ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, July 14, 1996 TAG: 9607150156
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C-9 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: COMMONWEALTH GAMES NOTES
SOURCE: RALPH BERRIER JR. STAFF WRITER
Is it one of the fastest-growing recreational activities or a good game of Frisbee spoiled?
Ask that question of the 26 individuals competing in the disc golf tournament during the Commonwealth Games on Saturday and there's little question what the answer would be.
``It's a great sport,'' said Michael Overacker, the director for the tournament held at Fishburn Park. ``Working-class people play it. Shift workers come down and play after work. Local physicians, lawyers, business owners ... I've seen them all here. I've seen [disc golfers from] as young as 18 months old to a guy who's 72.''
Frisbee disc sports are taking off all over, from disc golf to other games with names like ``ultimate'' (a football-like game played with a Frisbee disc) and ``guts'' (in which the discs are whirred at high rates of speed toward other competitors). Golf is the only disc sport played in the Commonwealth Games and it's gaining popularity in the Roanoke Valley.
Eighteen baskets, or ``holes,'' make up the course. Competitors ``tee off'' from approximately 270 feet away and try to get the Frisbee disc into the basket with the fewest throws, or ``strokes.'' Each hole Saturday was a par-3.
The discs used in golf are smaller and heavier than regular Frisbee discs, and golfers typically use several Frisbee discs per hole depending on how far they're standing from the basket. It's just like a traditional golfer using different clubs - the flatter discs are called ``drivers'' because they can be thrown long distances, and there are ``putters'' that are heavier with higher domes used for short distances.
Nine permanent holes were installed in Fishburn Park in 1992, more than a decade after disc golf courses began popping up in Northern and Eastern Virginia and more than 15 years after Overacker helped start the Roanoke Frisbee Disc Association.
Just as in traditional golf, the disc golfers had to deal with a variety of hazards Saturday - a family reunion and hornets.
Overacker thought he'd stepped into a real hornets nest when he told a family of some 40 they were holding their reunion right in the middle of the golf course, which had been reserved for the Commonwealth Games. The folks were reluctant to move at first until zooming discs began buzzing too close.
Then there was another kind of buzzing. Only after the tournament began did competitors notice the two hornets nests lining the course.
``We put signs up so everyone would beware,'' Overacker said.
Two other local disc golfers, Don Wetzel of Roanoke and Mitch Hoeppner of Salem, are playing at the World Amateur championships in Augusta, Ga. Wetzel was leading the masters category heading into today's matches.
``We've been holding disc golf tournaments since '78,'' Overacker said, ``so there's always been a lot of local interest.''
That interest runs in the family. Overacker's nephew, Collin, won a silver medal in Saturday's junior competition. Collin is 4 years old, making him perhaps the youngest medalist in Commonwealth Games history.
MAKING THEIR PITCH: Girls' fast-pitch softball, a sport that is becoming more commonplace at the high school level, continues to grow in popularity at the Games. Twenty-five girls' fast-pitch teams are playing at Green Hill Park, where only five teams played a year ago.
``It's all starting with the high schools'' adding programs, said Ben Lockhart, the Games' softball coordinator. ``Everybody's starting to play softball now.''
While the girls' game expands, men's fast-pitch has virtually vanished. There wasn't enough interest to hold a men's fast-pitch tournament this year, as fast-pitch has become the victim of the proliferation of slow-pitch softball.
ETC.: One of the judges during the powerlifting Saturday was Roanoke's Bettina Altizer, a 32-year-old attorney who won an international weightlifting competition in Canada two weeks ago. ... A weightlifter's nightmare occurred during one of the competitions, when an athlete ripped his shorts during a clean-and-jerk and had to wrap a towel around his waist. ... In the Commonwealth Games directory, there is this note in the biography for Bob Tully, one of the coordinators for shooting: ``Bob Tully became interested in shooting after an encounter with a loaded gun.''
LENGTH: Medium: 79 linesby CNB