Stroke.  Stroke.  Stroke.  Breathe right side.  

Stroke.  Stroke.  Stroke.  Breathe left side.  

Stroke.  Stroke. Stroke.

Mark Hamilton was swimming nude in Monterey Bay.  He’d left his clothes above the high tide line on Natural Bridges beach, gazed at the lights of Monterey and Pacific Grove across the Bay, and started swimming.   Having surfed almost every day over the past forty plus years, this seemed like an appropriate way to end his life.    

The water was a chilly 55 degrees.  He’d worn his surfing ear plugs and triathlon swim cap to eliminate the discomfort he felt in his ears when swimming in cold water.  Although this was a suicide, he wanted it to be painless.  In fact, he was relying on what he’d discovered years before when training for his first triathlon – he loved to swim.  It wasn’t just something you did when you lost your board, it was meditative.  Your body and breathing got into a rhythm and you could just empty your mind.  You could forget the pressures of the day and the sins of your life.  

Stroke.  Stroke.  Stroke.  Breathe right side.
  
If all went as planned, he’d last an hour, maybe a bit more.  But in an hour, he’d be well out to sea.  The tide was dropping so it would help him along.  He’d probably be two miles from shore.

Mark had studied the effects of hypothermia when he’d worked as a beach lifeguard during college, and revisited them the week before.  It usually took at least twenty to thirty minutes for the first effects to set in.  Once your body temperature drops below ninety-five degrees, you start to lose coordination. In an hour or so, he’d be so exhausted that he’d lose consciousness.  Then he’d drown.  His lifeless body would sink and maybe he’d be lunch for a passing shark.  He certainly hoped he wouldn’t wash up on a local beach and frighten some poor child.  No.  He would be far enough from shore that his body would never be found.

Stroke.  Stroke.  Stroke.  Breathe left side.   

And the swimming should help speed the process.  He’d burn much more energy swimming than just floating.  Exhaustion should overcome him soon. 
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Mark paused in his swim.  He looked back at lights from the homes on West Cliff Drive, then east at the Wharf, the Boardwalk, the East Side and the power plant at Moss Landing.  It looked like he’d been swimming pretty straight.  

Rising up on a passing swell, he looked south and could still make out the lights of Monterey and Pacific Grove some twenty five miles away.  Mark double checked the position of the soon to be setting moon on his right side and began swimming again.  He knew this was the right thing to do. 

Stroke.  Stroke.  Stroke.  Breathe right side.​

Hey.  I'm an extreme sports kind of guy.  As you can see from the photos above and in my Picture Gallery, I love surfing, skiing, kayaking whitewater, hang gliding, and more - individual sports that force me to hone my skills and my body so that I can experience the best Mother Nature has to offer.  So how is it that I took up disc golf?

It all started with Karen's son Victor.  He had learned disc golf through a friend in college and thought it would be fun to get his mom to play.  Karen joined him and they started playing fairly regularly.  

For those of you who don't know, disc golf is very similar to golf.  The rules are essentially identical, except that instead of using a club to hit a ball down a well-tended fairway hoping to put it in a hole a few to several hundred yards away, in disc golf, you throw Frisbee-like discs with the objective of putting one in a basket a few to several hundred feet away somewhere in a forest, in the mountains - out in nature.  

Each 'hole' has a par just like golf.  There's a tee pad from which you make your first throw.  Your next throws are played from where the previous one landed.  Just like ball golf.  There are hundreds of types of discs which fall into basic categories of driver - long range, mid-range, and putters/approach discs.  Some fly straight, some turn left, some right, some are good in wind, some are better downhill - you get the idea.   They're not standard Frisbees.
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Anyway, Karen and Victor tried to convince me that I should play with them.  Although I claimed that disc golf didn't fit my concept of sport and that my sports required too much time to take up another hobby, truth be told, I knew I would be terrible at it.

You see, at the University, while my friends were on the beach throwing Frisbees and doing all sorts of tricks, or playing Ultimate Frisbee (like American football with Frisbees), I was in the water surfing.  I'd never learned how to throw a Frisbee with any consistency.  And why  should I start now?

But with Karen and Victor spending more and more time playing, I ultimately caved and joined them.  Guess what?  I sucked.  I was truly terrible.  Victor did his best to help me and I slowly gained a basic competence, but as I watched other players throw and score par or under par, I knew I was light-years away from being any good at disc golf.

For the next year, Karen consistently beat me.  At times, I would back off - certain throws hurt my shoulder and I didn't want to risk my surfing or other sports for disc golf.  ​

But then, for my birthday, Victor and other family members gave me a lesson package with Jack Trageser's School of Disc Golf.  

Jack played a round with me, then filmed me throwing, then started the lessons, showing me how to throw further and more accurately without hurting myself.  A few weeks later, I was not only beating Karen, I started beating Victor consistently.  I think that was a bit hard on him so for his next birthday, I gave him a lesson package and now, we play at pretty much the same level - just a bit over par on most difficult courses.  

But that's just the beginning of the story.  The magic thing about disc golf is that anyone can play.  It's free - just buy a driver and a putter ($5 used, $15 new) and you can play at thousands of courses around the world.  And even if you're not very good, it's a great excuse to get out for a hike in nature with a game to motivate you.  And, while ball golfers will tell you about the sound of the ball dropping into the cup, it doesn't compare to the ringing of the chains as your disc flies into the basket.

It's a sport that is easy to play and incredibly hard to master.  ​

It's also addictive.

A friend of mine had a major car accident when he was younger and was limited in his physical activity.  He put on weight and had a heart attack in his early 40s.  The doctors recommended exercise, but going to the gym and working out just wasn't something he could keep up with.  I invited him and his wife to join us for a round of disc golf.  It turned out that he was one of those people who threw discs on the beach in college.  He was a natural.  The walking was challenging, particularly on hilly courses, but he was motivated.  He started out only able to play a few holes, but quickly progressed to playing physically challenging courses.  He dropped weight and for the first time in years, got into decent physical shape.  

Those of you who have read my blog posts know that Karen and I spend a lot of time in France.  Of course, we had to play disc golf there but there were no permanent courses in our area.  We decided to bring a luggable basket with us and play our own, makeshift courses while in France so we didn't lose our skills.  We discovered there was a small disc golf club in the region and they welcomed us enthusiastically.  

We introduced Karen's friend Martine to the sport. Martine is a physical trainer who immediately became addicted and who recognized the theraputic value of the sport for her sedentary clients.  Within a year, the tiny club had more than tripled in membership and most of the new members were women.  I suspect that in the Basque Region of France, there are more women disc golfers than men.  

Disc golf in France has been challenging because there is so much regulation on sports and sport training.  Fortunately, Martine and others have made great headway and there are now permanent courses popping up in the Southwest of France.  
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So yeah, I have to admit it.  I love disc golf.  Karen and I play wherever we go.  Our favorite courses are in the mountains and the redwoods.  It's a great hike and a lot of fun.  It's as easy or as challenging as you want to make it - a great sport for the whole family.  And, it's supplanting ball golf.  It's estimated that there are two million people playing disc golf.  While ball golf courses are closing because of ecological and economic reasons, multiple disc golf courses are opening every week.  

If you'd like to know more about the history and evolution (or revolution) of disc golf, I highly recommend Jack Trageser's The Disc Golf Revolution under his pen/nickname, Jack Tupp.  It's a fascinating account of how disc golf got to be what it is today.  It also has a great introduction to the sport and how to play.

If you haven't played disc golf, give it a try.  It's a great excuse to go hiking!