Of life lessons and disc golf

Recently, a friend took me to play Frisbee golf…excuse me, disc golf. It was fun and challenging and the weather was beautiful, and I was immediately struck with the intricacies of the game.

First, there are actual disc golf courses – there’s a great one in west Arvada – that are set up with tee boxes, fairways, serious roughs, greens, and a basket-like “hole” on a pole where you sink your putt with a satisfying clang of the chains. The holes are sequentially numbered with their distances and respective pars.

My friend had two sets of three clubs/disks – driver, mid-range, and chip/putter – but there were other players on the course who carried more than 30 disks in a backpack sort of bag. When we inquired about this, one golfer told us that he would only use about 17 of his disks that day. It was clear that such players are very serious about their sport; in fact, several were playing in a tournament later that day.

From there, though, the games seemed to diverge. For example, there didn’t appear to be a limit on the number of people who can tee off as a group, and sometimes we were graciously allowed to play through because there were only two of us. But we also noticed another strange -yet apparently established – practice: groups of any size felt no compunction about skipping holes or cutting across the course to tee off from a different hole rather wait behind someone else.

As I do with most new experiences (and sometimes routine ones), I began to ponder the application of what I was learning to the larger scope of life. Here is what I decided:

1. Better equipment does not (necessarily) a better player make. I didn’t need 30 disks, 17 disks, or even any more than the three I was using. Having specific disks for specific situations on the course wouldn’t have helped at my level of play. It’s more important to hone my skills first rather than expect fancy trappings to instantly make me more proficient.

2. Just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should. It may be an established practice to cut in front of someone else, but it was somewhat irritating to suddenly be behind a large group that appeared out of nowhere. We weren’t playing slow, because it’s pretty hard to do so, and there wasn’t a need to skip around holes because of us. Courtesy counts.

3. Sometimes going off course gets you there anyway. There are two concepts here. First, my friend has a wicked hook that flies off to the right and curves beautifully back to the left. But he plans for this propensity and he takes advantage of it, landing on or near the green more often than not.

Going second, I myself seldom drove from the tee box in anything resembling the direction of the hole. But because my tosses were short, I usually set myself up for a direct shot to the green … from a different angle.

Of course, sinking that shot – in life or on the course – is all about how I master the game. And I keep practicing to be better at both.