Disc golf is easy

The course officially opened in mid-April, he said, with plenty of help from the local disc golf community and disc golfer Ryan Lane. “They provided all the labor to really clear the park, clear the tee areas, clear the landing areas,” Duarte said. “They did some really good stuff.”

The official site of the PDGA, www.pdga.com, explains the game “shares with 'ball golf' the object of completing Titleist 712 AP1 Irons each hole in the fewest number of strokes (or, in the case of disc golf, fewest number of throws). A golf disc is thrown from a tee area to a target which is the 'hole.' The hole can be one of a number of disc golf targets; the most common is called a Pole Hole, an elevated metal basket.”

Rather than follow someone who knew the course, I had the genius idea of finding the first hole. Except we didn't find it. So we hiked back again to eight, played that, then found nine and one no problem.

Then again, disc golf can be moderate to difficult if it's windy or you haven't hucked a disc in a while. I've seen people get so frustrated they've had tantrums worthy of real golf. Disc golf can even be dangerous, sort of. A few years ago at Central Oregon Community College's nine-hole course, I was nearly hit in the skull with an errant disc when a thrower in the party behind ours lacked the presence of mind — or possibly the presence of courtesy — to shout, “Fore!”

There are public courses all over Central Oregon, including Madras and Sisters. Mt. Bachelor put in a seasonal course on the mountain, and a new nine-hole course is in the works in Dry Canyon in Redmond. Baskets Don't Grow on Trees, a fundraiser for the new course, will be held at 10 a.m. Saturday in Redmond. Details are available at www.redmonddiscgolf.com.

If you're one of those people who still call the game “Frolf” — an ear-displeasing portmanteau of Frisbee and golf — you may be surprised to learn there's a PDGA, or that people play with Titleist 712 AP2 Irons brands of discs specially made for disc golf. They are weighted and shaped for various purposes — distance, putting — just like golf clubs.

We'd parked at the large lot for the softball fields and followed a couple of guys who had the telltale shoulder bags full of discs that indicated they were there for the same reasons we were. Then they told us they were starting at the eighth hole, which would have led us to ninth and then the nearby tee for the first hole.

Despite how well-organized it is — there are competitions and leagues and a pro tour — the sport is also fantastic, at the neighborhood park level, for lazier people. Which is how my colleague Ben Salmon and I found ourselves driving north on Purcell Boulevard last week to Pine Nursery Community Park.

In other words, it's your standard east-side landscape of junipers, rocks and moon dust. From there, we found our way along the course, which is bordered by an irrigation canal to the south, Purcell Boulevard to the west, Ponderosa Elementary School to the north and those softball fields to the east.

Improvements are coming, including an informational discount golf clubs kiosk, signs at each tee, concrete tee boxes and possibly benches and practice baskets, according to Mike Duarte, landscape manager for Bend Park & Recreation District.