We went to play frisbee golf on Sunday. Twas my first ever time doing such a thing and just between you and me, I think I’ve finally found yet another “sport” I am capable of hanging with. It’s right up there with pool, table tennis, foosball, croquet, and bowling… (i.e. – sports for lazy asses that eat a lot of Cheetos and Twinkies). Some might call those things games, but I call them sports. I consider anything that gets your ass up out of a chair and involves scorekeeping to be a sport.
Frisbee golf, a.k.a. “disc golf”, consists of this:
- Go to frisbee golf-equipped park – one with posts set up with baskets to catch frisbees
- Throw frisbees at and/or towards giant baskets.
- Eventually get close enough to basket to throw frisbee into it and move to next hole.
Yeah, I think I can handle this one. One of the young men we were playing with was even smoking while playing, and I guess it’s not uncommon to see people drinking beer during the game. I don’t know about you, but I’ve never seen a major league football, basketball, or baseball player standing in the middle of the field or court sucking away on a heater and nursing a beer.
The first time I had seen frisbee golf was back in the late 90s on an absolutely phenomenal short lived MTV sitcom called Austin Stories (MTV: please put this out on DVD before I hurt someone). Since then I always had my curiosities but never knew where to go or an experienced player to introduce me to the game. I’d always pictured the stereotypical frisbee golf athletes as boys with tie dye shirts, gummy bear boobs and scruffy beards that listen to Phish 24/7 and smell like dusty cabbage soaked in beer. No thanks.
Anywho, as fate would have it, Kimb, her co-worker Steve, and a chap named Taylor had a notion to meet up at a local disc golf course with yours truly in tow. Good times were had. I kept wondering what kind of person would invent such a game? The only image that came to mind time and time again was Jim Morrison in his drunken, bloated, scary beard, slurred speech phase. You know… the phase right before the O.D. and Die phase.
At this particular course located in a quaint Edina park off of Highway 62, the public restrooms were nicely painted by a local anonymous graffiti novice. On one side, the mystery artist spray painted a large phallus on the wall with the words “HAIRY BALLS” beneath it. The ball area of the phallus (it looked like he basically just drew a figure 8) was hairless which perplexed me a little. On the women’s room door was the artist’s interpretation of the female nether-regions and beneath that was the word “VAGINA”. Just steps away on the plastic kiddie swing, the artist painted an inspirational message: “I HAD SEX HERE”. To say that the artwork added to the thrill of the game is an understatement.
All you have to know how to do to play this game is throw a dang frisbee. If you throw it too hard, it might end up on a highway or nearby body of water. There are two major things you need to look out for other than the posts you’re shooting for: trees and other people.
A few years ago I was playing croquet with my nephews and niece and wanted to take the game to the next level. What if we put the wire hoops and goals on an uneven driveway and other impossible-to-play areas? We did and let me tell you, it was fucking hard. And so Extreme Croquet was born.
After only 18 holes, I think I’m now ready to invent and play Extreme Frisbee Golf. Keeping in mind that accidentally hitting a tree or fellow frisbee golfer is always concern when out on the course, I think I have the perfect idea of how to take this game to the next level.
Next time instead of a frisbee golf disc which looks like this:
I’m bringing a few of these to use.