Disc golf: Trees aren’t 90% air (but the feeling they are rocks)

There’s a saying making the rounds in disc golf …

The first time I heard it, I couldn’t help but smile:

“Trees are 90% air.”

I don’t know who came up with this. The first time I heard it was on the Foundation Disc Golf YouTube channel. Hunter Thomas used it. And then used it again. Now, these days, he uses it so frequently, it’s become somewhat of an inside joke between the channel’s hosts and its viewers.

The oft-quoted phrase is almost exclusively used after a throw in which a shot miraculously carves its way through a heavily wooded area without making contact with a single tree. This shot is usually a shank-job. Because of it, when things turn out positively, it goes without saying that some light ribbing is required. Even self-imposed, it’s simply too good not to say …

“Trees are 90% air.”

However, shockingly, trees are NOT 90% air.

Trees are 100%, well …

Trees.

Duh.

If you want to get technical, I’m talking roots, stems and leaves. And depending on the type of tree, throw fruit and flowers into the mix, as well. Still, the stuff around the trees is 100% air.

When you get lucky with an ugly, offensive grip-lock, that’s what your disc finds. Naturally, as a disc golfer, air is what you’re looking to penetrate. My advice would be to go for the air in the middle of the fairway, as opposed to the big-nasty on both sides of it, but to each his own.

Having pointed out the obvious, it is worth mentioning how amazing it feels to launch an embarrassing shot from the teepad or fairway, only for it to somehow knife its way through seemingly imminent danger, coming to rest in a place far better than your sorry effort deserved.

Though you won’t find a disc golfer who rails against “luck” more than me, in the good-breaks department, when it rains, it pours. Your timing might be a bit off, yet the disc golf gods can’t help but smile on your cute attempt at woods golf. It’s on these days that, dare I say it …

Trees aren’t 90% air, but they might as well be.

Enjoy the feeling while it lasts.

It’ll soon be gone.

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