“Let ‘Er Fly”: Volunteer State Brings Disc Golf To Campus

By: Everett Scott

Keith M. Bell, the Athletics Committee Chair, organized an 18-hole disc golf- informally frisbee golf- course for the Gallatin Vol State campus. Along with Bobby Hudson and Will Newman, they are helping expand the reach of the game which has, “grown in popularity for the fun, exercise, and skills to be honed,” according to Bell. 

“Disc golf has been around since the ‘60s and it is soon to be a course for credit at VSCC,” said Bell in an email.  

“The UDisc Disc Golf app lets you quickly and easily keep score, find courses, track your stats, measure your throws, and so much more,” said Bobby Hudson over email. The UDisc Disc Golf app can be downloaded on the Apple Store and Google Play Store.  

The app for the Google Play Store provides a tutorial displaying all the above-mentioned features. With over 10,000 courses, you can follow maps that detail each hole in order to keep track of where you are and your progress through your chosen course. There are stat trackers that are personal to you and help you chart your improvement, but if you are the more competitive player, there are even displayed leaderboards! 

The VSCC course is already posted, and is accessible based upon student/employee ID. Images of the campus are posted and the details include course traffic. As of Nov. 13, players were found to spend 1.5 – 2.0 hours on the course.

Availability of restrooms, pet and cart accessibility, drinking water availability are also just some of the information available to players. 

But how exactly do you play disc golf? You start in what is known as the ‘teeing area’ where you begin your first throw. From there, you must throw from where your disc rests until you manage to get the disc into the metal ring. The goal is to get the fewest number of throws into the rings and play as such through the total number of holes in order based upon the hole number. A more detailed post of the rules can be found here. 

Unbeknownst to the average player, a skilled golfer could go pro playing disc golf and make a sum of money doing so. Discount Disc Golf did an article on the specific earnings, with total prize pots ranging from $5,000 to $60,000 depending on the tournament level. Certain players, such as Chris Dickerson and Kevin Jones have each won prize pots of $46,430 and $42,224 respectively. This is disregarding the sponsorships they could obtain based solely around their skill in the sport.

If you’d like to see where your skills could take you in the sport, be sure to check out Volunteer State’s Disc Golf course at your earliest convenience!