Disc golf becoming popular
By Kirsten Ballard
Published in News on August 19, 2015 1:46 PM
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News-Argus/MELISSA KEY
Jared Grantham putts for his team on the fourth hole during a Tuesday night meeting of the Goldsboro Disc Golf Club at their Berkeley Park course.
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News-Argus/MELISSA KEY
Jeff Carmel removes his discs from the practice hole before starting official play with the Goldsboro Disc Golf Club at Berkeley Park.
There is no country club.
The greens are covered with pine needles. The fairways are in the woods. There is a large chance a child playing soccer on the 5th hole distracts you. On some holes, you have to tee off of concrete.
Yet, it is the perfect course.
Instead of balls, plastic discs fly through the air.
Ben Farlow is the man behind the Berkeley Park disc golf course. He designed it and put it in.
He has been playing with discs since attending the University of North Carolina at Wilmington in 1997. He played club Ultimate Frisbee, but slowly evolved his throws for the precision game of disc golf.
He didn't have golf discs or baskets when he started playing. He played with bulky "catch" discs meant for tossing back and forth.
"We would try to hit a light post or a trash can," he said.
Now he carries a bag full of discs meant to represent a driver, mid-range shot and putter. He has a practice basket at home to work on his putting.
"I don't have room to really back up and throw," he said.
So he works on his golf game on Tuesdays.
Designing the course didn't give him a large advantage though.
"I tried to make it as fair as possible," he said. "Equal for lefties, rightys and straight shots."
He usually hits six under. Par for the course is 55.
He monitors the course for wear and tear. On Tuesday night, his club fixed a bridge on the course. Some of the men carried hammers as they played, prepared to work afterwards.
There was a $3 entry fee. The winning two teams split the pot. They have an on-going Ace pot for hole in ones. It is over $100 currently.
The popular Frisbee sport has a large following in Goldsboro's Berkeley Park where a dozen men meet on Tuesdays to play the sport. They call themselves Goldsboro Disc Golf Club. Membership is $25 and includes a dry fit shirt.
"We're trying to grow the sport," Farlow said.
The group meets Tuesday evenings at 5:30 p.m.
Many arrive early to take some throws at the practice hole to warm up. They stand in a circle and let their discs fly. The chains rattle when a lucky disc flies in and settles at the bottom of the hole.
Jared Grantham was a golfer in college. A barista at Starbucks mentioned the disc version of the sport to him.
"I was curious," he said.
He started playing at the Stoney Creek Park course. That was four years ago. In July, he tied for third in the Vibram Birdie Bash World Championship in Michigan.
A Birdie Bash is where players receive two discs that he or she has never thrown before and play the game with only those two discs, trying to make as many birdies as possible.
Disc golf is more casual than ball golf. The men come to play in athletic shorts and T-shirts. The same courtesies rules apply as normal golf. They don't talk when someone is taking a shot, and they stand behind the golfer.
The game takes two hours for all 18 holes. They play doubles and split into four groups.
"Unlike golf, you can't have a large group on one hole," Farlow said.
The pairs are random and drawn from a deck of cards that Grantham holds. This puts beginners and veterans on the same team and evens the playing field.
"We're always happy to teach new people the game," Farlow said.
Beginners can pick up a cheap 3-disc set at a sports store to begin and learn the game.
"It's fairly inexpensive," Farlow said. "You'll keep these a lot longer than golf balls."
He says playing with veterans can help knock 10 to 15 strokes off your game.
"I encourage newbies to enter tournaments," he said. "You can come out and have a lot of fun."