EA
TURE
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN 11
RECREATION
Spinning back into style
Disc golf has been around since the 70s but has gained momentum
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BY DANI HURST • DHURST@KANSAN.COM • KANSAN STAFF WRITER • PHOTOS BY JOSHUA BICKE
Keith Lake, Lawrence resident and KU alumnus, prepares to throw his disc during a round of disc golf Thursday night at Centennial Park. Lake said playing disc golf was a cheap sport that allowed him to spend time outside with his friends and get exercise.
Josh Levine stood on the concrete slab marked with a large painted 17 , which marked the 17th hole and clutched the orange disc in his right hand, squinting against the sun toward the disc golf target. He took a few steps back, ran forward and flung the disc into the air. It sailed a little too far to the left and hit the grass, finally rolling to a stop. His disc didn't land nearly as close to the target as any of his friends' discs — it almost landed in the street — but he didn't look disappointed. He simply trotted to the grounded disc, picked it up and flung again.
Levine, Omaha, Neb., graduate student, was playing with three of his friends, all of whom enjoyed the fast-paced and fast-growing sport for different reasons.
Disc golf is nothing new. People have been chucking flying discs at targets in disc golf fashion since the 70s, but the sport has gained momentum in recent years.
terrible reasons.
This was the first day in four years that Levine had played disc golf. So why hop back on the wagon?
"It's just fun," Levine said, the front and back of his grey T-shirt soaked with sweat. Levine said that although hed seen people of all ages playing disc golf at the park, he considered it a "young" sport.
Tom French, Omaha, Neb., senior, said he liked disc golf because it was "cheap, fast fun."
Another one of the group, Rene McNulti, Omaha, Neb., senior, said he played to stay active because hed been "getting a little chubby."
The best part of disc golf for Matt Hallberg, Omaha, Neb., senior, was "being able to come out and whoop my friends' asses."
So just throw a disc and land it in a metal basket? Is that all?
Eager beginners, beware. Disc golf courses are usually built in places that pose natural obstacles. These obstacles are a huge part of the game because they increase the difficulty of
each hole. They cannot be altered or ignored, and thus participants must play around trees and shrubs, in ditches and through tall weeds.
And that, essentially, is what disc golf is all about.
Brett Knight, sales associate at Sunflower Outdoor and Bike Shop, 804 Massachusetts St., is one of the people in charge of ordering new discs for the store every week. Knight said the store had recently increased its weekly orders. He said that last summer's order was roughly $700 every other week.
According to the Professional Disc Golf Association Web site, www.pdga.com, the goal of the game is to complete a course in the fewest number of throws of the disc. Each player stands at the "tee," or a designated spot for the start of every hole, and throws the disc toward the "hole," which in this case is a metal pole with chains descending from the top and meeting at a basket about a foot below the top that surrounds the pole and catches the disc.
It's free to play the game but depending on how competitively one might want to play the game dictates the cost. If one wanted only to play with friends for fun, like Levine and his friends, then one or two discs would serve just fine.
For those a little more serious, however, there are many types of discs with many different functions. There are drivers for long distances, mid-range drivers for shorter distances and putters for up close. The drivers are thinner so they can fly farther while the putters are thicker and land heavier. The mid-range drivers fall in between the two.
There are currently three disc golf courses around Lawrence: Centennial Park Disc Golf Course, 600 Rockledge St.; Burcham Park, 200 Indiana St.; and Clinton Park, 901 W. Fifth St.
- Edited by Adrienne Bommarito