As the daylight disappears and temperatures drop, many of us find ourselves spending a lot more time inside. It’s a perfect time of year for video games, and thanks to Gordon Griesel, it looks as though disc golfers will have a virtual environment to keep themselves entertained.

Earlier in the year, I mentioned Gordon’s project, and my eagerness to see it become a reality. Well, Gordon has made good on his intentions, and now has an early December release date planned for Disc Flight Sim. As a way to help get people ready for the release of the full version, a free downloadable demo is available on his site, which you can find here (currently, the password for download is “demo”.)

Being busy with several things lately, in addition to the encroaching holidays, I haven’t had a chance to play with it too much, but I can say from what little I have seen, I’m very impressed and am eagerly anticipating the full release. While the graphics may not be the cutting edge stuff you see in big budget video games, the physics at work here are quite impressive. Just throwing drives with a few selected discs, the physics at work were extremely realistic. Not that there has been a lot of competition in the world of virtual disc physics, but this simulator portrays the flight of a golf disc far more authentically than anything I’ve seen before. A disc thrown flat will fly straight and then fade left predictably. A flippy disc thrown hard with a slight hyzer angle will flip up to fly straight, turn right, and then fade left. That same flippy disc though, if thrown with full hyzer, will hold its hyzer line and finish left (just like my real life botched hyzer-flip attempts!).

The game will include some pre-made courses, a full selection of discs, several different play-modes, and the ability for players to design their own courses, which they’ll be able to share with others. As an added bonus, there will be many terrains the player can download at no cost from the Disc Fight Sim site. The game is currently only for XP/Vista, and Gordon is looking at selling it around $19.95, or “for around the cost of one nice disc” as he puts it. It will be available for download or on CD, and customers will be able to pay in a variety of ways.

Excited by the prospects of the game, I contacted Gordon (who is very accessible and responsive, by the way), and asked him a few questions.
More on Disc Golf Simulator Right Around the Corner

Maybe you’ve seen dyed discs on places like eBay. Or maybe you’ve browsed through threads like the infamous Dyed Discs thread on ODSA. Or maybe, you didn’t even know that a golf disc could be dyed.

Well, for those that are curious about the process of the dip dyeing technique, see the videos below. Chuck, who is well known through the Pacific NW, and dare I say, even on a national level, for his immaculate dyes, was gracious enough to come by my place and give a brief tutorial on disc dyeing (as well as help clean my kitchen).

Part 1:

Part 2:

This is just a basic intro to dyeing, with practice you can achieve some astounding works of art. Check out some of Chuck’s pieces after the jump:
More on In Our Time of Dyeing

Anybody that knows me, or has seen me posting on various disc golf forums on the net, knows that I am wholeheartedly in favor of pay-to-play courses. It’s an argument that I can delve into more drastically some other time, but for now, I just want to share an example of what pay-to-play can achieve. Chances are, if you have read any of the publications related to disc golf, you’ve probably seen at least one picture of the hole above–it’s shown up in ads and was featured on the cover of Disc Golf Magazine. It’s a great hole no doubt, but it’s only a taste of what Blue Ribbon Pines has in store.

More on Blue Ribbon Pines - Setting a Precedent for the Future

This October will see the first true AADG event. In the spirit of Halloween (and a lack of Howliewood being held this year), I’ll be running a casual little tournament called Terror Creek 666 Doubles held at Terrace Creek Park, in Mountlake Terrace, WA on October 25th.

666 doubles is a format that I’ve been wanting to try for a long time, and I figure, what better time than Halloween? What is a 666 format, you ask? Well, I’ll tell you. 18 holes of play, incorporating 3 different kinds of doubles play, i.e. 6 holes of one, 6 holes of the other, and (you guessed it) 6 holes of another. The three formats I’ll be using for the 666 are: alternate shot, best disc, and tough shot (dum dum DUM!). For more information on the details of the particular formats, check out the PDGA’s explanation of them here. It should be a true test of players’ abilities to work with each other, and play smart golf. If all goes well, everybody should still be friends by the end of the first round, but I have a feeling, there will be many apologies, among other kinds of language, uttered throughout the 666 round. To give players a chance to get back to the normal groove of doubles, we’ll be having a second round of best shot doubles–the kind everybody knows and loves.

As with any disc golf event, the primary objective of this is to have FUN. But on top of that, my goal is to raise money for the course to ultimately build a much needed information kiosk. As it is now, we have a couple stakes pounded into the ground, and a couple fence posts to hang fliers on. It is, in a word, ghetto. As our name states, we are interested in the advancement of disc golf, and having proper amenities at a course is one significant step towards advancing the sport. This tournament will be something of an experiment, and if all goes well, I hope to host many more events like this, at other courses to help them get off the ground, or to enhance what already exists.

If you would like more information on this event, check out the flyer here. If you’re anywhere around the Seattle area, or even if you aren’t, I hope you can grab a friend and come have some fun with us.  Even if you can’t make it, you can still help support the cause, and score a sweet putter by buying a glow Wizard, soon to be selling for $15 (+ shipping). The sport can only advance with your help (and yes I mean YOU)!

UPDATE: I’m adding an additional aspect to the tournament: costumes!  Costumes will not be mandatory for the tournament, but prizes will be awarded for the best costumes for those that choose to wear them.  Also, the stamp design is in it’s final process, and it’s looking awesome!

2008 Champion Scott Papa drives while 2nd place Big Mike Leslie observes. Photo courtesy of Eric Edgerton.

Every year towards the end of August, a disc golf tournament happens.  Not just any disc golf tournament, mind you, and it hasn’t happened every year, but it has happened every year since 1976.  Not a lot of tournaments can boast that.  In fact, none can, except for the Washington State Disc Golf Championships.  That’s right, this year marked the 33rd anniversary of the world’s oldest disc golf tournament that is still running.  This year’s championship was made even more special in that it was dedicated to the memory of Northwest disc golf pioneer and Hall of Famer Doug Newland.

