Saturday, September 3, 2011

Bowling for Geese

 About a week or so ago, we made a family decision to take up Disc Golf.  Before we made a commitment to buying 4 sets of discs, we rented some to see if we even liked it.  Well, the first night out, we were hooked.  We stink, but we were hooked none the less.  So we went back to the store and bought disc sets for all of us.

We have 2 parks close by that have disc golf courses.  In the past week, we’ve played 5 times.  The first course we visited is closer, but there are quite a few holes that are in the woods.   Now, this is absolutely great for the shear reason of getting out of the sun for a few minutes.   However, the trees are obstacles with a capital O.  For my friends that play golf, you know what it’s like when there’s a tree in the way… You can’t seem to focus on anything else, and no matter what you do, you still hit the tree.  Several holes only have about 20 feet clearance in some areas between the trees.  So, given that we’re rookies, we’ve hit a lot of trees!  Tom even hit a bat house that was secured HIGH up on one of the trees.  Yes… we’ve made our mark in the bark, that’s for sure.  And… one hole is beside a lake.  Talk about a BIG distraction.  All the discs just seem to bank left towards the lake not matter how far to the right we throw them.  It’s splash or crash on this course for sure!  

So, last night, we thought we would try the other park.  It is very wide open.  This course does have some really big ‘old growth’ trees, but you can easily throw around them.  Well, let me rephrase that… some people can easily throw around them. (ha!)  Yes, we’ve managed to hit them too, but hey… we do still kind of stink. 

Now… it’s the end of summer, we’re in a big open field, so who do you think joins us?  A crazy flock of geese, that’s who!  Can you believe it?  We’re heading up to one hole and there they are… about 40 geese eating the grass right around the basket.  From the tee, we’re not worried.  Not one of us can throw far enough to even scare them.  But, we were wondering what we should do when we got closer.  We didn’t want to hit them, but they just needed to get the heck out of the way.  So, as we started getting the discs a little closer, they would move a little bit.  And as we approached the basket, they started moving away as a flock.   OK… problem solved, right?  Well not exactly… They just moved to the next tee.  And as we finished this hole and moved to the tee, they moved towards the next hole.  It was like they just wanted to lead the dang Frisbee Golf parade!  Geez!  This went on for several holes.  These discs hurt when they hit you!  So the last thing we wanted to do was hit a goose.  But they would just not move on!  We were quickly running out of daylight, so we opted to skip a few holes and move past the geese (and all the goose poop) to the last couple of holes and quit for the night. 

We decided to give this course another try this morning. It’s a lot less crowded, and gives us time to practice without holding up other players.  We made it through the first 6 holes before we came upon the crazy geese again today.  This time, though, the geese weren’t so lucky. Tom threw a disc that faded off to the left and skidded right into the flock.  One goose jumped straight up in the air about 6 inches, then they all started running AND honking up a storm!  It looked like he was bowling for geese instead of playing disc golf!   I know, I know… we shouldn’t have laughed, but it was just way too funny!   They ran straight in the direction of the basket.  So the next throw was right at them again.  We are still new at this, so we just can’t quite control where our Frisbees go!  And let me tell you, trying NOT to hit a goose is one sure way for me to hit one!   Eventually the geese saw us coming and moved on to another part of the course.  Whew! 

We sure had a lot of fun, even if we don’t yet have any skills!  We’ll know that we’ll get better, because we surely can’t get any worse!  (Just kidding!)  But, we’ve definitely decided that we really need to focus on playing golf on the golf course and leave the bowling to the alleys!  No more bowling for geese… that’s a promise!  I cannot promise that the trees are safe though… At least not yet!   

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