Disc Life

Newsletter 2024-07-26

There’s a problem with golf: the ball is too round. Also, golf is too expensive, and clubs are too heavy. I might not be physically fit enough for regular golf. That’s a sobering wake-up call.

Thankfully, there’s disc golf. I’ve dabbled in it from time to time in recent years. I’m now back into it big time. This has nothing to do with my short attention span that let me forget disc golf exists and everything to do with other people suddenly asking me to play again. Disc golf time is guy time—or couples time or family time when wives and kids show up. Mostly, they leave the dudes alone to frolic in the grass with our plastic circles. We’re the only ones who are consistently entertained by tossing a frisbee to no one over and over again for an hour at a time. It truly is the sport of kings, but at a pauper’s price point. That’s always where I become interested. Make anything free and I’ll be its biggest fan. Unless that thing involves actual, meaningful exercise. Then I’m out.

My town has a frisbee golf course in its biggest but least-used park. My friend Bread and I used to meet there occasionally for a quick round over our lunch breaks. It wasn’t the best course in the world, but it didn’t need to be. To make a frisbee golf course, all you have to do is put up some random baskets in an open space. Or a not-open space. Anything that’s in the way is simply an obstacle you have to work around. Ball golf has sand traps and ponds. Disc golf has storage sheds and swing sets. Hitting a random child with a disc is the ultimate hazard, especially if their parents are bigger than you. Sometimes I get unwanted cardio after all. Disc golf courses require virtually no extra maintenance. Cities can install baskets in existing parks without keeping the grounds at ball golf standards. It doesn’t matter if the ground is covered in broken glass or lava since the disc stays high above it. Logically, my city decided to tear out most of our course. Those eighteen random posts dispersed over thirty acres were apparently in the way. I was deeply disappointed, but I was the only one. There are exactly zero people outside my friend group in this suburb who play. That’s a testament to the smallness of the local player base, not the equal smallness of my social circle. Word got out that I was having fun for free and the man had to put a stop to it. The only point of having power is to ruin someone else’s good time. If I’m ever elected president, I’ll dump every teeter-totter in the ocean just because.

The oppression of my local government didn’t stop me.