4/26/2006
Thank Steady Ed
here's his original patent for the "disc golf basket"
In 1977 Ed Headrick patented this basket-target for disc (Frisbee) golf. (U.S. Patent 4,039,189) (PDF). After the patent had expired, Headrick's company (DGA) sued Champion Disc for trade dress infringement. The district court threw out the case, finding that the patented design was functional and thus could not retain trade dress protection. The holding was affirmed by Disc Golf Assoc., Inc. v. Champion Discs, Inc., 158 F.3d 1002 (9th Cir. 1998).
In addition to this patent, "Steady" Ed invented the modern Frisbee and the game of disc golf! Before he died in 2002, he made this remark.
"I felt the Frisbee had some kind of a spirit involved. It’s not just like playing catch with a ball. It’s the beautiful flight."
http://practice.findlaw.com/blogger-0904.html
4/18/2006
Austin, TX
Came across this great story in my webhunting...eat your heart out!
To anyone not familiar with disc golf, it is more or less the hippy form of playing golf. Basically you go to a disc golf park with some friends, start at the tee, and throw your disc towards the basket. The discs are not exactly frisbees as they tend to be made out of thicker plastics and are consequently always much heavier than regular frisbees. Just like golf, you see where your disc lands, go to it, and throw it again. There are about 18 disc golf parks in the greater Austin area and I have played around 7 of them. To date I have no hole-in-ones, but I have been pretty close and have made a few birdies. As you can probably tell, the game is scored just like golf, and scores are typically in the same range as a normal golf game.
The only drawback to disc golf is that it's pretty hard to practice it without actually going out to a course. At least in golf you can purchase a small hole for your backyard for practice putting and chipping. Disc golfing companies have offered a similar product for the sport though it is obviously much larger and expensive. Because of that, I decided to build my own.
All it took was a metal pole, some ply wood, a bunch of wooden dowel rods, and some spraypaint and waterproof cloths for the aesthetic.
The first part of the project simply consisted of cutting a circular top on the bandsaw. This was probably the hardest part of the whole thing though it turned out just fine. After this, I created the box bottom and used the drill press to make a few dozen holes around the base in which to fit the wooden dowel rods. Atop the dowel rods were narrow strips of plywood, simply to hold the dowel rods together. The entire apparatus had 1.5" holes drilled through it's center pieces in order to fit the metal pipe into it.
Once the initial design was completed, and as you can see by the pictures, I hung chains from the top which ultimately ran together to form a three-dimensional parabolic shape to the basket (as is pretty standard with the disc golf baskets). In addition, 4 extra chains were strung along the Z-Axis of the parabaloid to aid in slowing down the disc once it hit the chains. All in all, the chains still proved a bit too thin for the project, but it was not that often that a disc would fly through them without stopping.
Once these chains were attached, I bored a 1/4" hole through both the top and bottom portions of the metal pole which allowed me to add lockbolts to the apparatus, thus securing the basket to the pole.
With that in place, I decided to add a bit of feel to the basket and with cans of red and yellow spray paint available in the garage, I painted the bottom portion of the basket red, and the top part of the Das Avonni yellow. Finally, the cloths that were added were actually disposable rain slickers. The material was perfect for this project as it easily stretched to my liking and was very easy to staple-gun it to the painted plywood.
Anyone who is rather keen with the small disc golf world may have already picked up on where this thing got it's name from. One of the leading manufacturers of disc golf products is a company named Innova (I believe pronounced inuh'-va). Avonni is simply Innova spelled backwards. Perhaps this helps: innovA. The Das part just came from my usual game of adding such the word to a noun and pawning it off as a German influenced design.
What happened to Das Avonni?
After I had the Das Avonni in my front yard for a couple of days, I decided that I would give it to a few of my good friends (then roommates of one another), I brought it over to their house and we dug a hole in the ground in which to mount it. From what I understand, the Avonni was used from time to time in the backyard until they both moved into seperate homes and then I think it was either left there or ultimately dismantled and thrown away. ...a sad fate indeed.
