Disc-Golfing Trend Drives Along Lake Erie
By John Arthur Hutchison

Welcome to disc golf. Chances are, you’re going to love it if you give it a shot.

Michael Mote, president of the Shoot The Breeze Disc Golf Club in Ashtabula County, Ohio, jokes that the fun can be so addictive that there might even be some kind of gene that gets people hooked once they try it.

“It kind of remains a secret,” Mote says. “It’s not publicized in the media much and most people don’t know anyone who plays, but if they do know someone, it’s that weird guy that
plays Frisbee golf.”

Photo courtesy of Shoot the Breeze Disc Golf Club

But there are lots of people who love to play disc golf, Mote says, adding that Frisbee is a trademark name, so disc golf is the proper term for the sport.

On each Sunday, there are dozens of members of the club who play at their home course at Lake Shore Park, located along the shores of Lake Erie in Ashtabula, Ohio.

People may also come from across the country to play the course for a tournament or local folks from Ohio, Pennsylvania or even New York may make the drive to spend a fun afternoon.

Each January, the club hosts a big tournament the weekend before the Super Bowl – even if there are blizzard conditions and gusty winds like this past year. Story by John Arthur Hutchison
Photography courtesy of Shoot the Breeze Disc Golf Club

So why do people play something like this?

“I think it’s very much the same hooks as ball golf,” Mote says. “Regardless of your skill level, you can always get better. You can have those great days when you can’t miss a putt or your drives are right on. You can never latch onto it permanently, but you can always chase it and try to get back those great moments.”

Same rules, different equipment
The rules of disc golf are much the same as ball golf, but the equipment is quite different.

To play, a player uses a plastic disc, similar to a Frisbee, which is thrown in the direction of
the basket or “hole.” The goal is to get the disc into the basket in as a few throws as possible.

If the average number of throws it takes on a particular hole to land a disc in a basket is three, then that’s the par for the hole, just like in regular golf. Players try to get as close to or under par as possible during each round.

Along the way, a player uses different types of discs designed to do different tasks such as fly long, medium, short, hook right or left, and also for shots to be used at close distance or to “putt.”

Each shot requires a different set of skills and reads of the conditions such as wind direction or hazards such as water, trees or other objects.

Mote, 48, has been playing disc golf since 1987 and was introduced to the sport while living in Sacramento, Calif. A few years later he moved back home to Ohio and started looking around for a course to play.

Year-round fun– often free
With all the snow usually falling in the Great Lakes region during the winter, Mote thought his search would be fruitless, but eventually he found a course in Medina, Ohio.

Mote and his brother Tom decided to take matters into their own hands and came up with their own course. Tom is now a certified disc golf course designer.

“At first, my brother bought a bunch of portable baskets for a course of nine holes and he would carry them around to places in the back of a truck,” he recalls.

After that got old, Tom designed the disc golf course now located at Lake Shore Park.
The 18-hole course is about 6,000 feet in length, about 1/3 the size of a ball golf course, which typically uses yards instead of feet.

One of the best parts of disc golf is the relatively low cost involved, Mote says. Plus, rounds can be completed in less than two hours, compared to a typical four-hour round of ball golf

Once you fill a bag full of discs that can be used for long, medium, short-range and putting shots – typically for about $150 or less – there is little cost afterward, since most public courses don’t charge fees to play. Some private courses, however, may charge.

“When I go out to play, I just go out there and play,” Mote says. “I talk with my ball golfing buddies and you can talk about the same thing like how driving is fun, but if you can’t putt, you can’t go anywhere. It’s the same type of attraction from the sporting angle.”

More courses bring more golfers
About six years ago, Dave Martin and his wife, Helen, decided to add a 9-hole, par-3 disc golf course to their list of attractions at the Pine Lane Campground they own in East Springfield, Pa. The course is open year round and is free to the public.

Martin found Mote and his club listed on the Internet and asked Mote’s brother Tom to design a course on some extra land they had at the campground, also located next to the shores of Lake Erie.

“It’s a very technical course, not a long one,” Martin says. “It’s got a lot of water hazards
and trees on it.”

Perhaps someone just starting off in the sport may find this course fairly hard, he says, but professional disc golf players come from all across the country to play, a lot of times on
their way to other courses or tournaments in the region.

“You learn to play as you go,” Martin explains is his secret to the game. “If you can throw a Frisbee, you can learn. It’s a little more centered and streamlined. You can throw it like a baseball or throw it forehand or backhanded and depending on the shot you can make it do different things.”

The pros know
Doug Opiela, 43, has played disc golf for the past 25 years and is the course pro and founder of the Niagara Region Disc Golf, which plays in leagues and tournaments at Evangola State Park in Farnham, N.Y.

The 18-hole course also is open year-round and is free to the public, although there may be a small fee to enter the state park during the summer months.

“I love playing Frisbee as a kid, so this was a natural transition for me,” Opiela says. “As soon as I new about disc golf, I was playing it.”

He says the key to the sport is practice and discovering what makes each player feel comfortable as their skills progress.

“The learning curve is rather shallow, the perfection curve is rather deep,” Opiela explains.

“You can pick it up pretty quick and if you’re comfortable and you’re good at it you can be capable of perfecting it like anything else.