A 'lil HooHaa

Messing with the blogging world since 2005

frisbee golf

Frolf? It’s not worth getting upset over!

It's not Frolf, but until disc golf goes mainstream, take publicity it as it comes.

As someone who plays disc golf, I would like to see the sport continue to grow and hopefully, one day, get into the mainstream.

It’s a fun sport, but it needs work to be sure. It’s not perfect and it has a lot of growing to do.

Still, it has grown leaps and bounds from its start several decades ago.

And, with the disc golf community watching, the Professional Disc Golf Association trumpeted disc golf being featured in a prime-time sitcom this past Wednesday.

In a release on it’s website, the PDGA said:

Disc Golf Hits Prime Time TV

The PDGA was contacted by Paramount Studios in early August to submit PDGA branded items for use as product placement on the ABC television show, “Happy Endings”. The sitcom places a fresh and comedic spin on modern friendship, focusing on six lifelong Chicago-based friends in their 20’s and early 30’s navigating various stages of work, relationships, marriage, and dating. The disc golf themed episode is currently set to air on Wednesday, September 28th following “Modern Family”.

While increasing interest and popularity of this sport is evident in the worldwide participation and growing membership of Disc golfers, portrayal of this sport in the media is imperative for prosperity and awareness on a global level. Television is a monumental step in securing our place in sports history.

So Disc Golfers and “Frisbeeterians”, spread the word and Tune in to ABC on September 28th. If not for the sake of the sport, then to ensure that you will never have to explain the definition of Disc Golf again.

Then the show came on.

First things first. If one is going to get upset about the way a sport is portrayed in a sitcom, then one must really look in the mirror. For starters, outside of having Elisha Cuthbert to look at, I thought Happy Endings was quite stupid. I’m sure it has a following, but I didn’t like it.

With that out of the way.

Disc golf — well, Frolf (Frisbee golf) was mentioned several times through the show. It wasn’t in the most endearing ways, but it’s not like they took a pile of discs and the PDGA logo, put them outside, took a leak on them and set them on fire.

No, they called it Frolf.

And, at the end, one of the gals noted that “Frolf” isn’t a sport.

And people were up in arms.

Seriously.

OK, before I get into all the things I found on Twitter and message boards, allow me to share with you what happened in this show.

First, it was shown early when Cuthbert’s character and her ex, Dave, were starting to be honest with one another. This was at the pressure of another gal pal.

Cuthbert: “You know your friend Glazier? He didn’t actually steal my bra and sell it on Craig’s List. I just couldn’t spend another Sunday watching you two play Frolf.”

Other gal pal: “Frolf?”

Cuthbert and Dave together: “Frisbee golf.”

At the end of that argument, it was mentioned again when the gal pal noted they can do the things they each like now and to Dave…

“You can do your things … like play frolf…”

So far, I’m not peeved. If anyone fully believed that a stupid sitcom was going to portray disc golf like some amazing sport, they were nuts. Seriously. It’s a dumb comedy.

I’d also like to note that they made fun of Vibram’s Five Fingers shoes, calling them “running socks” or something like that. When showing a couple of close ups of them, if you know the Vibram logo, it was easily noticeable.

I haven’t heard an uproar from Vibram Five Finger people. Of course, it’s probably because they realize no matter what, these shoes were shown and even if they were taking jabs at them, well, people might get interested in the shoes.

Anyway, later in the show, Dave comes in and chats with Cuthbert and another dude. He puts his feet on a table — showing off those Five Fingers — and this chat happened:

Dave: “I am going for a run with Jane. Oh, and I called Glaze earlier. Good convo. Tough. Yes there were tears because of your lies. But I am going to play some Frolf with him later to make him feel better.”

Cuthbert: “I wish I could go watch you nerds, but I’ve got to make more jambalaya because people are going crazy for it at the store.” (he made fun of her Jambalaya in the first confrontation).

The next scene showed some actual disc golf as Dave, Glaze and the gal pal were in the park. She was going over her day (and was highly frazzled) and says to her, maybe husband:

“Morning started with Frolf. Dave, Glaze and myself…”

As she said that, one of the dudes throws a disc — which looked like a lid (larger, Frisbee-like or Ultimate Frisbee-like disc) — and clanked the gal in the head. I have to be honest, it absolutely cracked me up.

To note, there was an Innova portable basket in the scene.

Later, at a party, one more confrontation when Dave said to Cuthbert:

“… Things have been going pretty awesome for me, too. I’ve been frolfing and jamming. … “

The gal pal, who had encouraged Dave to record a bad song, finally came clean and went off on these two for being so damn honest with one another (which was her idea!)

That left for this final dialogue that included Frolf:

Gal Pal: “OK, I love you but that song is really bad. Those running socks are hideous and Frolf is not a sport.”

