Yep, you read it right, I’m a seasoned AM-2 disc golf veteran. I’m an avid disc golfer, and I went up against the best players in New England last season on a regular basis… within my division… of AM-2. The competition was fierce, and you could cut the tension with a knife. It’s not everyday that top athletes get together, put down over $20.00 American dollars, and duke it out with a bunch of randomly collected discs they’re still experimenting with… like the Groove… (after all it has a glide of 6!).
AM-2 may not be the top division, but it HAS to be the classiest. One of my last tournaments this fall was a prime example of this. I found myself on the lead card, with the crème of the crop. We were routinely stepping up and delivering devastating drives- parking this hole, deucing that hole, and so on. Next thing you know, another player on my card gets up, and throws a laser side-arm shot. It was a thing of beauty, never more than 10 feet off the ground, it stayed perfectly straight and slid right up to the green. However, when he turned around, another player informed him that he was throwing at the wrong basket. …and to seal the deal after this display of quality heads up disc golf, he then grabbed a sapling near by and thrashed the branches like BigFoot- coming within inches from my face and eyes. He went on to throw a good up-shot and save par 3. No worries, right? Right. That’s why he only spazzed out about six more times that round- otherwise he might have really got mad. My personal favorite was when he threw his putter against a tree a full power. I still regret not calling him for the practice shot, but in AM-2 we all have so much respect for each other, those penalties are rarely called.
It’s also great to get to know your competition and learn from them. There’s chit-chat between holes, as well as stories of grandeur being swapped. After all, in AM-2, we’ve ALL had numerous quality “almost” aces. There was one hole in a tournament I played that had a log-jam of people waiting to play. It was a tough par-4, and it had many players skipping into the woods off the fairway. The guy who “had the box” for our group stood on the tee-pad waiting for the group ahead to clear. We all were sitting down behind him because the wait was going to be over 5-10 minutes- this gave him the perfect chance to talk up the disc he was about to throw. It was some crazy disc, that was para-normally stable. This thing could perform miracles, and it was so unique because “NO OTHER DISC WAS LIKE IT!” …or something along these lines. It was as if he was the preacher, and we were his congregation- which was only natural, with all his immense knowledge and experience in the AM-2 disc golf world. After the group ahead of us was cleared from the hole, he threw his drive… tomahawk style… at about a 2 O’Clock angle… we watched the disc dive towards the earth and become a dying-duck-roller that actually started to circle back towards the group in the end. It was a clinic, pure and simple.
Lastly, I’ll share this story from another round. I had thrown a drive over to the general area of the basket. It wasn’t a great drive, but I gave myself a clear path and a chance at a 2 at least. Everyone else on the card threw drives, and one guy threw his upshot. Once we were all around the green I was “out” and had a long birdie putt. Demonstrating my clutch skills and talent, I sank my putt from around 45 feet (I won’t describe how it went in, but I also won’t say it was pretty…). The next guy sank his 20 footer. The next guy put in a 10 footer, which left only the guy who had parked his drive within six feet of the basket. We all started grabbing our bags and putting our mini’s in our pockets- only to watch him miss. Ouch- the dude just missed a 6 footer! So we all cringed, and watched him walk over to his putter, which was now 6 feet on the other side of the basket, and mark it again. Then he missed again! Wow. And before I knew it, he had grabbed his disc and missed a THIRD time from point blank. At this point, I had to squat near my bag, facing the opposite direction and bite my lip to keep from laughing. I understood that it wasn’t “funny” to be mentally collapsing like that, but it was that kind of nervous laughter that you just can’t put a lid on. In the end, I believe he got a snowman “8” on a hole that he had parked for a birdie 2. It was an AM-2 highlight reel… the stuff that dreams are made of.
These are just a small sample of the AM-2 gravy train. We don’t play for money, that would corrupt our pure intentions and our integrity. We play for bragging rights… and funny money… and tournament discs… so step off all you haters. Instead of calling for all your buddies to move up and play Pro, why don’t you tell them to move down? Down to AM-2 where all the magic happens… I’ll be here waiting.
DG Squared 