A Short Story by David Underwood

Introduction: I'll admit it. From time-to-time, I've dreamed about having a perfect Disc Golf game. And by perfect, I don't mean just shooting birdies straight through 18 holes in-a-row. What I mean is perfection--- 18 ACES in a row. Yeah I'm dreamin' but can you imagine how awesome that would be?! Have you ever thought about it? The following is a short story I wrote about what it would be like to play a round with someone "perfect". I've entitled this story, "Two Holes with The Perfect Disc Golfer". Enjoy! FullOnDave

Imagine playing Disc Golf with someone perfect. Perhaps you're feeling really good that Saturday morning before registering for the local tournament at your home course. No... you're even feeling a little better than you thought about today. You're feeling like you might cash-out today as you browse the registration line and size up your competition. You know these people and have played with them before. You've got a good chance to take home the prize money and a little notoriety too as you anticipate the possibility of your name posted on Monday morning's email buzz on your club web site. Just as you were pondering this pleasant moment of fantasy, you hear a loud car muffler. Just shy of the 10:00am cut-off, a dude drives up in a '66 VW with long hair past his butt and hops in the back of the line just as the Tournament Director (TD) closes registration. You don't know who he is but you discover he registers in your division. You will play against him. The TD starts the player's meeting and you notice something peculiar about this dude. He has no discs… except the complimentary TeeBird driver issued at registration with the tournament logo on it. You think, "This guy has got to be a beginner." But then you reconsider your assumption, "…but why did he register 'pro'?" A little puzzled, you try to just ignore him during the rest of the player's meeting until you hear the TD bark off the groupings: As he yells out your name and a few others in your group, you now hear his name… " …and Jesus! You'll start at Tee #1!". Walking a few hundred yards you're all a little intimidated that this dude has not only one disc, but he's also not even warmed up. He's quiet too. You flip discs at Tee #1 for order of start and Jesus is going last. You're just before him--- second to last. The first three players deliver decent drives on the 410 foot dog-leg-right where the basket is hidden before a wall of trees one of which right in front of the tee. You know where the pin's at. It's your home course. But you're curious if Jesus does. It's your turn and you DELIVER big time!--- Your 169 gram Stingray lands slightly on edge with a small roll out of sight. Everyone walks east of the tee pad to peak at the only viewing window of the pin through the large old growth forest. Your lie is within 10 feet of the pin! You're stoked! As a matter of fact, you've never done that well on this hole and you've played that hole 50+ times before! Better yet, everyone noticed. It was a perfect shot! All the players verbally commend you! You continue to believe that it's going to be a great day. As Jesus approaches the tee box, he delivers the words, "Nice rip man". Everyone in your group is a little curious of him. You're quiet not only out of courtesy but also because your checking him out. You've never seen this dude. He's new. You're thinking thoughts like, "Is he a side-arm-er or basic back-hander?", What's up with the 'no bag'… and no other discs except the tournament hand-out?", "And what's up with the hair… and his name… 'Jesus'?" You notice one of his braids goes just past his right butt cheek as he bends his knees slightly to position himself in the box. Jesus then looks up toward the sun and you notice he's closing his eyes. Your curious if this meditative moment is some warm up to his stroke or if he's just catching a quick ray or two of the summer sun before preparing to launch. Then, in an almost spontaneous instant stoke, the dude full-on Tamahawk's the virgin TeeBird straight OVER the 125 foot tall Oregon Sitka Spruce that sits like a wailing wall in front of the tee. The guy surprised you all! No one who's ANYONE tomahawks this shot. Not even Dave Raz. What also dropped everyone's jaw was that the dude full-on never opened his eyes during the entire stroke. You're thinkin' "what's up with this guy?" If his stroke wasn't enough, the trajectory of his disc left you groaning. It never stalled going up until everyone lost it in the July sun. One of you balks… "Dude, it's gone man… watch for it… it's gone!" You're not too concerned because you're thinkin' to yourself, "No one tamahawks this hole--- you can't get enough penetration after going over a tree this size--- this close". You're feeling pretty safe this new dude doesn't know what he's doing. But out of courtesy to him, you decide to keep an eye out for his disc that you're probably going to have to help him find in a moment. Then you remembered he hucked it with his left hand. All of a sudden the disc reappears out of it's silhouette. It starts turning over… it's WAY WAY up there! You shout: "No man… it's turning over… I see it! It's still going!" as you point straight up toward the sun at just a dot! Jesus takes a moment to open his eyes and then spits a sunflower seed shell to the ground left of tee box. He whispers "… shhhhh… listen". One-thousand-one-One-thousand-two… it's now out-of-sight again… one-thousand-three-one-thousand-four-one thousand… SMASH-Shhh! You all heard it together. Everyone except you drops their golf bags and begins to race toward the pin! Did this new dude just ace Hole #1 with a virgin TeeBird? "He did it! He did it!" one of your crew screamed. The TeeBird lay flat upside-down in the basket! "You Frickin' ACED The Mother - - - - er! I don't believe this - - - -!" one guy shouts. He's so stoked he runs over and tackles Jesus, "You - - - - in' Aced it man! You're all shocked. You've just witnessed something so unlikely EVER to be repeated. A 410' dog-leg ace... tomahawked with his left hand. You're stunned. The very guy that was kind-of "out there" is now being tackled on the ground and celebrated! You're not sure what to do. Your lie 10 feet away is hardly noticed by anyone. You walk over to the basket to see the TeeBird for yourself. You still can't believe it.