Glaze: “Hey, we have a newsletter.”

Gal Pal: Shut up, Glaze.”

And that was it.

People got all upset over this. Seriously.

Here’s some things I found today on Twitter:

“Oh dear. She said frolf. Oh dear. The other one said frolf. This isn’t good.”

***

“frolf sounds like your mouth is taking a dump. plus I don’t associate with frolf players. Bros play frolf”

***

I don’t mind the word frolf, but when @PDGA says ‘this will be a monumental step for #discgolf’, I expected more. Another #PDGA letdown..

So I checked out a couple of disc golf message boards. It seemed like a mix bag of reactions. Some were very peeved. Others were in the middle. Others didn’t care.

Some made a valid point about the only part that really was stupid was that they (the show) actually contacted the PDGA and made it sound like they were going to do things a little better. That, of course, allowed the PDGA to get the word out.

Then disc golfers got this pie in the face.

The PDGA posted this on its Facebook on Thursday:

I think we can all agree the “frolf” episode of Happy Endings on ABC last night was not what we were hoping it would be. We were told by ABC that the episode was centered around disc golf, and they even asked us to send them some PDGA stuff to use on the set. We’re sorry if we built it up without knowing exactly what the episode would entail, but the idea of disc golf on prime time television definitely had us excited, understandably.

Bad press is sometimes better than no press, but in this case no one benefited. Our biggest hope for the episode was that if someone watching didn’t know what disc golf was, they would at least have an idea after. Unfortunately for all parties involved, that was not the case.

When I was a wee-bit student in journalism classes and public relations classes, we were told there’s no such thing as bad publicity.

It’s true.

The benefits here are that, no matter what, I guarantee there are a few people out there who are interested in “Frolf.” It’s my hope that they’ll stumble upon someone who can tell them that it’s disc golf and explain things.

Look, would I have rather seen the show glow a little more about disc golf? And not call it Frolf?

Absolutely.

But it’s a two-bit sitcom that made fun of it as well as Vibram Five Fingers.

In my shoes, I’d be more worried for ABC knowing that they possibly lost a lot of potential viewers than I am about what it did to the disc golf.

Disc golf will survive just fine.

As for that stupid show, well, let’s just say that I’m pretty sure that disc golf will survive loner than the lifespan of that show.

***

Speaking of disc golf, Frolf, Frisbee… whatever you want to call it. I have a contest going on! At stake is a LED flying disc! The contest runs from Sept. 25- to 12:01 a.m. Oct. 2. You can see all the details on the contest post. Enter for your chance to win!

Feel free to leave a comment, or e-mail P.J. at hoohaablog [at] gmail.com. Also, please “Like” HooHaa Blog on Facebook by clicking the button on the right side of the page!

 

Notes from my noodle: August 22 edition

I like disc golf.

Seriously, it’s a good time and good exercise. Case in point? By my pedometer’s count, I walked 5.1 miles playing 36 holes in a tournament Sunday afternoon. Anyone who thinks that’s not exercise needs to really define the word. It’s said that 30 minutes of walking per day helps your health. I did that and then some.

But this isn’t about the argument of whether or not disc golf constitutes exercise. This is about how a fun game can turn sour in a hurry.

See, when you are in tournaments, you don’t have control over a lot of things — weather, playing partners etc. You have to go with the flow. Still, the hope is to keep the game fun and entertaining. Without those last two pieces, a tournament — and the game — become dragging and not something I want to do.

So this tournament I played in Sunday…

It’s on a course I really like. I’ve shot well here and though I knew I stood no chance of winning my division, I set a goal of not finishing dead last in the division and the tournament. Anything else would be gravy.

The first round I got paired with three people in a different division. That’s fine, but it was tough because they were playing from the blue (longer) tees and I was playing from the white (shorter) tees. That basically meant that no matter how well I shot, I wasn’t going to get to be first on the tee if I got the lowest score because I was on a different tee.

I didn’t have an issue playing with the guys I was paired with. They were all cool to deal with and good players. But, for someone like me, that’s a little intimidating. They know a lot more. They do a lot more. The score a lot better. It’s tough when paired with people like this because newer players (such as myself) can watch and get lost in it all.

And it can’t be any better for those guys as they shoot 15-20 strokes better than me.

The hardest part was when we walked up to the white tees and sometimes they’d continue on before I’d say something. I don’t blame them either — they are playing from those tees, watching their shots, knowing what they have to do etc.

But for me, it made it harder because I didn’t want to slow them down or “hurt” their game. So I rushed at times, got stupid at others. All because I was worried about other things. The reality was that I wasn’t going to place in my division. Those guys could win theirs. It stunk, to be honest. I felt bad and I played worse. (To be fair, the thunderstorm that rolled through and soaked us didn’t help my misery, either).