Can I get my own Das Avonni?
Yes. The units sell for $2000 each (or $25,000 for an 18-hole course) and can be hand crafted and delivered to you within 7 business days. We require that the monies be transferred into an escrow account before any construction begins. If you'd like one, contact me.
Thanks Kevin!
http://kevinludlow.com/memoirs-20020801_01.html
To anyone not familiar with disc golf, it is more or less the hippy form of playing golf. Basically you go to a disc golf park with some friends, start at the tee, and throw your disc towards the basket. The discs are not exactly frisbees as they tend to be made out of thicker plastics and are consequently always much heavier than regular frisbees. Just like golf, you see where your disc lands, go to it, and throw it again. There are about 18 disc golf parks in the greater Austin area and I have played around 7 of them. To date I have no hole-in-ones, but I have been pretty close and have made a few birdies. As you can probably tell, the game is scored just like golf, and scores are typically in the same range as a normal golf game.
The only drawback to disc golf is that it's pretty hard to practice it without actually going out to a course. At least in golf you can purchase a small hole for your backyard for practice putting and chipping. Disc golfing companies have offered a similar product for the sport though it is obviously much larger and expensive. Because of that, I decided to build my own.
All it took was a metal pole, some ply wood, a bunch of wooden dowel rods, and some spraypaint and waterproof cloths for the aesthetic.
The first part of the project simply consisted of cutting a circular top on the bandsaw. This was probably the hardest part of the whole thing though it turned out just fine. After this, I created the box bottom and used the drill press to make a few dozen holes around the base in which to fit the wooden dowel rods. Atop the dowel rods were narrow strips of plywood, simply to hold the dowel rods together. The entire apparatus had 1.5" holes drilled through it's center pieces in order to fit the metal pipe into it.
Once the initial design was completed, and as you can see by the pictures, I hung chains from the top which ultimately ran together to form a three-dimensional parabolic shape to the basket (as is pretty standard with the disc golf baskets). In addition, 4 extra chains were strung along the Z-Axis of the parabaloid to aid in slowing down the disc once it hit the chains. All in all, the chains still proved a bit too thin for the project, but it was not that often that a disc would fly through them without stopping.
Once these chains were attached, I bored a 1/4" hole through both the top and bottom portions of the metal pole which allowed me to add lockbolts to the apparatus, thus securing the basket to the pole.
With that in place, I decided to add a bit of feel to the basket and with cans of red and yellow spray paint available in the garage, I painted the bottom portion of the basket red, and the top part of the Das Avonni yellow. Finally, the cloths that were added were actually disposable rain slickers. The material was perfect for this project as it easily stretched to my liking and was very easy to staple-gun it to the painted plywood.
Anyone who is rather keen with the small disc golf world may have already picked up on where this thing got it's name from. One of the leading manufacturers of disc golf products is a company named Innova (I believe pronounced inuh'-va). Avonni is simply Innova spelled backwards. Perhaps this helps: innovA. The Das part just came from my usual game of adding such the word to a noun and pawning it off as a German influenced design.
What happened to Das Avonni?
After I had the Das Avonni in my front yard for a couple of days, I decided that I would give it to a few of my good friends (then roommates of one another), I brought it over to their house and we dug a hole in the ground in which to mount it. From what I understand, the Avonni was used from time to time in the backyard until they both moved into seperate homes and then I think it was either left there or ultimately dismantled and thrown away. ...a sad fate indeed.
Can I get my own Das Avonni?
Yes. The units sell for $2000 each (or $25,000 for an 18-hole course) and can be hand crafted and delivered to you within 7 business days. We require that the monies be transferred into an escrow account before any construction begins. If you'd like one, contact me.
Thanks Kevin!
http://kevinludlow.com/memoirs-20020801_01.html
4/17/2006
Firebaugh, CA
Spent a couple of days camping with my lady at Mercey Hot Springs. This beautiful and quiet oasis can be found in Firebaugh, CA.
