More than just a game

By MOLLY A.K. CONNORS

Monitor staff

Last modified: 9/8/2011 12:00:00 AM

When Marty Vaughn and his wife opened a disc golf course at their Canterbury home this May, they didn't do it for money, and they didn't do it for status. They did it for love of the game.



"We really want to expand disc golf, period," Marty, 47, said, as his wife, Betsy Vaughn, sat on a log at their disc golf course.



But before they could open Top O' the Hill Disc Golf, an 18-hole, 1.2-mile course on their wooded property, they had to spell out exactly what the game was, over and over again.



The game works much the way golf does, but people throw flying discs at a metal basket a few feet off the ground instead of hitting a ball into a hole in the ground. The score is calculated by how many times the competitor throws the flying disc, just as golf is scored by how many times the golfer has to swing his club.



New Hampshire is host to 10 other disc golf courses, but Marty Vaughn boasts that his course is the most "technical" of them. It took about four years, $10,000 and the rezon-



ing of their property from agricultural use to recreational for the Vaughns to open their course, but Marty and Betsy say their course was worth it.



So too has been the long and thorny path that led them to one another, and a new income for the couple.



The two first played disc golf in the mid-1990s, when they were rekindling the flame they had lit 11 years earlier when they were in the Navy.



Betsy, who is from Canterbury, and Marty, born in Texas, met when both were stationed in Norfolk, Va. - yes, they said, it was permitted for them to date.



"I always loved her," Marty said. But then she was sent to Japan.



"We wrote letters, but we lost touch," Betsy, now 51, said. Each eventually married someone else.



But if Marty always loved her, why did he marry someone else?



"Cause I didn't think I'd ever see her again," he said softly.



Both eventually left the Navy. Each had two children. Each got divorced.



By the mid-'90s, single once again, Marty decided to try and find her.



"He called my mother in Canterbury and asked what I was doing," Betsy said.



Marty was living near Austin and unbeknownst to him, Betsy was living in Austin, too.



Betsy's mother gave him Betsy's number. He called. Betsy invited him for a barbecue.



"It's soon after that they we started playing disc golf," which is popular in Texas, Betsy said. "Had no clue what we were doing," Marty said. "We were hooked."



The couple married in 1998 and eventually settled in Canterbury, a time they said was both happy and stressful as custody and property disputes haunted them for several years.



Their kids now range in age from 19 to 25 and are on good terms but not particularly close, the couple said. They've encountered other challenges. The $1,000 business sign they hung was stolen, for example.



"It was a bummer - it was a big bummer," said Marty in his relaxed, Texas drawl. Betsy lost her job as a dental hygienist in December 2010. She has found temporary work in the field but is looking for something more permanent. Marty used to work in powder coating but now spends almost every waking moment on the course.



Marty estimates that the range has seen about 1,000 visitors since it first opened, many of them young adults.



Three players interviewed on a recent Sunday afternoon said disc golf is one of just many sports they play. They like Marty and said they were attracted by the game's low cost - $5 a round, $8 to play all day. They also like the chance to play a sport in the woods.



"It's a nice alternative," said Matt Blake, 26, who was visiting from Brookline, Mass., where he works as a baseball coach and recruiter. He was playing with two friends who said they come to the course almost every day.



"This is a tough course," said Matt Skoby, 28, a coach and administrator at Concord High School. The three said they think participation in the sport could pick up in the Concord area.



"Just over the last couple of months, a lot more people are showing up here," said Josh Jarno, 27. "Now there's cars here most times."



But for some, disc golf, which often requires that the flying disc travel past bushes and trees, is more than just a game.



Tammy Faust, 43, became paralyzed on her right side four years ago from a stroke. But in May, encouraged by Betsy's daughter, Faust decided to try disc golf. She got hooked and now plays almost every day.



The Canterbury resident struggles to speak, but explains that she enjoyed the game so much that she didn't mind doing the exercise of walking up and down steep hills every day. When she first played, she could only do three holes. She now does all 18.



"I was so excited I couldn't even sleep that day," she said of the first time she did the entire course.



"I can do a sport now," she said. "That's a beautiful thing."



Marty and Betsy smile as Faust explains her improving health.



"I'm a disc therapist," Marty says.



In exchange for volunteering at the course, she gets to play for free. She says Betsy and Marty have become like family to her and that she enjoys meeting people at the course and watching them improve the way she has.



"You watch other people, their success," she said. "And you're happy for them."



Marty and Betsy are optimistic that more people will catch Faust's disc-golf fever. Betsy jokes that their goal is to promote peace and understanding through disc golf - she bid at least one visitor goodbye this week by saying, "Namaste," a peaceful salutation often used in yoga classes.



The couple's pro-shop, housed in a trailer near the course's parking lot, nearly sold out of its items, which include a variety of discs and bags to carry them.



Betsy said she was comfortable with the risk the couple took by investing in their business.



"If you don't take any risks, you never get any gain," she said.



They also host weekly tournaments at the course, which they say are becoming increasingly popular and are helping spread the word about Canterbury's newest business.



"It's going to make it," Marty said.



(Top O'the Hill Disc Golf is located at 68 Southwest Road off Route 132 in Canterbury. The course is open from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Payments are done on an honor system, and equipment is available both for sale and rent. For more information, call 369-1238 or find Top O' The Hill Disc Golf on Facebook.)



(Molly A.K. Connors can be reached at 369-3319 or mconnors@cmonitor.com.)





