Golf on the Other Side, by Conrad Damon

It's mid-tournament and you've hit the wall - an endless string of pars and bogies that you'd give anything to break. The hole is short with a tight straight route, and you can already see the bark flying. The rest of your group is singing the lumberjack song to you and you're trying to resist the urge to kill them. At this point the enjoyment of your round is limited to the small bit of pleasure you get seeing discs other than yours smashing into trees. Then the player teeing ahead of you flips a sidearm through a window on the left, finding a low but open route, and his disc skips up under the pin. Do you: A - punch him? B - complain about the obvious unfairness of the hole? C - learn a sidearm? The rest of this article is for those of you choosing option C.

Just about any experienced disc golfer will tell you that adding a sidearm to your game will move it up a notch. At the very least, it's extremely useful for restricted approach shots. Even with a range of just 80 feet, you can easily take one to two strokes off each round, especially on wooded and bushy courses.

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