Don’t bother going there though because it sucks and you will hate it….so just stay away. Seriously…..don’t even think about going.
Recently someone decided to establish a 9-hole disc golf course. I was eager to check it out and write a review…so here it is.
The course itself is strung along the rolling peaks and valleys of the Panoche hills. The elevation shifts from 300’ to 1300 ft. I would say the average length of each hole is somewhere between 300’ to 450 ft. I called each hole a par three despite lengths that might warrant par four status. More on this in a moment.
When I initially checked out the course I wasn’t expecting much. Mercey’s web site noted that the course is sill in development and currently utilizes 5-gallon buckets and a couple of posts as targets. The tee/hole placements however are well thought out and documented on a map. I used the topo map to scout the course and was able to find all the tee’s and most of the targets although two buckets were missing. All of the tee pads are natural and undefined.
During my stay I gathered up some supplies and worked on the course a little and made some notable improvements:
-Found planter buckets for the missing holes
-Placed posts in each of the buckets and anchored each bucket down with rocks
-Trudged a trail through the grasses between each tee and target (hopefully the tees are a little easier to find).
My simple improvements made the course playable so I shot a round.
Wind plays a factor on each hole and because the wind can shift from game to game the course difficulty rating is hard to gauge. If the wind is flowing from the southeast, most holes will be a par-3 without question. In fact in during these optimal conditions you will drive like a champion and should throw harder and further than you ever have before (great ego boost for anyone working on their drives).
If the wind is blowing in from the northwest…forget about it! In these conditions most of the holes should probably be played par-4 because you will be fighting the whole time.
You will really have to think out your wind strategy.
What doesn’t come into play on this course are obstacles. Holes 1 and 4 are the only ones with real obstructions (bushes) and not one tree is to be found on these hills. For me this was a refreshing break as my home course (DeLa) is heavily wooded.
Taking trees out of the equation is interesting. You are liberated to throw without worry. This will definitely shift your game.
On holes 2,3,5,6 you shoot from peaks, across canyons, to targets on opposite peaks. In fact on hole 5 you will have to shoot over two canyons! Misjudging the winds or distances between peaks might mean an approach shot that requires you to throw from the floors of these grassy canyons with an upward pitch.
Discs can easily be lost in these thick grasses in the spring but I’m sure conditions will change during the hotter months (summer temps max 110 degrees).
Hole 4 is interesting because the target isn’t visible from the tee pad. It is obstructed by a series of bushes. I crushed a killer birdie, (aren’t I mean?) and scored my highlight of the round (and it’s the highlights that leave me wanting more).
On holes 6 and 7 you stay atop one ridge. The views are spectacular! Do yourself a favor and stay up on the ridge. An errant shot will have you shooting from the sides of this hilltop and shooting from the sides will certainly be trouble.
Hole 8 seems to be the signature hole on this course. It’s reminisant of Hole 27 at DeLaveaga but without the patches of trees to contend with. I think the drop is somewhere between 500’-600 feet and the target is probably 350’-400ft away from the tee (close to that jumble of white boxes). A barbed wire fence is the only obstruction between. Be careful moving through the fence.
Hole 9 is anti-climactic. I finished my round +6 which sounds about right considering my learning curve.
Potential exists for course expansion (as always). A landing strip, two beat up old houses and a scary grove of trees where a family of ravens and a barn owl live make up the land between hole 9 and the campsite. I see 3-6 holes that would make sense.
If you play this course let me know what you think. I hope to help the staff fashion some homemade baskets to replace the posts….if they want that sort of help. Of course it would be even better if they invest in some Mach 4’s or 5’s but that’s $1500 before cement.
Oh….and did I mention to just stay away from this place. Pretend I didn’t even mention it. And what ever you do, don’t take a relaxing soak in the 105 degree mineral water baths.
see more:
http://www.merceyhotsprings.com/
