Who intro'd you to the sport and how long been playing?

[discglover]

Had some time on my hands and thought I would start this thread. Klunel asked me during Down Under league this question and I thought this would be entertaining. I'll start first.

Everyone can thank Kevin Montgomery for introducing me to the sport. Dick will be the first to slap him, I mean shake his hand!!
I am pretty positive I started in 1990.

[Koolkat81991]

My friend Zach always had a couple disc for a while (champion orc and dx beast), but we never played with them. One year for christmas I asked for some disc and got a dx beast and a dx cheetah. Then finally one evening towards the end of last summer, I got a few of us together to play. All of the discs I mentioned before are lost now. haha. But now only after about 6 months of playing, I'm hooked on the sport with 21 discs and still playing almost every day.

[Kevin Montgomery]

You're welcome Steve. I knew you'd love it. I'm surprised your brother didn't take to it as well. But he has his guitar.

I got started in 87' or 88' with prompting from cousins Dave Applegate and Mike Wesley. Back then Mike and I both threw with the under handed style he is still known for. Now I just use it for upshots. Dave's back troubles are keeping him away these days but he peaked shortly after getting me started with a first place win in advanced at the Wide Open back there somewhere. Mike is still building and maintaining courses in Central Florida. We should be seeing him in KC for the Worlds in July. I've dragged countless other people out to the course since then and I'm sure I can take credit for introducing a few others to the game. It's infectious like that you know..... Oh, yeah, I guess you do.....  

[discglover]

I meant to mention Rick Orndorff as the other person with Kevin who showed me the sport but I just now remembered his last name.

Believe it or not but I got dave to come out a long time ago but he did more watching than throwing. I made a really long putt on hole 3 up top at Rosie as he was there. I thought him seeing my excitement might spark a desire for him to play. But like you said Kevin, he spends his free time sitting in on jam sessions with blues musicians when he's not at Truman Lake on the weekends.

I took my nephew, Danny Glover, out to Rosie a long time ago too and he had one excellent drive on hole 18 that was very surprising for his first time playing.

Over this last Christmas weekend I found out my other nephew's buddy started playing in Manhattan so I gave him  a JLS and a Roc to take to him. He called me the other day saying he was extremely happy with my discs.

Danny is Vince's son and Kevin Buck is Linda's son.

[jack]

My first experience, was my Dad, and Mom taking me to Wildwood park back in 1978 in Ottumwa, I played a few holes, then went looking for tadpoles in the water where I think 16 is located.  This course was seriously less than 1/2 block from my grandma's, though at the time I think it was just a summer w/e event.  Then in 1984 I moved back to Oskaloosa and they had put in a 9 hole course, I of course being of sound mind and thinking that I knew everything, already thought that I knew the sport better than anyone, and started to get rides to the park.  Then I met Jim Brennan, and actually purchased my first discs, I believe it was a hammer, and #1 putter, I think, I remember it having hands holding on to it from both, and then a basket in front....shortly afterward, there were the cruiser (which floated, which was cool, since we played renegade golf in Osky, and playing over the water was tough, but better, then in 1987 the Eclipse came out, and by then it was all over.  

Actually after I wrecked my motorcycle in 1985, and got out of the hospital and rehab, and the sad realization that baseball was done for me, I started on this sport, played regularly until I moved to KC in 1990, where I couldonly find Swope and it was pay to play, kept asking about this Rosedale course, had a votex I bought here with the Rosedale Memorial Arch, and assumed the course was located there, it wasn't, and after 6 months of looking for it (the guy at Swope told me he had never heard of it, I think he wanted my $8) someone came into Oak Park Mall and listened to my sob story, said they were heading there now, I immediately asked for lunch, followed them there, found it, and then played Rosedale.  My first "organized" event was the 1992 World's Biggest, ran by none other than CD....

I moved to Chicago, and my neighbor played, he was from Joliet, where Gary Lewis ran leagues, and then I realized how good KC courses were in comparison, played Water Works before the pads went in one w/e after driving along 9 to NOWHERE but found after getting back to Rosedale, then Olathe, and by this point I had played all the courses in northern IL, central IL, and Wisconsin, Detroit, and mostly central to eastern IA.


When I visited KC after moving to chicago, I was always impressed with the way the courses looked, everyone was clean, easy to follow, and generally a solid test of game.  I promised myself when I moved to KC to get involved to help with this wonderful sport, and here you have me, deal with it!!

Thanks  Jim !!

[discglover]

Kevin, I expect Jack to be one of those in line to slap you too.

I am sure the line will probably have more than those in it too.

BTW, I used to throw the discus in junior high and high school and was one of the top throwers in the city when I was a senior. Pure technique. So when intro'd to throwing this kind of disc I thought using my discus spin would be awesome but its a reverse spin from my natural technique so I never mastered that. But I have a strong desire to use that technique.

Lefty2 and I competed against each other in the discus in junior high and high school.

[Keizer]

I first heard of "frisbee golf" back in 1993, as one of the older guys I rode BMX bikes with was into the sport. He always tried to get us to play this little 9-hole course (located in Royal Oak, MI) with him, but back then, all I wanted to do was ride bikes.

Fast-forward 13 years, when these weird, metal disc-trapping devices suddenly appeared in the schoolyard of William Yates Elementary, where my children are enrolled. Before discovering the wonderful sport of disc golf, I would take the kids there on weekends to play on the playground, and all I'd do is sit on a bench and smoke cigarettes while the kids got their exercise.  One day, I noticed the baskets, and decided I would buy a "frisbee" and try this game out the next time I took the kids to the playground. The following weekend, I called my buddy, David Owens (who is always game for new adventure), and the two of us went to Dick's Sporting Goods to buy our first discs. I remember choosing a red DX Beast and a blue DX Aviar. Dave picked up a blue DX Eagle and a red DX Aviar. We headed to Yates, had an absolute f-ing blast, and the rest is history...

