Ask the average Oregon student about their experience with a Frisbee, and chances are they will have a story to tell. It makes sense, considering Eugene’s abundance of luscious green expanses, long-haired hippies and lazy Sunday afternoons.
For most on campus, tossing the disc offers an escape from being trapped in the library or a lecture. But if you throw with the men of the University’s club disc golf team, the 2011 Collegiate Disc Golf Champions, you’re likely to appreciate the disc from a completely different perspective.
“If you look at where this sport expanded — in Europe, Australia and other places — they didn’t experience the ’60s or ’70s or anything like that,” explains the team’s head coach, Dave Feldberg. “It’s not in their culture. You go to Japan, and disc golf is a professional sport. They keep scores just like golf.”@@http://bleacherreport.com/articles/179047-dave-feldbergs-journey-to-eugene-oregon@@
It may seem difficult to understand an activity that incorporates a plastic disc into one of the world’s most popular recreational sports. But if you observe the Ducks for one round on a nearby course, you’ll witness athletes displaying the same balance of power, control and touch that is a staple of success in traditional golf.
In disc golf, competitors aim their discs down a series of freeways ending with small, metal, chain-laced baskets instead of holes. Commanding a disc on a hole that’s several-hundred feet long can prove more difficult than keeping your tee shot on the fairway.
“One thing we’ve learned from Dave (Feldberg), us guys who won the championship, is you don’t have to put the disc right next to the basket,” says Noah Politzer, a senior political science major. “It’s just sort of a different mindset … in which you’re confident you will make the putt. At least, for me, that’s a been a recent development in terms of my mental game and doing well on the course.”@@http://directory.uoregon.edu/telecom/directory.jsp?p=findpeople%2Ffind_results&m=student&d=person&b=name&s=noah+politzer@@
If Politzer makes the aim of the game sound incredibly simple, it’s because his squad has the privilege of learning from a mentor who’s a special player in his own right. Feldberg is currently ranked as the No. 1 disc golf player in the world, and recently earned the distinction of being the highest-ranked player in the history of the Professional Disc Golf Association.@@http://www.innovadiscs.com/home/411-oregon-wins-collegiate-disc-golf-championship.html@@
According to Oregon’s head instructor, what separates top players at the collegiate or professional levels is the ability to put a forceful drive into the disc while remaining in position to finesse their next toss close to the cup.
“It doesn’t matter how strong you are if you don’t have the technique. The people with proper technique, who are at the higher levels, can literally throw shots up to 840 feet,” Feldberg says triumphantly. “Pros are throwing two football fields, through a gap, towards a target. I mean, that’s a lot of skill. You need to be athletic, strong, technically controlled and to be able to rip a disc 80 miles an hour, but on the other end, to have natural touch just like golfers.”
Feldberg has made Oregon a program that produces well-rounded players capable of such play on a regular basis. In 2010, Oregon finished second of the 36 teams that compete annually at the National Collegiate Disc Golf Championships, bowing out to powerhouse Augusta State for the title.@@http://ncdgu.com/page/2@@
This year, the tournament took place April 16 in Augusta, Ga., — in the Jaguars’ backyard. The same city that hosts PGA greats annually for The Masters was a fitting place for Oregon’s disc golfers to compete against the best at a tournament of their own.
“It’s pretty amazing to see what disc golf is like over there because it’s a completely different scene than it is in this area,” junior team member Derek Penfield says. “They have courses that are so much bigger than the ones around here because it’s actually a sport more so there than it is a recreation.”@@http://directory.uoregon.edu/telecom/directory.jsp?p=findpeople%2Ffind_results&m=student&d=person&b=name&s=derek+penfield@@
The Ducks were happy to get a glimpse at some fresh scenery, but they were conscious of Augusta State’s home-course advantage well before they towed their discs all the way to Georgia.
“They live right there; they practice right there; those are their home courses,” Penfield notes with pride. “They literally play that course all the time, and we play it once a year.”
After each round of individual play at nationals, the top three scores for each team are combined with a doubles score toward a total team tally. The difference for the Ducks this season was depth. For the first time, the five-member team had four players with the potential to play disc golf beyond college, a rare occurrence in the tournament.
“We’re the only team with four guys that can legitimately compete in the pro division,” Politzer says.
With four Ducks capable of a low round, Oregon was confident it could attack the course aggressively. Each round, a potential off day by one player was erased by a teammate ready to step up on college disc golf’s biggest stage.
Despite Oregon’s united effort, the defending champions gave the Ducks all they could handle. In fact, after two rounds of doubles play, the Jaguars led the tournament by two strokes.
But in the decisive round of doubles competition, Oregon defeated Augusta State by three strokes in the final frame to take the overall competition and the championship crown.
“For us to come across the country and beat them on their own courses was definitely satisfying,” Penfield says.
“You know, they saw the level of competition in years before, when they were there the first two years,” Feldman says of Oregon’s breakthrough. “By seeing how good they had to become, they realized they got a real shot. Once they believed they had a real shot, I knew they would win.”