Summer Special : New Spin on Old Game : Golf Courses Designed for Frisbee Players Becoming More Popular in County

Observing disc golf for the first time is an odd sight.

People, many carrying bags of discs, apparently are wandering aimlessly about, but they stop every once in awhile to throw a disc at a metal-and-chain basket perched on a pole.

The basket is really the goal that the players are trying to reach in the fewest throws possible. These “holes,” mostly par 3s, range from 100 to 300 feet.

There are seven disc golf courses in or close to Orange County.

The most popular course in the county is the 18-hole course in Huntington Beach’s Central Park.

There are two 18-hole courses in Aldrich Park in the center of UC Irvine. Also in Irvine are Deerfield Park and University Community Park, both 18-hole courses.

Twila Reid Park in Ahaheim has a nine-hole course and Frontier Park in Tustin also has a nine-hole course.

But the main course in Southern California is at La Mirada Park.

The 27-hole La Mirada course was built in the park in 1975 and is considered the birthplace of the game in Southern California. The course was put in under an agreement between Wham-O, the makers of the Frisbee, and Los Angeles County.

“Orange County is still a little bit behind when it comes to having courses,” said Dan Mangone, who runs a disc shop in Buena Park and one at the park in La Mirada. “Everyone knows La Mirada. It is a nationally known place. We have people coming across the world to take pictures of it. It is really the place when it comes to disc golf.”

To get started in disc golf, one needs a disc or two and no fear of blisters.

“It’s cheap compared to normal golf,” said Sam Ferrans, the 1984 and 1985 World Disc Golf Champion. “When I talk to people about it, they think I’m talking about ball golf, so I just have to keep telling them it’s disc golf. But a lot of people don’t understand it yet.”

When Mangone started to sell discs out of a trailer in the late 1970’s at La Mirada Park, technology had yet to kick in.

“We were (making) discs, flattening them and weighing them down with wax looking for more distance,” he said.

Many people start playing with a normal recreation disc you can buy at most stores. But some discs now are being designed just for golf. These are smaller, harder and heavier than their recreational counterparts.

There are several kinds of golf discs used and each costs from $7 to $10. Each disc is designed for something different--much like golf clubs.

Discs like the Stingray or the Aero are heavier and meant for distance. Other discs are softer and meant for different shots. There is also a putter disc.

“It’s not that expensive if you consider that for $7, you can get the best disc in the world,” Mangone said.

The exact history of disc golf is somewhat sketchy. No one seems to be sure when the first person put a post in the earth and tried to hit it with some form of a disc.

There is no way to prove it, but many people around the game hold to the story that the game was started on college campuses in the 1960s.

“People have been throwing discs at targets for a long time,” Mangone said. “So it’s really hard to say when it started.”

While most disc golfers are recreational players, there are a few who take it seriously.

The Professional Disc Golfers’ Assn. holds tournaments across the country with prize money that can be as much as $1,500 for first place.

Many of the more serious players carry 10 or more discs. There is no limit.

“It takes a while to learn what discs are best for what,” said Al Martinez, who works in the pro shop at La Mirada Park. “I’ve been playing for four months and I know what some discs are best for, but I need to talk to the other golfers to learn what are the best discs for each kind of throw.”

Discs are carried in a bag, like any respectable golfer, and many players even have a towel hanging off their bag.

Like the discs, the hole has also improved. Some holes now consists of a pole with chains that descend from the top into a round basket three feet off the ground. The chains stop the flight of the disc so it will fall into the basket.

Players may be able to get on a disc course much easier than a golf course, but many of the hazards are the same. Trees and wind make the game interesting.

Many of the trees at La Mirada Park are dented from top to bottom on one side with disc marks.

In fact, trees are also the reason for the invention of a shot called the roller. To make this shot, players throw the disc so it turns on its side and rolls under the trees and on toward the goal.

“It’s a thinking man’s game,” Ferrans, 20, who attends Fullerton College, said. “The trees and the wind are the two biggest problems and you have to come up with ways around both. That’s the key to the game, playing the wind and avoiding the trees.”