You should start! Soo many ultimate players make the switch later in life because they still love to throw but the running in ultimate catches up with them. Currently the big news in Disc Golf is a famous Ultimate player/youtuber trick shot guy named Brodie Smith is making the switch over to disc golf from ultimate (he's one of these social media people with millions of followers so that's why its a big deal). He has some videos up already on some of the differences in throwing ultimate compared to disc golf. My buddy Fish was a big Ultimate player back in college as well and made the switch and now is killing it in disc golfNever played Frisbee Golf, but did play Ultimate at Rutgers back in the 70s with Irv Kalb, Dan (Stork) Roddick, Al Bonopane and a host of others. Great team, great people....
The non-Rutgers football part of my office:
OT: Disc Golf
- Thread starter yessir321
- Start date
I play disc golf about twice a year when one of my friends wants to throw. Not the way to play your best game.
But, I throw whenever there is a guy who I played Ultimate with around. Sauce used to be a first team guest at the last home game of the year tailgate, before he passed. Still always have a 165g and a Ultrastar in the truck.
At an after wedding brunch one weekend in September, I found out that the father of the bride of my nephew was on the Hampshire team that lost Nationals to us in 1976. Small disc world.
Doyle sent me a text two weeks ago with a picture of 56 guys playing in the snow at the Oasis.
Last edited:
Irv Kalb, Dan (Stork) Roddick, Al Bonopane and a host of others. Great team, great people....
I saw Albee, also, in the last year at Jens house before he moved and at Sauce's home, where he was helping me get his collection of discs ready for sale. Good to see a teammate around and on this board.
BTW, just sent in my check for 2020 season seats and parking today.
After Rutgers (graduated in 77), played Ultimate on the Foothill Institute of Frisbee Culture team out in the LA area (practiced in the foothills of Pasadena) with Irv, Dan, Al (Rutgers players) and others - great team, great memories.....
So can I count you in when I make the trip up for a game and we do a morning round? Hell we could play the rutgers course before handAfter Rutgers (graduated in 77), played Ultimate on the Foothill Institute of Frisbee Culture team out in the LA area (practiced in the foothills of Pasadena) with Irv, Dan, Al (Rutgers players) and others - great team, great memories.....
lol.... Unfortunately I never have played frisbee golf... Probably should have! And haven't played Ultimate since around 1978 or so....... Was fun though! Good to see some frisbee guys (no gals?) on here though.....
The tournament scene in blowing up right now. It's crazy how much growth Disc Golf has gotten over the last 5-10 years. Basically 10 years ago there was just over 2000 courses in the country, today that number is approaching 6500. There's a tournament down my way in south central PA in the middle of April that is already full with a registration of 144 players, that's just crazy to me.
I gotta get something organized for the guys on this board. We should definitely do a tailgate where we play a morning round at the old rutgers course!
my pops played Ultimate back in the 70's as well. Hadn't picked up a frisbee in over 20 years when I took him out for the first time to disc golf in 2015 (let the record show he was 61 years old playing his first round). I have not seen my dad have that much fun in a long time. We've played plenty of ball golf together but something about the frisbees gave him a sense of nostalgia and he started doing flick shots and old throws from his ultimate days. It was perfect for him because you get all the funof throwing like you do in ultimate however you have more time to think about and shape your throws, not to mention it doesn't tear up your knees the way ultimate does. Give it a shot and if you pm me your address I'll ship you a couple of discs free to get you started!
Unlike regular golf, anyone can play if you know how to throw a disc. A new or bad player won't really slow down your round.
In a way, disc golf brought me and my wife together. Before we started dating my wife and I used to work together, and she overheard me talking about playing. One day she asked me if I would teach her how to play. Yadda, yadda, yadda....22 years and 2 kids later...
In a way, disc golf brought me and my wife together. Before we started dating my wife and I used to work together, and she overheard me talking about playing. One day she asked me if I would teach her how to play. Yadda, yadda, yadda....22 years and 2 kids later...
Wow, that's a blast from the past. Victor wasn't the best distance thrower, iirc, but he was a fantastic freestyler (I was pretty good, but he was better). Don't recall him playing much disc golf, though, despite the #2 member number, or at least not in the years I was playing the RU course 3-4 days a week. Maybe I'll ping him on FB and ask him.
The Midnight Flyer is a 9. Still have my PDGA marker disc, too, lol. Sounds like you're doing pretty well - I'm sure the competition is way tougher than when I played, given the numbers - I'm not even sure what all the letters mean, lol. Back in my day there was basically pro and amateur and that was it - don't think the masters (older) levels started until the late 80s, but could be wrong on that. Good luck going pro.
