SPRINGFIELD — The rules for Saturday's disc golf
tournament were simple.
No wimps. No whiners.
Oh, and it couldn't be canceled because of the weather.
So despite occasional rain and windchill temperatures in
the low 30s, 35 people participated in the first Ron Pate
Memorial Ice Bowl Disc Golf Tournament.
Held on the two-year-old course in Springfield's Begg
Park, the tournament was to raise money and food for the
Food Bank of South Central Michigan. The tournament is named
for a 41-year-old warehouse worker at the food bank who died
in November from a heart attack. Ice Bowl tournaments are
held across the country to raise money for charities.
Wearing an abundance of knit hats and fleece pullovers,
players flung their plastic discs across the park, aiming
for steel baskets at the end of each hole and trying to
avoid trees and water.
"It's very similar to golf," said Chad Curtis, owner of
Getaway Sports and an organizer of the tournament, "but its
more casual. It only takes about an hour and a half to play
and you can play for free. I put my golf clubs away four
years ago."
The game is played with flying discs, similar to
Frisbees, and players try to reach a metal basket on each
hole in the fewest number of throws.
"I play three or four times a week," said Tim Weimer, 38,
who lives near the park. "It's just walking distance and I
play all year round."
Weimer said he is the top-ranked amateur man in Michigan,
and is considering playing professionally.
He is a top-ranked BMX bike rider and likes to play
softball and basketball.
"I am just very competitive and I keep playing because I
like to score better each time," he said.
Weimer won the advanced bracket in a one-hole playoff
with two others who all tied at 57 strokes after 18 holes.
Weimer and the other two members of his threesome for the
18 holes were Jason Scott, 35, of White Hall and Chaz Ford,
44, of Kalamazoo.
Carrying bags stuffed with nearly 20 discs, the men
trudged through the weather, battling the wind in the open
areas of the park and throwing discs through a 15-foot wide
opening in a wooded section.
They fished discs out of a stream, hurled them hundreds
of feet off the tee and used body English trying to keep
them free of overhanging branches.
The discs, which cost between $10 and $17, weigh between
five and six ounces but are smaller in diameter than
Frisbees and made of denser plastic. They have a tendency to
have narrower edges for greater aerodynamic performance.
Different discs are used off the tee, for midrange shots and
for short shots to the basket.
The game can be as frustrating as golf is with a ball.
Several times as they lined up a short throw to finish
the hole, the men watched a gust of wind push their disc
down or to the side.
"The wind is even more of a factor on short shots because
we are not throwing so hard," Scott said.
On the open holes, players were battling the winds, in
the wooded areas, they watched the disc bounce off trees as
they tried to thread a 15-foot opening.
"It looks like five feet from the tee," Scott said.
The elements are always a factor, especially in the
winter, the men said.
"There is always something," said Ford, who has been
playing since 1980.
"This is totally different than Frisbee. It's not the
same thing as the old Wham-O." Weimer said. "If more people
played it they would get to like it, too. I just don't think
they have tried it."
Curtis said the number of courses in the United States
has nearly doubled from 1,200 in 2002, and courses at Begg
Park and Kimball Pines Park in Emmett Township are
attracting new players.
He said the world championships are scheduled to be
played in 2008 for a week on several courses in the Battle
Creek and Kalamazoo area, attracting 1,000 competitors and
at least 4,000 spectators.
That will attract lots of interest and will help the
sport grow, Curtis said, "because people will go and try it
out."
Trace Christenson can be reached at 966-0685 or
tchrist@battlecr.gannett.com.
