COLUMN: Hate the player, not the game
I spent my summer installing security systems on the beautiful island of Oahu in Hawaii. The place where I lived for three months straddled one of the premiere golf courses on the west part of the island. Personally, I enjoy golf just enough to get through the frustration of nine holes on a Saturday morning.
My love for the game resides more in the form of golf played with flying discs. I have several reasons for this preference. Among the more important are the fact that it is significantly easier to find a 9-inch diameter disc in the rough. Furthermore, one does not have to hit said disk with a four-foot long glorified stick, all-the-while keeping one’s shoulders level and carefully bending one’s knees. The requisite level of frustration is still there as you throw the disc well off your target, but your target is a metal frame basket sitting three feet off the ground as opposed to a small hole with a flag sticking out of it.
Naturally, upon returning to Logan, I wanted to go play a round or two at the disc golf course by the Lundstrom Center. Upon asking a friend to join me I was informed of the removal of the course. Apparently, unreported damage of property had been caused by irresponsible disc golfers. Disappointed as I was and continue to be, the problem was somewhat legitimate. If you need proof of this, look no further then the heavily-cratered, south-facing stucco wall of the Lundstrom Center. This leads me to wonder, however, why they would have a stucco wall right down range from the tee of hole 9. It seems more strange when you consider that most of the other student halls that the course weaved through are built of sturdy brick. It is clear that the course designers weren’t paying attention to the ending of the three little pigs. While weaving it’s way through the student halls, however, the course passed several parking lots packed with cars. Anybody who plays disc golf knows that bad throws happen, and all too often, an innocent resident’s car is on the receiving end. I can only to assume that several owners of these cars reported damage assumed to be caused by an errant disc. If I could jump into the past and give a word of advice to these people, it would be this: “Don’t park your car so close to the course if you are worried about plastic discs scuffing your car; get some much needed exercise by walking the extra hundred feet or so to a safer spot.”
I hear essentially the same argument when people build their over-sized houses on a golf course and then complain about broken windows or yard furniture … same problem, same solution.
Are the rest of us to be held responsible for a lack of judgment? I feel safe to assume that those who complained about the course were not those that played it. In a world where most everything good is being plagued by budget cuts, they choose to take away something that used equipment owned outright by the city, and played on property shared with residence halls packed with paying college students. The location with its open fields and well-placed trees was ideal for the course.
As for the now former location, it is with somber regret that we inform all incoming freshmen that they will not have a disc golf course right at their doorstep. We say farewell to the awkward comic relief that comes from a disc flying past two freshman as they share their first kiss, or the welcome whizzing that replaces the silence as two high-school lovers break up after seeing the world differently in college. I suppose I can relate to one of those broken lovers as I think about the departed course. Something has been taken away from me and I want it back … only better this time around.
And so we look to the future. Apparently the 9 goals still belong to the city of Logan, which leads me to expect, if not demand, a course somewhere, sometime in the near future. A visit over the weekend to Merlin Olsen park has lead me to believe that a course skirting the park would be the best option. Perhaps a challenging course on Old Main Hill could be a viable alternative. To anybody who may be in charge of a hopeful relocation, let me say simply that I want a disc golf course in Logan again. I long for the option of a sport that can easily be played by anybody at essentially any time of the year. I long for the challenge of a new course. And most of all, I long for the sound of the chains as a disc lands in the basket, signalling to one and all that a Logan course is back for good.
Tyler Barlow is a sophomore in computer engineering. He can be reached at tyler.barlow@aggiemail.usu.edu