Disc golf tees off
Disc golf tees off
Published: Thu, Jun. 30, 2005 12:30AM
Modified Sun, Oct. 23, 2005 04:17PM
E-Mail
Print
tool name
closeWearing collared shirts etched with the names of their company sponsors, the two men gaze down the fairway and calculate the distance. Walt Haney and Larry Leonard are golf pros, but you won't see them battling tough greens in Pinehurst. They represent the upper crust of a leisure sport that few people even know has an upper crust.
Leonard, 42, and Haney, 29, are two of the better disc golf players in North Carolina, traveling up and down the East Coast each year playing tournaments and earning money.
On a breezy afternoon this month at Cedar Hills Rotary Park in North Raleigh, each hole began with Haney and Leonard choosing a disc from the dozens they carry in specialized bags.
Related Content
More Summer Snapshot
"They call us the satchel boys," said Leonard, referring to "amateurs" who make light of their affinity for the game.
Throwing a disc straight and far is harder than it looks, particularly if the wind is blowing. This is made harder by trees, water, out-of-bounds markers and other hazards.
But the 18 holes at the Cedar Hills course were no match for the two pros. On the 333-foot seventh hole, both easily cleared a pond and landed safely near a metal chain basket, disc golf's version of a hole.
Get it all with convenient home delivery of The News & Observer.
The News & Observer is pleased to be able to offer its users the opportunity to make comments and hold conversations online. However, the interactive nature of the internet makes it impracticable for our staff to monitor each and every posting.
Since The News & Observer does not control user submitted statements, we cannot promise that readers will not occasionally find offensive or inaccurate comments posted on our website. In addition, we remind anyone interested in making an online comment that responsibility for statements posted lies with the person submitting the comment, not The News and Observer.
If you find a comment offensive, clicking on the exclamation icon will flag the comment for review by the administrators, we are counting on the good judgment of all our readers to help us.