[otter]

I played a lot of Frisbee in the 70's - then around '80 a high school friend and I DISCovered a city-built playground area with a large above-the-ground horizontal culvert that was ~approx 5' in diameter and around 30-35' long.  We played a lot of catch through that...which I'll now officially attribute to my lack of a decent putt but reliable upshot - thank you very much. 

Then in college some of my frat bro's and I created a VERY cool 18 hole object course on West Campus at KU.  I was hooked.  We played more than every day for nearly 2 years.  During this time (around '83) we hit Swope for one round of DISC GOLF...officially.  Throwing a lid into a Mach I just didn't jive with us.

FF to '97...have been hooked EVER since.  Though the last 2-3 years my play~frequency dropped from  4-8 rounds/week to maybe 1/wk.

Ed Headrick is da Man.  Long live DG!

And many, many thanks to Kevin Montgomery, Tom Butler, Rick Rothstein & Lance Plummer (Phoenix, AZ), Brian Kelly (Denver, CO) & AJ Boyle (Austin, TX).

[discglover]

Thought I would bring this back to the top to see if anyone will add to the stories.

[exminnesotaboy]

My friends Brian and Rick intro'd me to the sport about 2 months ago and I was hooked.  Went down to DGW and Rick R set me up with my first 3 discs and took the time to educate me on my many newbie questions.

I played 7 or 8 total rounds so far and getting better all the time.

A big thanks to Dan, Brandon and Lance who let me play a few holes with them yesterday at Pleasant Hill - I stayed a little later and practiced some recommendations and found it *immediately* helped my game.

Is it wrong that I already want a basket in my backyard?

[phisherman_77]

nah, that's not wrong at all.  pretty normal actually.

I was actually introduced to disc golf that some of my old ball golf buddies.  they loved to go down under with found discs and just have fun and drink beer.  well, they took me ONE TIME and i was instantly hooked.  afterwards, i realized that one of my good buddies, our board's own DrRyan, was a pretty darn good disc golfer.  he took me under his wing and taught me the power of the ROC and the rest is, well, history.  i've now been playing for almost three years and i don't see that stopping anytime soon.

Cheers DrRyan, for showing me the beauty of the flight of the ROC!

[Irand M]

My older brother bought me my first frisbee for one of my birthdays ( I think I was 8 or 9) and taught me how to throw and catch the big 165 gram Whamo.  I can't remember a summer without playing frisbee until.....

.....the summer of 93.  It was The Who Man (Laron Harris) who got me hooked on the sport of disc golf.  Luckily, I worked at the same place as Laron and he took me out to swope one afternoon, handed me a beat up viper, roc, and aviar putter.  Laron spent the next several months retraining me to throw properly.  It was a tough job to undo my desire to get the big frisbee air bounce when throwing a disc, but Laron was a patient man and he eventually taught me the finer points of the entire game.  I played a couple of years under Laron's mentoring and then played off and on with friends for a few more before taking an extended break from the game for family and career. 

Fast forward to 2008 and I've been working with Tom Butler for the past 8 years or so and he has kept talking with me about getting back into the game.  He talked me into playing corporate challenge last May, and I've been hooked again and have introduced my kids to the game.  What a game!!!  I can't believe how much I missed it.

[Tom]

When I was just a kid in a small Kansas town my friends and I spent countless summer days playing catch with Whamos. We would sometimes play object golf around the yard, not even aware we were playing Frisbee golf. In the college years my friends, Cindy, and I played even more catch, and then on a whim, Cindy and I drove to the big city (KC) and bought an American Pit Bull terrier pup named Little Max. As Max grew he became a very intense Frisbee dog. My friends and I would get 150' apart and run Max back and forth til he collapsed, which is no easy task considering Max was a purple ribbon bred, highly game bull dog. It was about 5 years out of college when I took a litlle mini-vacation to California to visit one of my old college day Frisbee flingin friends, when I first played golf to baskets. The first course I played was La Mirada. We played another course or two during my visit too. That was in 1986. I still didn't know anything about the KC Disc Golf scene at that time. A year or so later while glancing through the Olathe newspaper I saw a short article mentioning a Disc Golf course was going in a new park in Olathe. I made note of it, and a few days later, after I got off work one Saturday, I drove to Prairie Center, jumped out with a couple of lids, and started going around. Some guy who was working on a tee box bench came walking over and introduced himself as Ned Smethers. Over the next several months, then years, Ned got me more and more involved in playing and working on the course. He took me around town to the other courses as well. I wanted Prairie Center to be the best we could make it, so Ned and I hand dug and formed the second nine tee boxes. I went to Swope and measured the Mach III units and hand built 18 double chain assemblys and installed them. (Some of you reading this may own one.) Around 1995 Ned moved away, I got busy raising daughters and working for the man. Somehow after about a 5 year hiatus I started playing again. What joy this simple toy of molded plastic has brought me over the years. What a wonderful cast of like minded spirits I have met. 

[David E]

In high school in St Louis we'd play for hours with Whamo's (I personally always loved the 141 more than the 165 gram). We'd tear through them in parking lots, parks etc, for hours. Best part of the memory was the big boom boxes blasting out KHSE-95 (Real Rock Radio!). FREE BIRD, MAN - FREE BIRD!

Fast forward to June 2002, and Rosedale Park. After Pete Engelman asked me far too many times to come out and join him for this really cool sport "Disc Golf" , I caved in and joined him. Like most of us, I was hooked instantly!