Karma?...

By Greg Quiroga
Friday, August 7, 1998

Without really going into too much detail, let's suffice it to say that my life has presented me with some pretty challenging decisions in the last couple of days. Yesterday afternoon I felt like I've been making the correct decisions, but not without a certain amount of pain.

And so it was with somewhat of a cloud over my heart, but extreme optimism in my mind that I set out to play a round of golf at Aquatic Park last night with Jeff Fiedler, Joel Verby, Paul McHugh --the Editor of the Outdoors section of the Chronicle-- and a professional photographer by the name of Kat. I had convinced Paul to come take a look at the Safari back in July with an eye towards writing a story about the sport. He liked what he saw at the Safari, and contacted me about writing a story. Paul offered to meet us at Aquatic Park, where we would give him a fitting introduction to the sport.

While the four of us warmed up on the practice basket, we tried to get used to Kat, the fearless photographer. Kat would lie on the ground at our feet while we were putting, constantly saying, "Ignore me, pretend like I'm not here." Kat would stand behind the basket, with her face immediately left of the chains, just daring me to miss. Once I did, and a supersoft Omega 1.8 bounced off of the chains and into her stomach. No real harm done, but warning well received.

Kat got pictures of everything as we conducted a flip of the discs to determine the tee-off order. Purely by random coincidence we established what I thought would be the order for the day: Fiedler, Verby, Q. It was a beautiful evening. Sun shining. Just enough wind to offer some consistency to the affair, and to blow the stench of decomposing algae over the railroad tracks and off to the industrial waste creators who are partly responsible for bringing you such fine mutations in the biological kingdom.

We were filling Paul in on every detail we could think of. He caught on to such concepts as "Hyzer and anhyzer" quickly. He commented on how we "use every part of our body to generate momentum for the disc, not just the arms." Before we set out on the round we made sure he understood all of the penalties. One of us was talking to him throughout the evening. As Joel said afterwards, "He had a non-stop earfull from each of us."

On hole #1 everyone missed their birdie putts, and Fiedler gakked a 15 footer for par. On hole #2 Jeff birdied, while Joel and I parred along.

Standing out on hole #3, with Kat and her bad ass telephoto lens back by the basket for #2 I make sure that Paul can see the basket before Jeff drives. "That one over there, between those trees?" he asks. We all give him the "Yup." Fiedler throws a great drive around the negative route that skips off of the concrete and winds up in the bush directly behind the pin. As I am stepping up to the tee Paul cracks a joke that makes me laugh, but for the life of me I can't remember it. I throw a Roc on the negative route that dumbfounds me in mid-air. Silently we all watch as it arcs from left to right and then disappears behind the branch. It reappears just above the basket to the left, and immediately crashes into the chains, through the chains, hits the rim and stays in for my FIRST ACE EVER.

As the three of us are jumping around, hugging, high-fiving, and celebrating like mad men the cloud over my life suddenly dissipates. As we are walking up to the basket I tell Joel, "It's karma, man. It's life letting me know that I'm doing the right things, and getting my spirits back up to where they should be." He agrees, and says as much in writing on the disc. As everyone is signing the disc, I cannot help but notice Kat capturing the whole thing on film. For the next three holes all I can say is, "Gurgle schmurfem forfegnarten. Whooo! Whoooooo!" Jeff and Joel cover for me while my brain goes on holiday.

On hole #5 Kat gets a great shot of Joel sinking a 30 footer from over by the short tee for #6. Sun in his eyes, photographer standing directly behind the chains, Joel calmly fires a putt --into the flash of the camera, with the whirring of the auto-winder clicking away at his concentration--Joel calmly fires a putt that just nails the basket. This is hole 5 we're talking about here. No pressure or anything.

It was a narcissistic disc golf promoter's dream: to be followed for an entire round by a professional photographer. I really want to find out if we can buy some of her pictures from her...

We shot the front nine, and then Paul joined us for the back nine. I know that if we could get him out for another round he could score a par or three. On #12 he sank a 25 footer on his third shot and joyously exclaimed, "I got PAR!" I felt bad reminding him that his second shot had gone in the water, which meant he had a one-stroke penalty and really shot a bogey. We finished our round in almost complete darkness. Paul tried to lose the putter the club donated to him on hole #10, but Jeff was able to find it wedged in a tree East of the basket. We might even be able to get him out for a round again sometime, without worries about a story in the works. BACK