Let's go frolfing

It's spring...sort of...and in the spring, a young chemguy's fancies naturally turn to frisbee golf.

Sure, my back yard - and I'm sure most of the Cincinnati-area courses as well as those in Dayton - is a muckity, muddy mess, but in another month or two, that'll all dry up, and the courses will be ready for a little frolfing.

Um, that's frisbee golfing for those of you not in the know.

(--if you're familiar with disc golf already, skip ahead a bit 'til you see another note like this--)

And it's usually called disc golf because the game usually isn't played with real frisbees, at least not with the ones that I remember from kiddie picnic games, instead the discs used are a little smaller, heavier, and more narrow profiled than the lighter, bigger, rounded-edge Frisbee that most of us remember from childhood.

The game's a pretty simple one played a lot like golf. You throw a disc from a tee pad (ideally a conrete pad about 4'x8' but often just a marked strip of dirt) toward and eventually into a hole which is really a metal basket with chains that drop the disc into the basket. The goal is to hit the eighteen baskets in the fewest number of throws.

Most of the courses are in public parks, and the discs cost from a little under $10 to around $20 for the nicer, more durable ones. The low cost and typically casual attitude around the course makes for a pretty friendly and open atmosphere among the disc golfing crue, so it's a sport (I know, it's dodgily a sport) that just about anybody is welcome to come out and play. If you're a rook, ask somebody who seems to know what they're doing for some tips. Most everybody's been a disc noob at one time or another, and players are generally pretty friendly and willing to offer hints.

(--Non-rooks can come back now--)

The first time I ever tried the disc golf thing was out at Miami Whitewater park, and Luke and I gave it a try with the clunky, flyaway frisbee that I had in the closet. Things weren't all that successful that first try, but I kept at it and have now played just about every one of the twenty-some courses around Cincy. We're like a frickin' hotbed of disc golf, and it's a blast.

So, I'm thinking early May, we hit a few courses. Who's with me?

I'm particularly partial to Oxford, Banklick, Boone Woods, Harbin, and Miami Whitewater, but I don't know that there's a single course I'd actually refuse.

I'm seriously jonesing here, folks. Who's in?

In the meantime, enjoy the crappiest and best online disc golf games I can find as well as a little Disc Golf TV.