Merced Mysteries & Minutiae: Fahrens Park a haven for disc golfers

In the afternoons and on weekends, people from all over trek to Fahrens Park in Merced, where they spend hours perfecting their backhands and sidearms, yearning to hear the rattling chain that indicates their disc made it in the basket.

The sport is disc golf, and Fahrens Park is the place to play in Merced. Those who live in the Los Verdes Estates probably are used to finding Frisbee-like discs in their backyards with names and phone numbers listed to return them. Those residents may ask,

Q: What’s with disc golf?

A: For some, it’s like therapy, said Mike Cornwell, who was the only person out practicing on Easter Sunday, an unusual sight on a weekend.

“It’s a better habit than doing drugs, and it’s just as addicting,” said Army Staff Sgt. Kevin Paul, who stopped by to play the Fahren’s course Wednesday afternoon.

Those who play the game are dedicated to the sport, the Fahrens course and the community that’s developed.

And they’re proud. One player’s car has a decal that depicts the message “Eat, sleep, disc golf.”

“I played when I was a little kid with random hippies in Texas,” said Palme Goins, who also played the course Wednesday. “I played once or twice in Santa Cruz. But this course is really what rejuvenated my love for the game.”

Goins pushed his 10-month-old Mini-Me, Palme Jr., in his stroller from hole to hole as he and his wife, Christina, took turns throwing their discs.

Christina said she played once before but started playing more with Palme. “He’s a good coach,” she said.

I played a couple holes myself with Cornwell on Easter. I can vouch that disc golf is a lot more difficult than it looks. It’s not just tossing around a Frisbee.

The first throw of a hole is crucial, and typically is accompanied by a running start, or at least a few steps.

There are different kinds of discs for different kinds of throws, I learned. A putter is thicker, more like a Frisbee, and supposed to be forgiving, Cornwell told me. Distance drivers are what their name implies – for distance.

The lingo is similar to golf: An Ace means you made a basket in one try. A birdie is 1 under par. A do-over is called a mulligan. The more throws it takes you to get your disc in the basket, the further you are from par. (My score was very, very far from par.)

Some of the more challenging holes on the Fahrens course are the ones that go over the creek.

“It’s a challenge not to throw your disc into the water,” Goins said.

There’s various techniques to every hole. For example, at the sixth hole on Wednesday, Paul’s disc went high and through a tree before curving around closer to the hole. Christina threw her disc low and to the left of the tree, and Paul’s friend Manuel Sanchez threw his to the right.

The Fahrens course recently received a big upgrade. At the end of the summer, renovations were completed to boost the number of holes at the course from nine to 20, making it a pro-rated course.

The improvement is thanks to Elec Pryor, who had the funding for the improvements from Merced’s disc golf club, said Joey Chavez, a recreation supervisor with the city of Merced.

Pryor also is in charge of organizing the tournaments at the course, such as the one that took place Saturday and attracted more than 100 disc golfers.

Both Cornwell and the Goinses agreed the maintenance of the course is “amazing.” Though the city mows the greens, any other maintenance of the course is taken care of mostly by Pryor and other club members.

The Goinses agreed the disc golf community is accepting and welcomes newcomers with open arms. The couple played disc golf on Valentine’s Day and often barbecues with other players.

“There’s always new faces out here. We normally give them a disc and say ‘Try it out,’ ” Christina said.

This story was originally published April 3, 2016 at 2:29 PM with the headline "Merced Mysteries & Minutiae: Fahrens Park a haven for disc golfers."