You're cool though. You put forward your fist lightly toward Jesus' and deliver the words. After everyone else holes out, your shot is still a very nice birdie and you're content to be just one stroke behind the leader after Hole 1. Jesus pulls his baptized TeeBird out of the basket and starts scratching his initials with his fingernails into the soft z-plastic. You catch his insignia reflection a moment later in the sun… "J.C."

Hole #2 is all drive. 609 feet--- straight as an arrow. Water pond hazard from 290-345 feet. You know cuz you helped the course pro measure it last year. "Do you go for it or lay up?" everyone is challenging each other as they're stretching out their driving arm and reaching for their favorite driver. Jesus takes the tee box first of course and no one doubts it--- he's going for it.

At this point, you're far from thinking this guy can do something like that again. His last shot was incredible but in all practical terms, not to be duplicated--- especially on this long drive. You're all noticing his hand now. You didn't see this before. His right palm is covered by holding his TeeBird. His left though has an obvious scar of gigantic proportion. Like a huge dark dent right in the middle, it obviously was not properly stitched at the time of damage. It was as though something huge had once split right through his hand. No… both hands! You can see it! You all notice now that his right hand has an identical mark--- a huge hole-like scar! You think for a brief moment of the historical crucifixion. "This can't be THE Jesus" you ponder a moment. "No way man!" you assure yourself. Then you catch the back side of his disc again. It has one impact scratch and peculiar initials on the underside. Then he gets ready in the tee box. It looks as if he's positioning himself to drive side-arm. Then to everyone's surprise again, he stands perpendicular as if he's about ready to putt tomahawk. Jesus holds the TeeBird vertically with his right hand, his index finger resting just inside the inside the inner wall. He does a few pump fakes into his left palm in the direction of the pin. "How does he throw with those ludicrous scars on his hands" you ponder, and "why is he now throwing with his right hand? I thought he was a leftie". Once again, the dude has his eyes shut. You're all quiet… again. Then in lighting speed, he drops his right hand way behind his back. His stroke so smooth it resembles John McEnroe's infamous tennis serve. It was so pure and efficient. His countenance calm and his eyes shut, his stroke resembled an effortless work of art. Like watching a cheetah in slow motion, his forward motion displayed something almost spiritual--- his fluidity smooth as a windmill. It was as though the dude had some indescribable thrust of disc aerodynamics. Like a wind tunnel or something, we heard it--- all of us heard it. As he released, his arm went through the air so quickly, we heard the swoosh... we heard the wind foiling around his arm! We didn't notice it on his last drive, but we all heard it this time. It sounded like a full-on 'whew' of a catapult decocting from a mid-evil movie. We've never heard that sound from a disc golfer--- not even the best. The disc launched and Jesus' follow-through was only his driving arm. His feet were entirely stationary throughout. He was completely composed and balanced. The disc was going... going... going… Like a knife-edge saucer, the TeeBird took off like lightening. For a moment, I could tell that we all wanted to be the TeeBird. It was experiencing the envy of all TeeBirds. It was experiencing force and aerodynamics unheard of in plasticity research of all major manufacturers of golf discs. It's leading edge deciphering high and low pressure resulted in a consistent gentle role while it rocketed skyward gaining elevation like you've never seen--- like nobody's business! As gravity began it's inevitable force upon this incredible launch, the TeeBird was well beyond the water hazard. It plateaued out, stalling slowly--- as if it was getting final approach instructions from the tower. It