Interesting that we did the opposite with disc golf/ball golf, starting with one and getting very good with it, then switching to the tother one. Both are awesome really and I wish I had kept up with disc golf. Now that I'm retired, my plan is to play a lot more of each starting this spring. I completely get the angle of disc golf being more relaxing, less time, and way cheaper.
It would be fun to play sometime. I'm going to email my old friend Scot Wittman, who I used to play with a lot (he's at Rutgers Prep still, I think), as he kept up with the game and last time I saw him on the course about 3 years ago, he had all the new plastic, so I'm sure I can get some from him. He was this 15 year old kid living with his parents who were campus life professionals living in the dorm behind the 18th hole at the Rutgers course, so when I was in my early 20s playing a lot, I'd see him around and saw he was good and helped him out some while we played. I'm sure he's much better than me now, also.
Sounds like you guys were at RU before me when we won those championships - must've been awesome! By the time I played Ultimate at RU in the early 80s for a year and a half (until I got hurt) we were good, but not great. Are you talking about Dan Doyle? iirc he played on some club team after RU (Mercer County?), but we played some ultimate and disc golf together back then. And are you talking about Scott Wittman? Just posted about him - think he was about 14-15 when we started playing some rounds together.
Funny you mentioned an object course. I never played the one at RU - didn't even know it was there, as I wasn't really aware of disc golf until the built the basket course for the 82 World Championships. But oddly, as a teenager at home, I used to play a fair amount of frisbee in the mid-70s with Bob Reasso (who eventually became RU men's soccer coach and almost won a title), as he was dating my older sister's best friend. He was an athlete in college at the time, so he didn't smoke at all or drink much, so when the crowd were all partying, he sometimes would go outside with me (I was 15-16 at the time) and play frisbee or shoot hoops. And my other friend and I had made up our own little 6-hole object course in the neighborhood and we'd play it - Bob loved that too. Small world.
I taught our son to throw a frisbee from a young age and play disc golf. Sometimes the two of us would play a round or two and sometimes my wife would come along and play. He enjoyed it, but didn't take to it like I had, but it was still a blast to play with my family a few times a year (usually followed by a trip to Stuff Yer Face). My son still has a few of my discs, as he's a grad student living a few blocks from the RU course and he and his friends have played a couple of times. He doesn't have the 50 mold or Midnight Flyer, lol.
Yeah, Dan (Rutgers 78 or 79: I forget and shouldn't, having been his best man) and Scot, who I had forgotten had only one "T." Scot was still at Rutgers Prep last year, when I spoke to him.
Dan played for Seven Sages, among other teams, post Rutgers. I was with the Knights of Nee.
Last edited:
Basically the numbers represent the size of the event and the payouts provided. C Tier's are your local tournaments composed mostly of Amateur players but they typically have an Open (pro) division to play. B tier's there has to be at least $750 added to the payout pot in addition to the pay ins to play. A tier I believe is $2000 or more added to the payout. NT is National tour which there are only 5-6 events a year throughout the country. The only one on the east coast is the Deleware Challenge every August.
Basically your top touring pro's like McBeth, Eagle McMahon, Wysocki and others typically only play A tier's and NT events during the season. You will see a bunch of excellent players show up for B tiers as well but they don't really show for C tiers unless its winter time and it's at a course local to them.
I've got a B tier coming up in March down in New Orleans that I'm playing and another one in April closer to my house. The other reason I focus so much on Disc golf compared to ball golf is I'm actually a sponsored player by one of the manufacturers so not that it's a ton but there's potential there to make a decent little bit of side income. Plus they fly me to some awesome places to compete for free; I played in Nantucket last year as well as places like Peoria Michigan, Selah Texas and a bunch of times down near Charlotte. This year I'll be in New orleans, Portland Oregon, Emporia Kansas and througout Georgia in addition to a bunch of events in Md/Pa/Va. Unfortunately I've yet to find a really great course in NJ so I rarely venture out there for disc golf thus the actual reasoning behind my OP. Iron Hill down in Newark De (where the deleware challenge takes place) is the closest really excellent course to south Jersey. Warwick NY has a great course that's not terribly far from Rutgers and while I was a student I would frequent it. However it's an hour north of campus and I'm already 3 hours southwest of Piscataway so it's not an easy trip anymore.
