Statesman

Issue date: 5/6/09 Section: Outdoors

Media Credit: Scott Schmidley David Norgren tees off during a UMD disc golf tournament last Saturday.

Disc golf is certainly comparable to traditional golf, but with disc golf there are no clubs, cleats or plaid socks.

"The ace is pretty uncommon, you only see a couple of them each year," said UMD secondary education major Tyler Masseth.

The "ace" he was talking about is disc golf lingo for the elusive hole-in-one, the occurrence of which is one of many distinctions between traditional and disc golfing. Unfortunately, the day snuck by without any aces from competitors at UMD's first disc golf tournament.

UMD's nine-hole disc golf course has been up since the end of last summer, and on Saturday, May 2, students got a chance to play it competitively. All competing teams received T-shirts, but new discs went to the winners of the tournament.

Team Mo-town, consisting of UMD students Eric Dowling and Tyler Masseth, won the tournament after a nail-biting, three-hole, sudden-death round.

"The only way to get better is practice," Masseth said during the first round of the tournament. Freshmen Kyle Halverson agreed, "to get good, go get a good set of discs, a set you like, and head to the course. I got mine at Air Traffic in the Twin Cities, but you can find some great deals online."

The first hole at UMD's disc golf course starts on the corner of College Street and Kirby Drive; the course finishes at hole nine by Junction Apartments. For students who have never used the course before, it has fairways that range 160-225 feet, and all holes are par three.

Associate Director of Recreational Sports Outdoor Programming (RSOP) at UMD, Tim Bates, said on Saturday that students who are interested or new to disc golf can rent discs for free on campus from the RSOP Rental Center.

UMD's disc golf course takes from around 30 minutes to an hour to play all nine holes. The competitors at the tournament said it is perfect for breaks between classes (or finals) when the weather is pleasant.

Team Mo-town finished the tournament with a score of five over par, before winning in sudden death. Think you can beat it? Then get out and hone your skills this summer because Bates said there will most likely be another RSOP disc golf tournament this upcoming fall.

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