying right about the same distance as mine from the basket, but behind it. As I got the string out, I really hoped mine was closer. After measurement, he got me by about 6 inches. I picked up my disc, threw into the basket knowing it would have been a birdie had it been in play. I walked back to tournament central with the biggest smile I could smile, clutching my disc close to my chest. The memory of that shot is well worth more than $75, and I’ll never forget it.
Tricia
Thanksgiving, Redemption Round
Posted by randomtiz
I love being home for the holidays, especially quality time with family. Over the past two years, I’ve gotten my Dad and younger brother both hooked into disc golf. So anytime we’re all in town, we always make it a point to go hit up a round together. A father/sons tradition we started over a year and a half ago when we finally got my Dad into playing. Always fun times, but we still always seem to manage to turn it into a friendly competition. Who will win it this year?
Our hometown has a course—small, flat and short, but a course nonetheless. We’re talking like ~3900 ft. total length for 18. It’s a great beginner course with the front 9 being mostly 150-200 ft long, through the trees. The rest of the course is pretty open and the back 9 are longer. There’s not an abundance of trees in general at the park, so wind gusts always provide an unpredictable, increased level of difficulty to this rather easy course.
Weekends back home fly by way too fast, especially when the drive there is roughly 3.5 hrs. So the only time we got in a chance to play a round was this past Saturday morning. Low 40s, cold (for down South) and very windy…of course it would be. But we have to make do with what little window of time we have. Rain, sleet or snow, we’re playing. Might as well make it two rounds, since it’s so short of a course. By the way, this is a course that is perfect for trying out new discs..no chance of losing one, or dinging one upside a tree. I figured this would be my chance to give my new Buzzz a redemption round.
Since I first started playing disc golf, I’ve been partial to Innova discs. And by “partial” I mean that’s the only brand of disc I had ever thrown up until a few months ago. I guess I’ve stuck with them because I “understood” their detailed flight ratings and descriptions moreso than any other brand of disc that I’ve come across. But anyways, I’m branching out. I’m moving on to other brands to give them a shot.
One disc that’s making its way into a permanent spot in my bag is the 2012 Discraft Ace Race disc, the Discraft Zombee. I love this disc. Neon red, it has stability, lots of glide and a slight lowspeed fade at the end. My other “non-Innova” disc that I bought recently was a bright blue Discraft X-Line Buzzz. I’ve played two rounds with it here in Georgia and did not instantly fall in love with it like all the rave reviews I’ve read over the past few months. I blamed my poor rounds on the idea that I may not be holding it correctly. I’d learn. And yes sir, that came true. The Buzzz was my go-to disc that chilly, windy lil morning in Alabama. I don’t know if it was the wind conditions or somehow I’d magically figured out a better way to hold that disc or what, but it was dead straight on the line that I would release it at. I drove with it on the front 9 and switched to the Zombee for much of the back 9.—It was a Discraft-kind-of-day.
I would go on and beat out my Dad and bro by almost 10 strokes the first round and 7 the next. I ended up shooting back-to-back (-5)’s. It turned out to be a great day indeed. Having family there and spending quality [DG] time with them made it just that much better. So it was a redemption round indeed for that Buzzz and me. My initial dislike for it has now changed. I will try it again this weekend when we play a few courses in Georgia. Hello Discraft [for now].
Any thoughts on Legacy or Latitude 64 discs? I’m in the market for a Legacy Rampage driver (173+) and a Latitude 64 Core mid-range (173+) disc if anyone would like to sell me one or make a trade. Let me know!
-jt
