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Flights of Fancy

Some area courses are incorporating disc golf layouts into their facilities

By Charlie SchroederPublished: July, 2005

The next time you hear someone yell fore! at your local golf course, it might not be a golf ball heading your way. That round, flying object floating down the fairway might be someone’s putter. A disc putter, that is.  

Sun Valley Golf Course recently joined Emerald Isle and Mission Trails as courses that have installed a disc golf course on their property. According to managing director Barry Mahlberg, the length of the La Mesa course suited disc golf perfectly. Plus, he added, the good wind conditions at Sun Valley make the course challenging for the hybrid sport.

“It’s been very seamless,” said Mahlberg who knows a thing or two about regular golf, having qualified for three major tournaments, including the 2002 PGA.

Michael Williams, the owner and manager of Lifetime Sports in La Mirada, says that playing disc golf on regular golf courses is still uncommon, and that most disc golf layouts are built at parks.

The nation’s first disc golf course was built in Southern California in 1975. Ed Headrick, who’s credited with inventing disc golf, designed Oak Grove Disc Golf Course in Hahamonga Watershed Park in Pasadena. He later designed Huntington Beach’s Central Park Course, located a hefty Wham-o throw from the beach.  

Unlike “stick golf” or “ball golf” as disc golf devotees call our ancient game, disc golf isn’t weighted down with a lot of the baggage of regular golf. There’s no dress code, it’s quick and cheap, you don’t have to carry a heavy bag, and there’s no limit to how many discs you can use. Williams, who plays at La Mirada Regional Park, carries 12 discs, but said that touring pros often carry 15 or 16.

Innova Discs, the TaylorMade of the disc golf world, offers distance and fairway driver discs, multi-purpose discs, and, yes, putter discs.

“A putt can be as long as 100 feet,” said Williams, adding that disc golf greens aren’t the short, manicured grass that traditional golfers are used to. “A disc golf green is basically a 10-meter perimeter around the hole.”

Ah yes, nothing like those testy 100-footers.

Of course, disc golf’s “pole hole” (a metal and chain structure that looks like a medieval torture device) is much easier to hit into than a 4 1/4-inch cup, especially when it comes to the best in the game.

“The pros can throw it 400 to 500 feet and land it in a bathroom-sized area,” Williams said.

The PDGA Tour makes stops in the Southland twice annually. Both tournaments, the Golden State Classic and United States Masters Disc Golf Championships, are held at the La Mirada course. The tour even claims a player who’s as dominant as Annika and Tiger combined — a Clearwater, Fla., native named Ken Climo who won 11 world championships from 1990-2002.  n