On April 9th and 10th, disc golf fanatic Tim Habenicht became the first person to ever play more than 1200 holes in 24 hours at Tommy and Sue Brown Park in North Richland Hills, TX. He set the new world record with exactly - you guessed it, 1201 holes. After an estimated 65 miles walking and 3729 throws, he recalls his experience from this “discathon”.
 
My brother called me at 5:00 AM on Saturday morning – “Are you sure you want to do this today? There is a wind advisory for all of Fort Worth. Winds are going to be around 30 mph. Playing for 24 hours is going to be hard enough, are you sure you want to fight the wind as well?” My heart sank as I heard the news but I had already convinced myself that it was now or never. I decided to go ahead and try to play for a couple of hours to see how the wind affected my game.
 
I chose to play on the permanent 6-hole course at Tommy and Sue Brown Park in North Richland Hills, TX. The course makes almost a perfect circle and is exactly 0.27 miles per lap, straight tee to hole. It has a simple layout, and I figured it was the best course out of my available options to go for the record. I chose to play on April 9th because the weather is historically very nice on that day- temperatures are usually between 60 and 80 degrees. Unfortunately for me, it got up to 92 degrees with wind gusts up to 35 mph.
 
I took my first throw with the sunrise at 7:15 AM on Saturday, April 9th. I was flying with a pace of about 70 holes an hour for the first 5 hours. There was almost no wind, so my throws were accurate and my arm was fresh. Then it started to get messy. The wind picked up and my drives were all over the place. Half of my throws ended up further away from the hole then when I started. I hit an old man running, almost beheaded a baby on the playground, and even hit my own caddy right in the back – sorry about that Mike, but you probably could have moved out of the way faster. It was getting ugly, and I was walking a LOT further per hole than before because I had to chase down my wind blown discs.
 
I started to feel blisters forming on my heels after about 8 hours of playing. I still had a long way to go, so I stopped to bandage up my heels with mole skin to help ease the rubbing. After a lifetime of sports and running, this was honestly the first time I ever had blisters on my feet from simply walking. Just as I began to feel tired in the middle of the afternoon, my family and friends arrived to show support. Many of them walked and talked with me, which helped keep my mind of the creeping pain in my feet. Several of the neighborhood kids even joined in on the fun and helped my caddies pick up discs for a couple of hours as well.
 
It was very discouraging to me when I hit the halfway mark at 12 hours. I was already tired, and an additional 12 hours of playing sounded like a lifetime. My body was starting to feel seriously fatigued and I was getting light headed. So what was the solution? I ate barbeque (this ended up being a terrible idea, but I couldn’t resist the smell) and took my second round of Advil. After that, I was good to go.
 
I beat the official Guinness World Record of 1035 holes at 3:30 AM on Sunday morning and the wind was howling. I remember my wife yelled out, “Only 22 more laps to go to 1200!” She was trying to be encouraging, but it didn’t help…..
 
Only 22 laps? ONLY? Are you serious? That was at LEAST another seven miles of walking. It is easy to look at the situation from the outside and think that seven more miles of walking is an easy task, but when you have already walked 55+ miles, seven miles sounds like 700. My feet were screaming and I wanted nothing more than to sit down. But, like any sane person (or is it better to say INsane person?), I told myself, “Well, if you already pushed yourself this far, you might as well finish.” I was pressed for time to get to the 1200 mark, so I had to keep pushing my pace if I was going to get there.
 
Then sunrise rolled around – again. It was funny to see the same people out running on Sunday morning that I saw on Saturday morning. They had run, did who knows what during the day, slept, and came back out for another run, and here I was, still playing disc golf. Am I insane for doing this? I approached my last hole at 7:03 AM with 12 minutes to spare and a new world record within grasp. I birdied the last hole and breathed in a sigh of relief. I didn’t celebrate, but rather went straight to a bench to sit down and take my shoes off. I laughed when I saw the video of me throwing my last hole. It looked like I was walking barefoot on broken glass, and my legs were literally black from the dirt. Discathoning is no easy task.
 
I had a LOT of 2’s, 3’s, and 4’s, and somehow mustered up one 6 around 5:30 in the morning on Sunday - I don’t know how, but I managed to hit the same tree twice and then throw 100 feet past the hole. Short puts that I would normally make ended up 30 feet away from the basket because of the wind, so I started going for the short approach and the super short puts, which is why I had so many 3’s and 4’s. Every step counts and since I was going for speed and trying to save the limited amount of energy I had left, I tried my best to limit unnecessary steps if possible. I did get 2 aces, and I had about 10 more throughout the 24 hours that actually hit the basket on my first throw. But remember, 30 mph wind makes it hard to throw at anything.
I have run plenty of marathons and knew that the most important thing I could possibly due was stay hydrated. My body has shut down on me from dehydration in the past, so I wanted to avoid that more than anything. I planned on drinking at least one bottle of water every hour, no matter what. I figured that if the hydration was taken care of, then my body would hopefully be able to fight through the pain without shutting down. One lap around the course is 0.27 miles, so from straight tee to hole it was 54 miles for 1201 holes. I definitely walked WAY more than that because of chasing discs caught by the wind, so it was more like 65-70 miles of walking.
 
A HUGE thanks goes out my wife, Lindsey, my brother’s wife, Elyse, and my old college roommate, Mike Knapp, and my brother Daniel who played the first 600 holes with me. They all stayed out with me the entire 24 hours and helped keep my spirits high. They kept score, recorded the video, got me food and water, and took turns caddying for me. Another huge thanks goes out to Donovan Baker, the former world record holder with 1002 holes, who is a first class guy and a great motivator. I called him a couple of weeks before the event and he ended up giving me tips on how to play faster and told me several key strategies that helped shave seconds off each hole. He came out to show support twice during the day on Saturday, and then again at 3:30 AM on Sunday morning. He caddied for me for the last 3.5 hours and was literally like a coach, telling me exactly what to do on each throw. My brain and body were pretty much gone by that point, so having someone else think for me was helpful. I could not have done with it without you guys, so thanks for sticking with me!
 
By the numbers:
65+ estimated miles walked
1201 holes completed
200 rounds completed (6-hole course)
3729 physical throws
2 aces
101 birdies
882 pars
202 bogies
13 double bogies
1 triple bogie