In the genteel game of golf, throwing equipment is not just bad form, but a hint that someone maybe needs a hug. Or beers.

In disc golf, throwing equipment is not just the game, it is Zen, the Tao and a leaf on the wind. It is freedom and joy; nature and love, dude.

Disc golf -- sometimes called frolfing -- is a child of the universe. It makes the outsider think of dreadlocks, deck shoes and inhaled medicinal herbs. One wonders: When and where did they first play disc golf? Answer: Southern California in the '60s. Natch.

Yet this is not Southern California. This is Edmonton. This is northeast Edmonton and, in particular, Rundle Park, where the vistas are of refineries and where the subterranean strata is formed by our forefather's refuse.

This past weekend, at the far end of Rundle, near the Trail House, were a bunch of mostly normal-looking people carrying bags of Frisbees. Except they're not called Frisbees.

Frisbee is a brand name. Discs are to Frisbees what tissues are to Kleenex. So they're discs, in various sizes, colours and denominations. You've got your driver disc, your putter disc, your roller disc, your mid-range disc.

Andrew Leo, a curly-haired lad of 27, who serves food at the Blue Plate Diner much of the week, is one of the organizers of this, the 11th annual River City Cup disc golf tournament.

"It's a beautiful walk in the park," says Leo, describing the allure of frolfing. "It's incredibly esthetically appealing."

The game is just like golf, in that the lowest score wins. You drive by throwing your disc off the tee, toward yonder green. If required, you throw again and again to get close enough to putt. The cup is an elevated basket, draped with chain. Hit the chain right and the disc falls into the basket, to end the hole.

The top players use countless different shots, including one that starts out airborne but ends up rolling along the grass towards the target. Experts can throw the disc 150 metres; a roller shot can reach 300.

According to Leo, there are something like 2,800 frolf courses world-wide -- 20 of them in Alberta. The Rundle Park course has been around since 1980.

There's actually been a Professional Disc Golf Association in North America since 1976. And there are tour players, who make their living off throwing a flying disc at a basket. In 2007, there were 852 events with a total purse of $1.8 million.

Glen Whitlock, from Gibsons, B.C., is a professional. Whitlock, in town for the River City Cup, looks like a man who's read some beat poetry in his time.

Me: "Can you make a decent living as a disc-golf professional?"

Whitlock: "No. But my wife works."

The River City Cup has drawn 60 players, some of them from Whitlock's home province. The title for furthest distance travelled goes to Michael Brockmyre. He's in town from Houston, Texas.

Turns out Brockmyre was in Calgary on business. He got on the Internet, searched for a tournament and found one in Edmonton.

"I travel the world and I've played in Scotland, the Netherlands, Paris," says Brockmyre, who ends the interview abruptly because the call to the first tee has gone out.

And I'm left to wonder about frolf. Obviously, part of the draw is the price. A driver and putter will set you back $30 to $40. After that, the game is completely free. Well, unless you fire your disc into a water hazard. They sink.

But disc golf also appeals to the ecologically minded. There's no need to manicure the grass, or drench it in fertilizer and pesticide. The game is played in the air. The grass is only for walking.

But the appeal is more basic than all that. As Leo says, if you go back to the dawn of time, human existence relied on being able to bring down food animals with thrown rocks, then spears. Target practice at some point turned into competition. (Hey Zog, bet you can't hit the backside of a mammoth with this rock.)

Hitting golf balls, throwing discs -- darts, billiards, baseball, football, tennis, etc. -- are just contemporary upgrades on basic target games.

But if these games originated from our most primitive needs or drives, they also speak to something wonderful about human nature -- the wish to lose ourselves in play.

The professional level of disc golf doesn't mean as much, then, as the reason why this group of 60 people are out at Rundle Park. They are here to play target practice together -- to watch a disc sail through blue skies and to walk, talk and laugh.

You don't have to be a pro, a hippie or even acquainted with the game to enjoy such things. You just have to let go and let fly.

Look no further than Andrew Leo for evidence of the game's nature. He shot a triple bogey -- three over par -- on one hole this weekend. But he did not give up. He kept throwing his equipment.

(To learn more about disc golf and how to get started in Edmonton, go to www.edmontondiscgolf.org.)

smckeen@thejournal.canwest.comc