I was 16 and a playground leader for the Goshen (IN) Parks and Recreation Department in 1989. It was a resume builder for me entering the education field in a couple of years.
Our boss was training us for a week before the summer playground program began (where neighborhood kids would come and go as they pleased and we'd have activities for them). Frisbee activities played a major role, and object Frisbee golf was one of the prominent ones. Although I'd played that many times as a youngster (my '82-ish Wheaties Fastback was my favorite), it was here where I was first introduced to actual Disc Golf with baskets when my boss told us we should check out the new course just installed at Oxbow Park.
So, like a lot of old-timers here, I set out to play my first basket round with my play-catch Wham-O and got lots of 8's and 10's. It was TOUGH. Narrow, twisting fairways with thick thorns, poison ivy, a river running parallel with a hole...They redesigned it to be easier for the '96 Worlds, as a matter of fact!
I'd run into the designer (PDGA #315) not long after I started playing in '89 and he sold me a Stingray out of his garage, my first real Golf Disc. It would be several years, though, before I'd move to a populated enough area that had pros and leagues and stuff, and it was there (Grand Woods Park, Lansing, MI, 1996) where I saw people play who knew what they were doing. That's where the obsession started. Prior to that I only could throw a RHFH with the Stingray for maybe 150'-200' because it was all self-taught and I never saw good players from whom I could emulate.
