hyzernauts disc golf interview

He got sick of it, took me out to a Park and and said: "point something out". And I pointed on an Evergreen Tree and he took a driver and put it within 15 feet of the tree.
After I picked my job off the ground I said: "Teach me how to play this!" I played my first round on a Monday and on the following Saturday I played my first tournament.

3. How was it?
Great! I had a little bit of skill to begin with and everybody was so encouraging. Obviously, anywhere you go, even today, there is not many woman playing, so, being a woman ou on a course, I had a lot of people, encouraging me staying out on the course. And it was the environment plus it was at a point where I wanted some kind of athletic outlet. In Highschool I did everything athletic and there in college my first year I played a couple of sports. By the time I found this sports I was really crazy in some kind of competition and right time right place. I never looked back I guess.

4. You just mentioned it: Only few woman play discgolf. What do you think, how can this be changed?
We need to get into elementary schools, junior high, the colleges. We need to get kids early. The problem is right now, that the only woman that are exposed to it are wives and girlfriends of players. And they are not necessarily the people that are looking for something. They end up playing only so that they can spend more time with significant other. So we need to get the athletic minded woman involved, so that they are out there regardless whether they got a boyfriend or a husband playing. And the way that we do that is ... school.

5. How often do you practice, what does your program look like and did it change over the years?
Well, this question for me now is a significantly different answer than I would have given a couple of years ago. And let me give that one: When I made efforts to try to pull myself up onto the ring I literally had a training schedule that I followed and I threw everyday, I threw at the very least 100 Putts sometimes as many as 500 Putts and I would try to get out 3 times a week, sometimes 4 days a week to a field with as box with either drivers, midrange discs, whatever, and I would have 20 of the same disc and I would try to throw 100 - 200 shots of whatever that disc happened to need. So, on average each day I threw minimum 250 shots. Sometimes I would throw 500, 600 maybe 700 shots.
I almost never went to a course. I almost never ever played a round. I thought it was a waste of time. It took a couple of years where I realized "Oh, there is a correlation between my practice and the way that I'm playing the tournament". When I got to that I started coming up with that formule of how many shots I should do a day and obviously it kept me getting bigger and bigger as I got closer and closer to the top and what I just explain is about the biggest trainfield I had. I also did cardiographic, I lifted weights upper body. I did whatever I thought I could to get myself into shape so that I would never be tired on a course, so that would never drain the muscle. I would never be winded, that type of thing. About three years ago practicing became boring. As I always said that playing must be fun, I stopped doing it, then. I still love the game, but now I switched over and now when I go to throw I go play rounds. I go and play for the fun of it. And of course I still play to the best of my abilities, but my driving desire to make my game, do the absolut best I can, has faded. It's kind a circle to the recreational aspect of it.

6. What's your advice for beginners to improve their game?
If you're trying to improve your game... Well, it takes time, it takes realistic expectations and I don't think that you should have every single disc with you, that a new disc comes out, it doesn't matter. Know what you got! Choose a few, learn those discs! And then, make them work for you, don't earry 25 discs, have a special disc, that works for only one special throw, that's crazy. But, if you want to improve, for me it's a question of repetition. And the repetition works not necessarily for muscle memory as much that it was for my own confidence. I think that I deserved toplay well if I putt in the line. When I puttin the line than I felt like "now I practiced all this, I should be doing well, I'm allowed to do well." And "allowed" means to be confident on the tee and on the putt, which is probably the most important thing out there. It's the confidence in your own game.

7. Are there any other things out on the course that might affect your game and influence your confidence, like people talking, birds and dogs passing the fairway?
That does actually all affect me in a positive way. I like the distraction. My favourite courses are the ones that are really really pretty, where I loose myself and I'm looking at the skyline and I'm beeing an animal in the woods. That's where I'm doing my best. I almost like it when there is noise, or where there's kids running behind the basket or something because I don't want ever to make excuses for myself missing something anything like that. I don' t like the other people trying to find something outside of them as the reason why they didn't do well. I almost feel like I want a distraction to show other people: "You can focus and you can take that out of the term, it's all in your head. Just focus and put it in the basket!" I really like playing in front of people, I like it when people on the course are talking to you because it's more fun and it's not that cut throw "do or die". It's a walk in the park! This sport is still small enough that we need to be serious. It should still be fun for everyone and it shouldn't be like people going mad.

8. The spirit of disc golf is: Every good shot shpuld be chered, regardless who shot, without focusing only on the tournnament!
You said it better than I, thanks. But you said that!

9. What do you like most about disc golf?
The flight of a frisbee is absoluttely beautiful! It's such a large object, that you can see stradelties at, the turnover, than flexing back, you can see when the disc has no dub and all of this, it's just gorgeous! And to be able to stand at the tee and look on the fairway and visualize what you want: "I want it to go up over this little bush and ..." whatever it happened to be, you can totally visualize that and then be able to master the art of throwing so that you can make a frisbee do that. That is so satisfying, I love that.
When I first got into it, it was probably the people. How welcomed I felt in the environment. I'm an incredible introverted person and for me to feel comfortable in a group like this is really unusual. As a child I didn't like to be noticed, but in this environment I feel safe and it's okay to be noticed. I just feel comfortable.

10. Are there any things that you don't like?
The drugs. There's a very big party athmosphere. I had a very shelterd life, never saw any of that. I didn't know what it was for a long time. I don't like that it's beeing done. I don't like that it's now associated with this sports.
I love that it's free, I love that it's a sport that you can play from the time you can walk as a three year old child to the time that you'r an 89 year old man. It's ompletely intergenerative, I love that. No, I can't think of anything that is bad about the sport.

11. Is there a course near the place where you live?
Yes, my husband and I just bought a home in Bowling Green and there are seven courses in our city. And it's a city of 50.000, it's not a big city, and four of the corses are really really good. I used to live in Iowa, Iowa has over 80 courses. When I first started playing we maybe had half of that.

12. What does the perfect course look like for you?
It's all about the beauty for me. I like elevations, I like trees, I like greens, I like flowers, water.

13.All that has to be in one course?!
Well, it's all asthetic. If the course is pretty, than I'm much more out to like it regardless how the holes are layed out. But the idea, of course, is not only pretty, but also extremely challenging. Where for mme as a woman a good score would be in the 50s. I want it to be a hard course where I have to perform well. I don't like supershort courses. I want to have to perform not only a good drive, but a good aproach and than make the putt to get my three. So, beauty and difficulty.

14. The PDGA wants to enforce activities in Europe. What do you think and what do you expect from that?
I think that it's about time that this is being encouraged. I wish that there was more interaction. More Americans going over to Europe, more Europeans coming over here playing. It's only gonna help the sports grow. I played in Sweden, I played in Japan, I won in England and have had some of my best experiences in my disc golf carier. Actually, it's one of my dreams to be able to go over to Europe and play whether there are tournaments or just courses. Every American wants to travel in Europe and wants to do that while playing disc golf.

15. A good game mainly depends on a good putting routine which mainly depends on a good set of nerves. Can you describe your putting routine?
Oh my god, okay, let's go back to about 3 or 4 years ago. I was an incredible good Putter. 20 feet and in I didn't even have to think about it. I don't know what changed, but about 2 years ago I started to miss the super short putts. Now, the nerves are affecting me. This week was a horrible. I'm not practising like I used to, but that's not it, cause when we go out and play it still works. Maybe it's because the goals that I set for myself, I reached them.

16. Do you want to join the Hyzernauts [pointing at the t-shirt]?
The Hyzernauts? That's a cool shirt, I ilke that! One of the other things I do is I quilt and I make quilts out of shirts of tournaments.