Brian Matthews's Blog (15)

One can see some pretty interesting things out on the disc golf course... in my neck of the woods it's usually things like women's underwear (hung proudly on display in some sapling); destroyed discs (I even found a chunk of one that looked like it had been through a fire), not to mention other peoples' lost discs; a set of keys; plastic pill boxes; the occasional activity of local birds of prey; and I'd bet you folks could add aplenty to this list. But the most surreal thing happened to my… Continue

But there IS such a thing as a bad second throw..



Trust me.

I know.

I'm the king of 'bad' first throws.



I have squatted out drives that would make 'Steady Ed' spin in his grave.



I have hit trees right off the teepads so many times that I felt like adding buzzsaw blades to some of my discs to cut them down out of the way.



I have thrown discs right into the ground in front of me, and watched them roll back around and land close enough… Continue

On the same day I played Cliff Stephens DGC, I followed up with a run through NE Coachman, which is less than a mile away and accessible by walking from Cliff Stephens, if you're of a mind to walk the ways it takes. I drove, but then I am usually on some sort of time budget when I get to go out of town, so...

There were a fair number of people at Coachman that day, compared to the one guy I met at C.S., but it was later in the day. Most of the course runs under the…

Continue

I've done it.

And a lot of you out there probably have, too.

Done what, you ask?



Looking for The Magic Disc.



Although most disc golfers are probably aware that it isn't the tool - it's the user - some of us are tempted by the local merchants and online repositories to look for that Magic Disc, that next big break for our game.



But is there any such thing?



I've heard from one or two retailers about the flow of people through… Continue

I had a drawing gig at a Mardi Gras party for a yacht rendezvous out on Useppa Island off the coast of Ft. Myers, and I left early so that I could stop and try a few holes at the disc golf course in the N. Ft. Myers Community Park. After having a bit of a hard time finding the place (although it turns out to be real easy to get there, once you know where it is), I was able to make a mad dash through as much of the course as I could before I had to get to my gig down the road.



I… Continue

Acehole

A fellow player who won't stop talking about that last ace he threw.



Arbor Day

What you'd call one of those days where you seem to hit nothing but trees.



Bitchin'

Stopping all play to watch girls walk through the park.



Bowl Hole

A tee with bench concealed by trees and vegetation.



Chain Smoker

A spectacular long putt.



Fairway Robbery

A throw or putt that should… Continue

On Christmas Day 2007 - after having received a gift of three Champion plastic discs from Santa - the family & I went down to North Port to have Christmas dinner with my mom-in-law. So, I made a plan to hit the disc golf course that can be found down there. The kids went with - probably to avoid the boredom of hanging out at Grandma's - and we tackled the course.



The North Port Charlotte Regional Sports Complex disc golf course is rough-hewn and carved from some serious… Continue

N.E .Coachman Park is probably less than a mile (as the Cro flies) from Cliff Stephen's, and the day I played Cliff I doubled up with this fun little park. The course winds through a relatively thin strip of pine trees and other local foliage, and the day I was there a rather swift-moving creek ran along the back side at holes #8 & #9. I'm also told that you can walk from hole #16 right over to Cliff, if you wanted to.



I made most of my throws with a… Continue

Or, at least I like to think he would have had an affinity for it!



Douglas Adams, that's who!



For those of you in the Not-Know category, Adams (who died in 2001) was a British writer who penned the cult classic The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, a 5-book trilogy, believe it or not. This hilarious and wildly inventive storyline follows the exploits of an Englishman named Arthur Dent, who awakens one morning only to learn that his house is about to be razed to make… Continue

I first visited Lakeview about three years ago, and was very intimidated by it. In fact, I wouldn't even throw hole #7, as the pro pad aims straight across a sizeable pond and I wasn't about to lose a disc to it. There was a lot of shule, and I wasn't even aware that there was an alternate tee for 7 until recently. Most of my disc golf enthusiast friends and relatives don't like Lakeview, for one reason: WATER HAZARDS! Yep, Lakeview has a…

Continue

As I'm sure many people who get into disc golf are, I am taken by the plethora of golf discs available for the sport. Now, I can't say that I have tried anything like a significant number of all the offerings, but I have been a little rabid about finding those that work well for me at this stage of the game. Welcome to the club, I'm sure.

I have been playing off and on for about four or five years, but only recently started getting more serious about it. I am not a big arm guy; my…

Continue

This is the home course of 12-time world champion Ken Climo, and it's a gorgeous one! The park's claim-to-fame is probably #10, right alongside Moccasin Lake. I lost a yellow Champion Sidewinder in this lake, and I gave it up for lost. If you can't throw across this lake to the basket, you RHBHers had better plan your hyzer well.

The front nine is mostly under the canopy of oaks, and makes for a pleasant first half.…

Continue

My wife Colette has a friend that she sometimes meets up with at the Brandon Town Center, east of Tampa, and a few weeks back she did again, so my daughter Celeste - whom I've been getting interested in disc golf - and I tagged along with her just because the Limona DGC is nearby. And I had never been. So we went.

It was a chilly, somewhat windy day, but the sun was shining and the course was pretty much empty, although we did run…

Continue

Once I discovered that there was a thriving disc golf community north of me, with numerous disc golf courses, I set out to visit as many of them as possible. The closest one is right across the Sunshine Skyway Bridge, on the tip of the Pinellas peninsula, and it's named after a tribe of Native Americans that used to inhabit the region centuries ago: Tocabaga.

Tocabaga is a fairly big, spread-out park with practically no water hazards to deal with,…

Continue

I paid my first visit to Taylor Lake Park in Largo FL, where I went and lost my favorite orange Champion Sidewinder into the drink off of hole #11. Bad throw. Switched to it from my Star Roadrunner at the last second, and that's what I get. I fixed the problem with a hop over to the Clearwater Disc Golf Store (www.gdisc.com) before coming back home... now I have a lighter…

Continue