instigated it's typical hyzer pattern left. The disc was in perfect position to descend! We could only dream to approach the pin in this way on a hole this far. While we couldn't adequately estimate the distance, the line in the sky was dead-on toward the pin. The TeeBird was way above the grove of Douglas firs far-right. Then the TeeBird began stalling left into it's final dive. Again, we could see the line--- the TeeBird was on a perfect kamikaze trajectory toward Basket #2. It was moving so fast, it's impact certain to "taco" the disc. We were all a little jittery now. Even the basket appeared to tremble. Would a perfect shot work this far? It's descending too fast. Even if it hit, would it not hit the chains so hard that it would deflect out? All this was going through our mind when again… it happened. It happened again! Again, we stood jaw-dropped. Again we shook our heads. Another sunflower shell is spit upon the ground. We absolutely couldn't believe our eyes. Certainly we were dreaming. We would wake up to reality. It would be time to get up and go to work with an incredible story. But it was all a 'dream' right? The sound of the smash this time was so pronounced and then some. We've all heard the beauty of the sound of plastic and chain. It's the sound of our sport. We've heard it hundreds of times. Most of us, thousands. We know the sound. With our eyes shut, we could identify the sound were it disguised in an orchestra of metal rock bands. His ace had the genuine acoustics. It crashed the chains hitting every pitch of links colliding. It was the sound of our sport--- times five. The basket is 609 feet away and yet it sounded as if our ears were resting against the pin. It was so loud, it was as if we could actually see the wave-file on an oscilloscope. The sound of chain hitting each other and then simultaneously thrusted against the center pin while clawing the outrageous velocity of the TeeBird. Back and forth the chains seized the ricochet of the TeeBird desperately trapped in the jaws of the links. Like reverse thrusters of a jet in rapid deceleration, the TeeBird's 171 grams were now comfortably subjecting itself to the physics of steel and gravity. It now made one last flip within the links and dropped straight down into the basket via between two vertical arrays. It's mission accomplished. It's journey and experience unheard-of. It's flight path never... never to be repeated. The enthusiastic one unleashed again, "Oh my God!..." Jesus... - - - - in' Christ!... He did it AGAIN!" You could actually see the white TeeBird vertical lie resting 12 degrees left against the chains... in the basket. The party continued. Our crew of five seemed to completely forget that we were in a tournament. "Who was next?" seemed irrelevant. I had forgotten that I was "next" and even which disc I was going to choose. It seemed as if I was in a dream again and about to wake up. I was so surprised when I finally did.

"You're up dude!" broke me out of my trance. "How do I follow that?" I replied and then I heard Jesus speak to me: "Believe in Me… and from your innermost being will spring rivers of living water unto eternal life".

No sooner did the words roll off his lips did the essence of his bodily form turn translucent… like vapor! All of us stood there awestruck. It was like a full-on alien or something. Jesus' eyes and hands were the last to depart. I saw the scars on his hands one last time. I'd heard of the love of God before but now I knew he loved me… and I knew he loved disc golfers too.

No one spoke a word for two minutes because we were all overwhelmed. It was as though our hearts were burning within us. We had experienced something radical. We didn't know exactly what to do so we threw our drivers in turn and holed-out #2. We just felt like it was what we should continue to do. As we retrieved our discs, there was His TeeBird. I don't know why but the others unanimously decided: "You keep His disc, man". Funny… Cuz deep down I wanted it. As I picked it up, His initials still lay roughly scratched just under the 171g chalk… "J.C."