Disc golf course now open

Abbey Heimlich
Special to the Critic

Club raises funds to build course for community.

Lyndon State officially opened its new disc golf course with a ribbon cutting ceremony on Saturday September 20th.

“It’s a wonderful way for students to recreate,” said Jonathan Davis, the Interim Assistant Dean of Student Affairs. “It’s non-invasive in terms of the environment, and a safe way to have fun on campus.”

Davis, Jamie Struck adjunct professor for the Recreation Department and Tom Kurtz a junior Music Industry and Business Administration major, all cut ribbons at the ceremony. In addition to the ribbon cutting the course was crowned with a plaque stating the rules of the game.

Struck described disc golf as “a combination of Frisbee and playing pool. You have to think of angle, speed and flight path.” The game is greatly increasing in popularity. “In 1974 there was one course, now there are over 1500,” Struck said. Some regular golf clubs and even some ski resorts are putting in their own disk golf courses.
“It’s great because no expensive equipment is needed,” Davis said. All you need is a Frisbee, though some people play with professional disc golf discs.

Players start at a tee and throw their discs as far as they can toward the hole: a pole with metal chains hanging down it to form a basket. There is a set par for each hole. The par for the course of nine holes at Lyndon is 27.

“It’s great because the student population responded to it,” Struck said. Struck had designed a course on his own property, and played on four other courses in the area. He brought students to play his course and they asked him why LSC didn’t have a course of its own.

The Ultimate Frisbee Club requested an estimated five thousand dollars for the course from the Student Government Association and began working on it at the end of last semester.

“Help from the disc golf community made it completely worthwhile,” Struck said. “They made it theirs by cutting trees or giving time to clear brush.” The course was constructed with the original landscape in mind. Struck kept in mind the lanes and alleys within the forest that made a natural path for play.

The first hole is located in the field below the Rita Bole parking lot. From there it goes up and down hills through the woods circling around the lower half of campus. It ends at the top of the hill by the baseball fields.

“Anyone from the school, the town or even the state can play,” said Kurtz. While working on the course this summer Struck ran into visitors playing the course. They told him “ its not just a disc golf course, it’s a great disc golf course.”

There are future plans for disc golf tournaments against other school such as Johnson State who also have a disc golf course. Struck would also like to create a class to teach people to play the game.