My son and I had just finished watching our first disc golf tournament and were walking back to our car in the hopes of getting a shuttle for the half mile walk to our car. After a short while, a gator, you know, the golf cart with a flat-bed back stopped by and offered us a ride. My son hopped in the front while I climbed in the back, all set to get to the car and head home.
But the driver saw two other guys walked and drove to pick them up. At first, I was slightly annoyed. It had been a long day and I was ready to go. But that slight annoyance quickly turned in to astonishment when two players who had just finished their round loaded up their bag of discs and hopped in.
I'm not sure who one of the players was, but the other was unmistakable. It was Paul McBeth, the four-time world champion and one of the most famous disc golf players on the planet.
Now to be fair, there's "famous" and there's "disc golf famous." I'm pretty sure Paul McBeth can go to any restaurant anywhere in the country and no one would think twice about it. But for those in the disc golf world, McBeth is one of the greatest players of all time. And here he was, sitting the back of a gator riding down to the parking lot.
I was to starstruck to say much of anything. I looked at my son and he looked back at me. We both had the look of "can you believe this is happening?" We eventually got to his car (which was across from ours) and we all go out. I mustered a "Nice round today, Paul," which, in hindsight was an understatement as he'd set the course record, shooting 11-under par.
Three years ago, we'd have been like most of you. I'd only played disc golf twice, both of which was when I lived in North Carolina. When my brother-in-law got my son a disc golf set for Christmas one year and he took to it, I mentioned that we had a course across town and asked if he wanted to play.
Let me tell you, finding something that you and your seven-year old can do, just the two of you with no electronics is an amazing thing. We're out in the woods for anywhere from 40 minutes to two hours, depending on which course we play. It's truly a great time where it's just the two of us talking and throwing discs at a metal basket with chains to catch the disc.
After about a year of playing, we discovered that there was disc golf on YouTube. In fact, not only were there instructional videos, but there was apparently a national tour and while the coverage wasn't live, there were videos of each round usually posted the day after. Those videos would follow one foursome each round. Usually after the first round, they would follow either the leaders or the second group, so after a few months, we started to see the same players over and over.
We also soon realized that the commentators on each video were players in the tournament. Usually it was the same two, but sometimes, for reasons that we still don't know, they would get other players. So now we're learning the personalities of the players as well as watching them play.
Last year around this time, we were watching the Hall of Fame Classic and discovered it was played about 90 miles from where we live. We made plans to go and cleared it with my wife (normally a formality, but our second son was born a month ago, so I kind of actually had to get permission, even as it was her idea that we should go.)
We check on Friday afternoon to see the tee-times for Saturday and immediately found the foursome we'd be following. Paul McBeth was one of the four. Another was Ricky Wysocki, a two-time world champion and the first player we ever saw get an ace on a hole. The third was Eagle McMahon, my son's favorite player and someone who is only 20 years old and like all kids his age, has a vlog that my son watches. Finally there was JohnE McCray, a grizzled veteran who is 57 years old.
They were to be the last group to tee off at just after noon. Not really sure of what to expect or exactly where we were going, we left around 8:30 a.m. to make sure we could find where we were going and give us a little time in case we got lost.
Thanks to not much traffic on a Saturday morning and Google Maps, we have no trouble finding the place and after being told the main parking lot was full, we made our way to the overflow lot and caught a golf-cart shuttle up to the entrance.
We should have expected that it would a cool experience when the golf cart driver stopped to pick up a guy who we didn't immediately recognize, but it turned out to be one of the players who'd left something in his car and needed to go back and get it. What other sport lets you ride with the players up to the start of the event.
As the driver lets us out, with the mistaken belief that we had any idea where we were or where we were supposed to go, the player wanders off and my son and I are left to figure it out. We were standing in front of a small clubhouse-looking building (Which was actually the disc golf hall of fame. Cooperstown, it isn't.) To our right is a few booths set up selling various disc golf items and then we turn to our left and see a warm up area. At first I thought it might be some fan-experience thing where you could throw a disc and it would tell you how fast you could throw.
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| My son with Simon Lizotte. |
We walk in to a small room where we see the trophies all lined up along the right, just in front of the wall with the Hall of Fame plaques. Directly in front of us is a pro-shop and I ask if we should go look around. My son says yes, but as we start to walk, we see a guy sitting on the couch flipping through a magazine. I look at my son and he looks at me.
"Is that Paul McBeth?" I whisper.
"I think so," my son says.
"Should we go say hi?"
"No."
"Come on."
"No!"
We figure we'll let him read in peace and walk in to a really small pro-shop. We ask the clerk for a map and where we're supposed to go (through the back door is the course, he says) and then go back in to the lobby where we try not to make it obvious that we're essentially stalking the best disc golf player in the world.
As we're standing around, pretending to read the stuff on the wall, I tell my son that it's always better to get a picture than an autograph. Not for any "pics or it didn't happen" nonsense, but that you can always buy an autograph on ebay, but a picture is a one-of-a kind thing.
After what seemed like forever but was probably no more than three minutes, someone else goes up to McBeth and asks for an autograph. Sensing our opportunity, we make our move and walk over, tell him we're big fans and ask for a picture. He graciously obliged and we wish him luck in his round.
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| The best disc golf player on the planet, and us. |
We walk out and say "I can't believe we just met Paul McBeth" in the star struck way that only makes sense when you realize how much you build people up who are really, really, good at what they do.
We've still got about 90 minutes until tee time and unsure of what to do, we figure we'll go find where the first hole is. Following the directions of the friendly clerk, we walk behind the building and there we find ourselves in disc golf heaven. It's the warm up area for the players with lots of practice baskets and players walking around all over the place. Once again, we're star struck from the "disc golf famous" players.
Obviously not wanting to interrupt their warm up routine, we stand off to the side, watching for players we know to take a break so we can go up and ask for a picture. I'll spare you the names, but we were able to meet quite a few (including one of the two who regularly does commentary on the YouTube channel we watch.)
It was as if you could walk up to the practice greens at The Masters and just take pictures with any of the best golfers in the world. We asked on guy as he was walking up, but he said he needed to warm up and he would later. Minutes before his tee time (and after we assumed he forgot about us), he spotted us and came up and said "you ready for that picture?" We had someone take it and then he walked over to the first tee. The seemed used to having fans, but not so annoyed by it that it was bothersome to them.
Finally it came time for the group we (and just about all of the approximately 100 fans) were there to watch. Let me tell you, spectating a disc golf tournament is not a great experience. It's tough to get a good view, you're only allowed so close to the players and basket and a lot of times you're not exactly sure where they're trying to throw it. It's kind of like watching golf in person. The idea of being there is cool, but in even a moderately sized crowd, it's tough to see much of anything.
Having said that, it was really cool to be up close (well, as close as we could be) to see them play. We decided when we go back next year, we'll find a foursome that doesn't have a large gallery following them. There were some groups that had only three or four people following them. I'm getting that would have been a better experience overall. But still, we saw a course record, so I really can't complain too much.
And really, how many people can say they rode on the back of a gator with someone who is the best in the world at what they do?
