Catch the action of disc golf
Players get down to basics!!!
By Heather LaRoi
Post-Crescent staff writer
Posted May 30, 2006
Flying saucers were spotted in several Fox Valley locations over the long holiday weekend.
OK, maybe not that kind, but yes, there were plenty of flying discs whizzing around.
The Eagle Open Disc Golf tournament was held Saturday at Telulah Park in Appleton and on Sunday, Grignon Park in Kaukauna hosted the Wisconsin Junior Disc Golf Championships. The field at each event featured more than 50 golfers.
All this is very good news to disc golf organizers.
"When I started back in 1993 or '94, no one even really knew what the sport was," said Terry Miller, an Appleton native and now state coordinator of the Professional Disc Golf Association. "Now everybody knows about it. Once you do it, you're hooked."
For those who have somehow managed not to know what disc golf is, the game is really very simple. Not unlike traditional golf, the kind played with a ball and clubs, the idea with disc golf is to sink the disc in the hole — or in this case a metal basket mounted on a pole — in as few throws as possible.
"The thing is, anyone can do it," said Ken Kreie, president and founder of the Appleton Area Disc Golf Club. "It costs very little to start, maybe an $8 disc. There are no tee times. You can go out and just start playing immediately. And it's addictive. I started eight years ago, and now I can't stop."
He's not the only one. A sign of the sport's growing popularity is the number of courses now available. The Fox Cities alone has six courses, including a new one at Pierce Park that is thanks in large part to the diligence of the fourth-grade class at Jefferson Elementary School in Appleton.
Over the past school year, the students wrote up a proposal to replace the makeshift course and its wooden posts with a full-fledged nine-hole course with official disc golf baskets. They made several appearances at Appleton's City Hall, earned unanimous approval for the project, researched basket options and then proceeded to raise more than $6,000 to fund the project.
The course was officially opened on May 7.
"It's been a year-long project. It's been very cool," teacher Mary Ann Garvey said. "To get them to write a letter, I didn't even have to blink. And to get them to speak in front of people, they were all fighting for the chance."
When it comes to playing disc golf, the key to getting better at it is simple.
"You need to go out and practice," Miller said. "If you want to take it to the next level, if you want to be more than a recreational player, then you need to go out and put in some good practice time. That may be throwing out in a soccer field. That might be standing at a practice basket and rigorously putting over and over and over again. It's those types of things that are going to make you better."
What separates an average player and the very good player often comes down to one thing — consistency, Miller said.
"There are plenty of players that can throw the disc a long ways, and there's plenty of people who can shoot a good score on any given day," he said. "It's more a matter of pulling out consistently and performing that over and over again."
Want to know more? Here are a few disc golf basics:
There are generally three main classes of discs used in competition: drivers, meant to travel the longest distances but often harder to control; mid-range discs; and putters, designed for shorter distances but with greater accuracy.
Miller said he usually carries about 16 discs in tournaments — which might be on the low end among professionals, he added. "It's not that you need to carry that many … but you like to have backups," he said.
For people just getting started out with the sport, however, a single all-round disc like the Discraft Buzzz is all that is required.
"Once you master how to throw that correctly, then you can graduate to other discs," said Miller, who competes in tournaments more than 40 weekends a year and also leads disc golf clinics.
A common mistake people make, he said, is thinking that more discs is necessarily better.
"That's one of the big downfalls for many people," he said. "It's 'Oh, this disc doesn't do what I want it to do … I need to get another disc.' It's like golf. There's no such thing as a magic club that's going to allow you to hit the ball straight every time. If you have bad form, you have bad form. Disc golf is exactly the same way. ...
"You've got to put in a little hard work and dedication. If you can't make a free throw, they don't sell you a magic basketball."
A good starter disc will cost about $8. More specialized discs can bump up into the $15-20 range.
"Disc technology is a big subject these days," Miller said. "Just for an example, back in 1994-95, the big thing was that somebody had broken the 600-foot barrier for a throw. Years later now, we're talking about being at the 800-foot barrier. That's a pretty substantial jump."
There are now more than a dozen disc golf parks in the greater Fox Valley, and several new parks are opening this summer.
Just like with traditional golf, different courses can have different personalities.
"What makes a great course is the variety of different holes," Kreie said. "The more elevation changes the better, water hazards, obstacles, some open and some wood holes."
Area parks include Telulah, Plamann and Pierce parks in Appleton; O'Hauser in Menasha; Grignon in Kaukauna; Kimberly High School in Kimberly; Frelteg Memorial in Forest Junction; Triangle Sports Arena, Pamperin and the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay in Green Bay; Community Park in Pulaski; Pinecrest in Howard; Red Arrow in Oshkosh; Adelaide in Fond du Lac; Hatten in New London and Lake Park in Seymour.
Riverside Park in Berlin was officially dedicated last week, and Hingiss Park in Kiel will be dedicated on Friday.
For more complete listings of disc golf sites in Wisconsin, visit
www.aadgc.com and follow the links on "courses."
The AADGC puts on several tournaments each week throughout the summer. But don't be scared off by the notion of a formal "league," Kreie said.
"We don't really call it a league because leagues usually mean you have to show up every week. With this one, you can come once or come all the time. It's a separate competition every week," he said.
The great benefit of playing in such tournaments is not only hanging out with others who share a passion for throwing discs, but also the opportunity to practice competition.
"Competition play is very different from just playing a casual round by yourself," Kreie said. "It's like a mental game.
"You can have the skill to throw a disc in the right place and the ability to putt, but when it comes time to play a tournament and compete, it's the mental skills that really come into play. As often as you can practice those mental skills, the better you'll become."
The weekly lineup of AADGC tournaments:
Mondays: Pro-Am doubles tournaments at O'Hauser Park in Menasha. Amateur players are teamed up with a professional. Beginners are welcome.
Tuesdays: Handicapped singles tournaments at Grignon Park, Kaukauna. Just like in traditional golf, players are given a handicap.
Wednesdays: Divisional singles tournaments in Telulah Park, Appleton. "This is our main event," Kreie said. "We've been growing and growing. We've been averaging more than 40 players a week this year." Four categories of competition are available: pro, advanced amateur, amateur and women's.
For all AADGC weekday tournaments, registration opens at 5:45 p.m. and play starts at 6 p.m. Cost is about $5.
There are disc golf tournaments in Wisconsin almost every weekend. For complete listings, see
www.discgolf schedule.com and click on "Wisconsin."
A few area highlights include the following:
June 4: Big Fling, Plamann Park, Appleton
June 17-18: Pickle Open, Sheboygan
June 24-25: Badger State Summer Games, Madison
July 1: Oshkosh Open
July 2: Green Bay Open
July 15-16: Manitowalk in the Park, Manitowoc
Appleton Area Disc Golf Club — www.aadgc.com
Professional Disc Golf Association — www. pdga.com
Disc golf tournaments — www.discgolfschedule.com 