It is a special occasion, run for the last twenty five years or so by long time Seattle discer Lowell Shields.  Lowell, being almost obstinately “old school”, tries to maintain the original feel of the tournament by keeping it non-sanctioned and presenting a casual, fun atmosphere for the event. More on The Oldest Gets a Little Older

As I mentioned in the Disc Golf Fundamentals post, putting is a huge part of being a great disc golfer.  If you’ve played disc golf, you probably know the frustrations of just missing a clutch putt…and then watching your disc roll down the hill with visions of making par or better suddenly replaced by the reality of a bogey.

If this sounds familiar, it’s probably time to spend some quality time working on your short game.  Disccraft’s video on putting sums up all of the key points.  In case you don’t have the time or patience to sit through a 20+ minute youtube video, here are some of the key pointers I have taken away from not only the video, but from other players better than myself: More on Tightening Up Your Short Game

Well the USDGC is less than two months away now, and disc golfers are getting antsy. Unfortunately, it’s pretty much only disc golfers that even know about it. Brian Schweberger posted the following on the PDGA message boards:

Billy Crump and Brian Graham have contacted Mike and Mike on ESPN thru the PDGA. They are trying to get them down to The USDGC this year and do a live feed during the event.

We need your help: to whomever reads this post, if you could just send an email to them and give them some good reasons why they should come down to The USDGC.

I am going to be emailing them several times a week giving them different reasons why they should give DISC GOLF a chance.

Billy wants thousands of emails to flood their computers. This could happen with enough effort from our community of Disc Golf.

The email is Mike and Mike

Thanks for all of your efforts

Schwebby

Having to petition a sports radio show to have them cover one of the largest events in your sport is something of a humbling experience, but it could be just this kind of push that could help put us on the radar and lend some much needed credibility. Spread the word and send your emails in today!

OK, so maybe it’s not a real ace, and maybe its not exactly good etiquette to laugh when a pedestrian gets hit by a disc, but dangit, I think this is funny. This was a group of my friends and me on a recent roadtrip to play Lucky Mud, where we stopped to first play a round at Trojan. Before I get angry comments and emails, I’d like to point out that we did have a spotter out, and he did say fore, and though the guy got hit, the disc was slowed down considerably by skipping on the pavement. Part of what makes it so funny is that Joe has an uncanny knack of shanking a disc towards people, particularly little kids–this time he missed the kids. I don’t know if this is one of those situations where you have to know the people involved for to really find it funny, but for me, I laugh every time I watch that clip. And I always have to watch it at least two or three times.

Edit: For some reason, the annotations for this video don’t show up in the embedded version. For the annotated version, click on this link. On the same note, you can view the high(er) quality version there.

Not all that long ago, I was shooting some golf with a guy that was fairly new to the area, from Louisville, KY. He was a nice guy, and being a native of the South myself, we got along pretty well. As we were playing through my course, I told him about the struggle we were facing with the restructuring of our course and all the tiptoeing we had to do due to environmental concerns. He chuckled and said “Oh yeah, I have to remember, I’m in a blue state now.” I tried to say that it wasn’t really the state, just the city and one or two vociferous citizens. He said that where he came from, the mentality was that parks were meant to be used. Fair point.

Just last week, in preparation for the upcoming tournament that I’m running, several of us were armed with weed eaters, taking care of some long grass on a couple of the fairways. A guy who had just moved from Texas approached us; he was trying to familiarize himself with the course before the tourney, but he dropped his bag and pitched in to help us. I told him how thankful I was to have his help, lamenting the difficulty of getting people to actually show up for work parties. He seemed happy to help, but pointed out that in Texas, the cities took care of all the maintenance of the courses, that the course upkeep isn’t something that tournament directors have to worry about there.

Again, I’d like to think that maybe its just the city our course is in that is so non-supportive of disc golf, but I’m afraid it’s bigger than that. More on Why all the hate, blue state?

The annual Discraft Ace Race is on! If you read my earlier post about non-competitive events, then you’re already somewhat familiar with the Ace Race. For those that aren’t familiar with it, the Ace Race plays like this: you pay $25, you get 2 identical prototype discs, a mini, and a hat, and then you play a modified version of the course, where every hole is an opportunity for an ace. You have one throw from the teepad to try to make it in, and get as many aces as you can. They’re all makable, but don’t expect any gimmes, there’s still definitely a challenge there. Didn’t hit an ace? Oh well, move on to your next hole and try again.

This event is seriously a lot of fun. There is some level of competition here–whoever hits the most aces and/or hits metal receives a fat stack of Discraft discs, and then there are also other prizes for things like oldest and youngest people to ace. An added bonus to it all is that unlike real tournaments where you don’t know who you’ll end up playing with, you can show up to the Ace Race with your friends and play as a group. I should mention that these are not PDGA sanctioned events, so you can draw your own conclusions from there.

Check out Discraft’s Ace Race page to see if there’s an event near you. If not, try looking into running it yourself! This is seriously one of the best non-tournament events on a national level. I think Discraft is doing a great thing by offering this every year, its a great way to bring people out (even newbies) to enjoy this sport together.

Oh yeah, I should mention that my only ace to date was at last year’s Ace Race, and the discs they gave me, the Impact, have earned a permanent spot in my bag. And it WAS a legitimate ace, dangit! About 230′ I’d guess, with a slow sidearm hyzerbomb. So if you’re feeling a significant lack of aces in your history (or feel like chocking one or two more), then the Ace Race is the place to head.