In all the tournaments out here there are at least 3-4 amateur divisions along with different age brackets so I'm quite confident that with your past throwing for as long as you have that you could sign up for an event in MA60 or MA65 (masters 60+ and 65+) and do very well, masters is amateur mostly although A and B tiers have pro divisions where you can win cash. Not to mention you show up at a larger tournament with that Whamo and Midnight flyer and youwill have guys coming up in awe just asking to hold them. You don't see those discs come up very often and tbh most of them have cracked over the years (NEVER, EVER EVER play in the cold whether with those discs as old as they are, you hit a tree and there's a real good chance that the whole things shatters, just happen to me last year with the oldest disc I had which was a 1995 Roc)
Last edited:
I played a bit in the 1990's on the RU course when I lived within a 10 min drive. At my peak I would score close to par, probably due to my familiarity with the course. I tried a few tournaments at RU as an amateur. My fondest memory was when I aced hole 14 in a tournament and won the ace pot (when they asked for $1 for the ace pot I didn't even know what that was). It was the only ace of my life and I don't think I've ever reached the basket on that hole, let alone ace it!
I remember students who had no idea that locating your disc and picking it up to return to you was not considered helpful by us. I know they meant well, but we always yelled at them "don't touch it!"
I also remember the pros talking about competing in Brandywine, DE. Is that still a hot spot for disc golf?
I remember students who had no idea that locating your disc and picking it up to return to you was not considered helpful by us. I know they meant well, but we always yelled at them "don't touch it!"
I also remember the pros talking about competing in Brandywine, DE. Is that still a hot spot for disc golf?
I actually have quite a few Midnight Flyers in the boxes in the garage. Some lids, some 50s and some 40s IIRC
I aced the first hole (only ever), when it was in front of the Cook cafeteria. Some guy on the way to eat, was really excited and waited for me to walk up the 98 yards. He said something like: "WOW, That was AMAZING." I said, yeah, it happens all the time.
Victor was John Kirkland's freestyle partner and did well in disc golf in the 1976 Octad, which had the chicken wire ground baskets (think Betamax.)
Loved the old first hole, but I can kind of see why they moved it, as I'm sure quite a few people were hit by errant discs on that hole and once the heavy, beveled-edge discs came out, it became downright dangerous. Did you ace it with "old" plastic (pre-Eagle)? That would be even more impressive. Hit the chains twice, but both went through (original hole/tee, "new" plastic and single chains days - so many qualifiers, lol).
Are you sure on that? Victor was born in 1963, so he would've been 13 in 1976, although I wouldn't put anything past him, lol. He and I did a bunch of freestyle together around 83-84 on campus (Bishop Beach) and in Belmar.
any of that old plastic for sale? I'd love to put them up on the wall of my game room at the house
Don't know. I don't post much and never used the DM on this forum, just assumed it was there like other boards. Sorry.
So, it looks like there are actually two different Victor Malafrontes, both of whom were serious freestylers in their days. The one you know appears to have been born in the mid-50s and graduated college in the mid-70s in Cali and went on to frisbee fame, especially as a freestyler. The one I know was born in 1963 and graduated from RU and became an extraordinarily good freestyler, but I don't know if he competed much. He then went on to his fame, as it were, for being a NYC paparazzi featured in the documentary Blast-em! in 1992 (clip below). The odd thing is that clip of what now looks to be the older version throwing distance in 1983 really does look quite a bit like the younger one I know, so I never thought twice about it a few days back (both were short, rail-thin guys with dark hair). Small world, lol.
So as an FYI it looks like there is a Tournament scheduled at the Rutgers course on Saturday Nov 14 2020 which happens to be Michigan Weekend. I feel like there's a good chance that the game will take place later in the day so I think I'll put that date in my calendar as one of the weekends I'll head up.
If any of the others who posted on this thread are interested I'll post updates when registration opens and such. I think it would be awesome to see some of you who have posted on this thread come out and throw some frisbees while we pregame for Michigan.
If any of the others who posted on this thread are interested I'll post updates when registration opens and such. I think it would be awesome to see some of you who have posted on this thread come out and throw some frisbees while we pregame for Michigan.
I'd be interested in playing sometime, but RU home games mean a 3+ hour tailgate and then the game, so it would be tough for me. Kind of bad timing for a tournament, IMO, but maybe the overlap is small...
Typically this type of tournament is only one round with a morning start (9am or so) so on the Rutgers course it shouldn’t take more than 2-3 hours. I’m hoping it’s a 3:30 or so kickoff so I can play some golf in the morning than perhaps host a tailgate after with some other golfers or maybe just invite some people from this board up
Similar threads
