IN ROYAL OAK’S WAGNER PARK, where the midday traffic on nearby roads is muffled to a low hum and even the sunniest day is reduced to filtered light through the dense canopy of green, a different kind of golfer comes to play.

He (most often it is a he, although sometimes he is accompanied by a she) comes bearing a lightweight backpack stuffed with a variety of colorful plastic discs. He’s casually dressed,  is generally accompanied by others, and is looking for fun and relaxation.

While there are no tee times, membership fees, carts or caddies in this game of golf, there are rules, challenges and endless choices.

Disc golf is played around the world – from Europe to Japan and all across the United States and Canada. It was created by “Steady” Ed Hendrick, the Frisbee inventor, as a way to do more than just toss around the plastic disc. The first course was built in La Mirada, Calif., in 1971.

The sport was formalized in the 1970s and today there are professional and amateur tournaments playing somewhere in the world nearly every week of the year. In the Michigan Disc Golf Organization, there are 50 events scheduled this year.

At Wagner and other area parks, disc golf is played much like traditional golf. The object is to complete each hole in the fewest number of throws. A golf disc is thrown from a tee area to a target, the most common being an elevated metal basket known as a Pole Hole.

As a player progresses down the fairway, he or she must take each consecutive shot from the spot where the previous throw landed.

Disc golf offers the same joys and frustrations as traditional golf.

BERKLEY NATIVE ROBERT TURNER knows this.  An avid player since 1991, Turner began tossing around the disc for fun when the course was added to Wagner park in the late ’80s.

“It was a way to kill time when I was younger,” said Turner, who is now married, lives in Warren, and is a sales representative for Universal Plumbing Supply in Berkley. “It is a good way to compete. You don’t have to be athletic and it’s for all ages.”

But the more he played, the more Turner learned that there was much more to the sport than tossing a piece of plastic through the air. He noticed that other players had a variety of discs that, when thrown consistently, angled a particular way toward the hole.

“These people were getting good shots on a consistent basis,” he said. “It takes a while to get to know which disc to use and how to get a good shot with it.”

Now Turner is so busy organizing leagues, he doesn’t have the time to play the way he once did. He is vice president of the Detroit Disc Golf Club, which is affiliated with the Professional Disc Golf Association. He organizes local leagues that play on Monday and Tuesday nights at Firefighters Park in Troy, and at River Bends Park in Shelby Township.

Along with getting to know the game is getting to know the lingo. When considering which disc to use on a shot, you need to know the “stability rating” of a disc, which is a fancy way of saying flight path of the disc. This is influenced by the shape and thickness of a disc and its rim.

You’ll hear terms such as “hyzer” and “anhyzer” that refer to the angle of the disc on its flight path. Discs are referred to as “plastic.”

Another advantage to disc golf is its accessibility. There are two courses in Royal Oak, two in Troy and a number of others in the tri-county area.

“You can play it year ’round,” Turner said. “We have tournaments in the snow. We also play at night with glow-in-the-dark discs.”

COSTS ARE RELATIVELY LOW depending on how much equipment you want to purchase. Turner said discs cost an of average of $8 to $12 each. Equipment bags vary in size and quality and cost costs between $30 and $60. Or, you can carry it all in a plastic bag if you wish.

“It’s easy to pick up the basics of the game,” said Dan Hilliker of Shelby Township, who recently joined both the Firefighters and River Bends leagues. “But I’m just learning control after 8 years of playing. People have their own style.”

The biggest challenge is putting, Hilliker said. If you can drive, he said, that’s great. But the putting – trying to get the disc into the metal basket from short range – is where skill comes in.

“People start out thinking it’s easy – just toss the Frisbee into the basket,” he said. “My girlfriend thought it was easy until I had her play. She’s been at it a month now. If we’re not working, we are playing.”

Which brings up the addictive nature of the game. In the spring 1999 issue of Disc Golf World News, in an article titled “Addicted and Obsessed,” players admitted to forgetting wedding anniversaries and hocking engagement rings all for the love of the sport.

Even with everything else going on, Turner says he manages to play at least six rounds a week.

“Has it caused problems in my marriage? Yeah, you could say that,” he said. “But, it’s a fun sport. Everyone is very nice. I used to play more than I do now.”

Originally published in the Daily Tribune, August 1999