This weekend, I played my first competitive round of disc golf. On a whim, I signed up for a league round where everyone pays 5 dollars. What I hadn’t realized when I signed up is that it was a course I’d never played before, so I didn’t have the benefit of being comfortable with either of the factors involved. However, I had been craving a way to force some assessment of my current skills, and also generally some athletic competition that I haven’t had for quite a while. This round gave me plenty of both, and really hooked me.
Despite a league round being way looser than a tournament, I put a lot of pressure on myself. I was playing with strangers, and wanted to prove to others, and to myself, that I was pretty good at disc golf. I knew my biggest issue would be my putt and approach game, and hoo-boy was it dreadful. I would try pitching up to the basket, do it poorly, then miss very easy putts. This happened several times; I couldn’t handle the stress well enough to do those actions confidently.
Sitting here a day later, there were several strokes I should have saved. I missed and embarassing 2 putts within 8 or so feet of the basket. This alone would have shot me up the leaderboard. It’s a game of small mistakes, but now I know where things are. My distance and accuracy from the tee are, more times than not, good enough to hang. But, I’m not finishing everything out. This gives me something to practice, and I intend to work on that short game, and get to the point where I can be confident and consistent.
An important aspect is also experience. I’m trying not to be too hard on myself for performing poorly in my first round. I’ve competed in other sports, but I’ve always had the grounding of years of exposure and training in a skill before competing—or, in the case of casual games like bowling or darts, it’s just friendly competition between friends, which is also my only experience with disc golf so far.
I have growing to do here, but it’s growth I want to see in myself. I believe I can do it, finding a good balance between fun and competition.