NEO Disc Golf Alliance   May 20, 2015 at 5:05am

And Then We Rocked the Lock...

A sketchy forecast gave way to clear sunny skies, the weather not daring to disrupt not only Akron’s first annual Open Streets celebration, but even more importantly the inaugural event of the newly constituted NEODGA, “Roc the Lock”. The unique allure of urban disc golf, even on a temporary 9 hole course, brought approximately 100 disc enthusiast to Lock 3 and surrounding areas in beautiful downtown Akron May 17th, 2015 for fun, sun, and to raise money for the children of St Jude’s.
Sloped and tiered blacktop and concrete, smattered with trees, an underpass, amphitheater stage green, parking garage tee pad, and a menacing canal gave this DGHOFer designed course once in a lifetime fairways and obstacles to work with. And Bill Griffith was up to the challenge… four times before the city approved the course layout! We needed to make sure safety was not an issue… if one of the women on the roller derby team were to get hit with a disc, golfers’ lives may have been lost!
And there were some cringe worthy shots. Besides handfuls of people trying the sport for the first time (you could play for free around the event), we had 70 or so golfers play in “Roc the Lock” with discs they didn’t normally throw, around obstacles they’ve never contemplated negotiating. Hopefully the pics from the ground and the drone captured mostly the more impressive flights. There were some pretty impressive shots too… but this was about fun, sun, raising money for charity (over $700!), raising awareness for disc golf, people watching, and throwing a disc down Main Street in downtown Akron as hard as you want without having to run from the police immediately afterwards.
Special thanks: Steve Godar who brought this opportunity to NEODGA and worked continuously with event organizers, Bill Griffith for his time working with the city on the course, Eric Centanni and Katie Meloy for running the event like it was their own with no advanced warning, Kevin Wilsterman for convincing his employer Fishermans Central to start selling discs in time to bring the stock to this event- and donating prizes, Paige and Ally from U of Akron for their help during registration and being our St Jude liaisons, Larry Jennings and his drone, Kevin Whitlock’s photo services, Scott Campbell for his awesome NEODGA banners, everyone who lent portable baskets for the day, and sincerely ALL the golfers who represented our sport so well. Honestly, disc golf was one of the main jewels of Akron’s Open Streets… we should all be proud!


Results, photo, and video as they become available: http://www.discgolfscene.com/tournaments/Roc_the_Lock_2015