I shot an 83 on a course that I hadn’t been out of the 70s on in quite a while.

The second round was a different story. I played with people from my division. People playing from the white tees. We played as quick as we could, had fun and all scored near the same. It was enjoyable. We joked, we chatted and didn’t worry. I wasn’t worried about screwing somebody’s game up. I was loose and enjoyed the round.

End result? A 72.

I truly understand that tournaments are hard to organize, run and do. I’ve done them in many sports. I’ve run leagues and tournaments and all sorts of things. So I can empathize. People who didn’t pre-register can also put a wrench in the spokes. And many tournaments I’ve played in do the same thing in the opening round — mix up players in different divisions. But it seems unfair to put a recreational/novice player with those who are really good. At least put two people playing from the whites in with a couple from the blues. That would make it a little less nerve-racking — for both sets of people.

I don’t know if my play had any effect on the three better players. But I know it did on me because of several factors. It wasn’t the company — I enjoyed the three others. In fact, I think a casual round with the three of them would be fun and educational, in regard to disc golfing. But in a tournament? It was tough.

In the end, it was OK. My 11-stroke differential between rounds earned me a $25 gift card to a sports store for best improvement. So add that to the disc I got for playing and two rounds of competition for my $20 fee, and I can’t complain. But, it’s food for thought.

For those of you who might read the blog and are disc golfers — give me your thoughts and experiences in the comments below. I’d love to hear what you think about these things.

***

As you may know, I’m in the midst of a small personal project on the blog with my research of obscure baseball players.

I’ve picked out a half-dozen or so that I am going to start digging into and getting information on. I’m going to head up to Cooperstown and the National Baseball Hall of Fame to visit its library and find what I can on these players.

I’m hoping I can connect some dots as for some of these players, all I have is what I can find on baseball-reference.com. Hopefully, there will be a few things I can add to the numbers from this trip to the Hall.

***

It’s time for me to come up with a better way of storing memory cards after switching them out of my camera.

I went to the county fair Saturday and took a small memory card full of photos, many of which were really cute photos of a friend’s daughter. When I got home and was ready to move them from the card to my external hard drive, I couldn’t find the card.

Panic set in.

I looked through all of my pockets and everything else. The camera bag, my memory card pouch — everything. And nothing found.

I had put the card in my pocket when switching out and I had no idea what happened. My only thought was that I dropped it at the fair (in one of two places) or in the street at my friend’s house when getting in my car.

He went out and checked at his house. Nothing.

I went searching again and found a bag I had in my pocket. The card somehow ended up in there. My panic ended. That made me realize that I need to come up with a memory card holder to be able to switch out when needed. I don’t ever want to go through that again!

Any of you photographers have any suggestions for a good pocket-sized memory card holder?

***

Speaking of disc golf, as I did earlier in this post, I received an interesting package in the mail.

It was my renewal for my PDGA (Professional Disc Golf Association) membership. What’s odd about that is that I didn’t renew because my membership doesn’t end until Dec. 31, 2011. And if I was going to renew, I would do it after Oct. 1, when it would give credit for next year. Even with that, it wouldn’t make sense. I hadn’t planned on renewing until the end of the year, when it needed to be done.

Last year, when I signed up, I did it after Oct. 1, so it was for the end of 2010 and all of 2011. When I did that, I got all of the perks and membership stuff. It also included the 2010 member card, which showed my membership expiring on Dec. 31, 2011.

Then the package came today.

I didn’t know what had happened. So, I called them.

Turns out that when I signed up in October, I got all of the 2010 items and then would eventually get the 2011 items. Apparently today is that eventually. At least it all makes sense now!

***

I have some things in the works for future blog posts. I have e-mailed Bill Walker — Skywalker in hiking circles — and will be talking to him soon for a post or two on the blog about his adventures in thru-hiking. I have already previewed one of his books on the site and will be reading his second one, soon.

That also gave me an idea.

I have followed several people through their trail journals this year in regard to hiking the Appalachian Trail. Some finished, some didn’t. I am going to reach out to several of them in the hopes of interviewing them for a post on the blog. I’d like to get both sides, too, so it shows why some people need to leave the trail, how hard it is to finish it or not etc.

I’m going to try and correlate them so I can do all of them over a two-week period (including the Walker stories), maybe going every other day or so — that way not going too overboard with the hiking stories! But I think in the end, it will show a compelling picture of what people have to go through on the hikes. It’s my hopes that I’ll be able to get a few photos from each, too, to be able to help all of you paint a picture of what they go through when they do hikes like this.

Feel free to leave a comment, or e-mail P.J. at hoohaablog [at] gmail.com.