"That's a good-lookin' rip," Matt Flynn called out to his competitor from the 18th hole at the Pendleton King Park course in Augusta, Ga.

Ten eyeballs followed the plastic projectile as it flew through the air like a turbo-charged UFO, covering nearly 220 yards and landing near a metal basket with a chain-link fringe. All that was required now: a short throw by a steady hand into the basket's maw. Then off to the next hole and the next rip.

In Augusta, drop such athletic terms as "greens," "putter" and "needs more mustard," and everyone assumes you're talking about the Masters, the legendary golf tournament held each April at Augusta National Golf Club. But on a recent Sunday, the players were neither sporting fancy pants nor wielding gleaming irons. Instead, they wore crumpled T-shirts and dusty sneakers, and toted colorful discs as small as dessert plates. These men, and a few women, represented the every-Augustan sport of disc golf.

"We have eight courses within a 20-minute drive and a good variety with lakes, tightly wooded holes and elevation changes," Flynn said. "You can show up at any park and see other people playing."

That last fact is significant, because only the privileged can view a round at Augusta National, a private club that hides behind towering hedges, intimidating gates and barking guards.

If you want to watch the Masters, you'll have better luck pressing your nose to the TV screen. But if you want to attend a disc golf game, simply show up at a course (for free or a nominal charge) and look for the folks chasing rainbow- colored saucers through the trees.

"The Masters only impacts us one week a year," Flynn said. The other 51 weeks, "Augusta is just a sweet Southern town."

Watch weather, not pace

Georgia's second-oldest and second-largest city has been recording meteorological changes since 1870, the year President Ulysses S. Grant authorized the formation of a U.S. weather service.

The National Weather Service information streams nonstop on the corner of 11th Street and the Riverwalk. I sat through four cycles of weather, including the forecast for the mountains and beaches of neighboring states, not leaving until I knew for certain how to dress the next day.

The five-block, multilevel walk is as languid as the Savannah River, which separates Georgia and South Carolina. Ducking into an alcove with benches, I watched tiny birds swoop through the trees and over the heads of children romping on a jungle gym in Oglethorpe Park. On the river, a single scull floated by, briefly intersecting with a runner racing up and down the steps of an amphitheater.

The esplanade fronts a number of Augusta attractions, such as the Morris Museum of Art, which celebrates Southern artists. At the front desk, the docent directed me not to the exhibit titled "Fore!: Images in Golf" but to the hyper- realist watercolors of Mary Whyte.

The Charleston, S.C., painter documents the blue-collar jobs that once flourished there: shrimping, spinning, cotton picking.

According to my watch, I had 35 minutes to view 50 pieces. The employee, noting my predicament, invited me back for free. He didn't want me to rush, a concept that's anathema in Augusta.

Speed is not required on the self-guided walking tour of four main thoroughfares, either.

"It is not expected that anyone will take the entire downtown walking tour at one time during one visit," advised the Historic Augusta planners in their online instructions.

I decided to focus on local personalities honored with statues, such as Gen. James Edward Oglethorpe, who established the town in 1736, and James Brown, the Godfather of Soul, who funky-chickened to stardom. Woodrow Wilson, who resided here from 1860-70, earned more than a simple rendering: The 28th president's boyhood home is enshrined.

Surprisingly, Henry Harford Cumming appears neither as a sculpture nor a brick house nor a water fountain. Poor Henry. But I tracked him down inside the Augusta Canal National Heritage Area Interpretive Center, his black-and-white image still dapper.

Cumming was the idea guy behind the canal, which was built in 1845 and gave Augusta a much-needed shot. Once a thriving trade center, the agriculture-based community needed a jolt to counter a depression, the railroad and competition. The canal allowed the city to harness energy from the river to power mills and factories that produced an array of products, including gunpowder during the Civil War. (The 153-foot-tall Confederate Powder Works chimney still stands as a memorial to wartime industriousness.) In the late 19th century, about a dozen mills lined the banks. Today, only three plants – one textile, two hydroelectric – are in operation.

But there's still a lot of life along the 13-mile canal route. On an electric boat, a replica of mule-drawn cargo vessels that once plied these waters, I waved to half-alert fishermen, their lines awaiting a bite. Turtles sprawled on logs; a blue heron skimmed the still surface.

It was a lazy afternoon, antidote to a busy morning.

Back on course

At the same early hour as a half-marathon that diced up the town, about 60 disc golf players had congregated at Pendleton King Park, a 64-acre bird sanctuary with an 18-hole course. I was caddying for Flynn, carrying a small camera bag of discs.

For two hours, I tailed my foursome, the bag bouncing against my back as I hoofed it up hills and along forested paths and around a goose pond. On the seventh hole, I resigned.

This happens to me with organized sports; I sometimes drift away from the action. But I lasted much longer with disc golf than I ever have with golf-golf, including the Masters.

© Copyright The Sacramento Bee. All rights reserved.

• Read more articles by Andrea Sachs

Order Reprint