13. Disc Golf
Today I played disc golf with a friend from high school! We went to a course in the woods. Apparently there's a more "official" one somewhere else, but it's a lot harder, so we stuck with this one because we don't know what we're doing, and there's not really any "out of bounds" since you can just throw the disc from anywhere. We borrowed discs from a family friend, who is super into disc golf and gave us this huge backpack with all sorts of different types of discs in it. She sent me all these texts about strategy and which discs to choose when, and we were both inexperienced enough that it was just easier to use the same two discs the entire time. I think we played once in 2018, but that was so long ago and at a different place anyway.
Most of the holes were par 3, with some par 4. Since we're both right-handed and didn't have much experience throwing discs, they consistently curved hard to the left, and we spent a long time trying to look for them among the bushes and ferns. I had to switch to a bright blue disc (even though I don't like blue) so that it was easier to find than the green one I started with. The other hard part was finding where the next hole was after finishing each hole. Sometimes there would be "NEXT TEE —>" signs on trees, with hilariously small arrows so that we could barely even see where they were pointing to, but sometimes they wouldn't even give us those signs, so we had to rely on just walking in different directions to find the next tee. It took us [what felt like] nearly 15 minutes to find hole 3. And of course, I don't have the best eyesight right now, so I was heavily relying on my friend to find our discs and the next tees. Also, the little sign posts at the start of each tee were very small and easy to miss.
But as we kept going, we got better. We didn't have to spend as much time digging the discs out of the woods anyway. Still, we never even got a par on any hole, it was all bogeys to +4s. And there was the looming threat of rain to deal with too. Luckily, it only rained lightly on us around holes 10–12, and we pushed through to finish all 18 holes. I even had a notepad with me so that we could keep score, but I kept forgetting where I put the pen, and once I even left it on the ground at the hole 18 tee and we had to double back for it.
It was just a super fun time, even though we weren't very good. My friend took a total of 90 shots across the 18 holes, while I took 95. We didn't really care about the scores though. That's when games are the best: when we can just focus on having a good time together and not get all competitive about it. Then we went back to my house and he stayed for dinner and we sang a little bit. It was a great evening.
Most of the holes were par 3, with some par 4. Since we're both right-handed and didn't have much experience throwing discs, they consistently curved hard to the left, and we spent a long time trying to look for them among the bushes and ferns. I had to switch to a bright blue disc (even though I don't like blue) so that it was easier to find than the green one I started with. The other hard part was finding where the next hole was after finishing each hole. Sometimes there would be "NEXT TEE —>" signs on trees, with hilariously small arrows so that we could barely even see where they were pointing to, but sometimes they wouldn't even give us those signs, so we had to rely on just walking in different directions to find the next tee. It took us [what felt like] nearly 15 minutes to find hole 3. And of course, I don't have the best eyesight right now, so I was heavily relying on my friend to find our discs and the next tees. Also, the little sign posts at the start of each tee were very small and easy to miss.
But as we kept going, we got better. We didn't have to spend as much time digging the discs out of the woods anyway. Still, we never even got a par on any hole, it was all bogeys to +4s. And there was the looming threat of rain to deal with too. Luckily, it only rained lightly on us around holes 10–12, and we pushed through to finish all 18 holes. I even had a notepad with me so that we could keep score, but I kept forgetting where I put the pen, and once I even left it on the ground at the hole 18 tee and we had to double back for it.
It was just a super fun time, even though we weren't very good. My friend took a total of 90 shots across the 18 holes, while I took 95. We didn't really care about the scores though. That's when games are the best: when we can just focus on having a good time together and not get all competitive about it. Then we went back to my house and he stayed for dinner and we sang a little bit. It was a great evening.