Frisbee Golf at Capitol!

If you’ve been out and about on the Capitol campus recently, you may have noticed green, yellow or red ribbon wrapped around some of the trees. Some new wooden posts have also been set up. What is this all about?

The answer: Capitol now has a 9-hole frisbee golf course. Professor Alex “Sandy” Antunes and student Anthony Lacilla set it up in early March, and the Frisbee Club then gave it a spin.

“Last summer, I thought a course might be a good idea to add some sportiness to Capitol, so I took a few students to the College Park course to see if there was interest,” Antunes explains. “They liked it, so I asked [Supervisor of Buildings and Grounds] Bruce Ribb for permission for me to non-destructively tag trees and posts with nylon webbing, and he said okay.”

“Anthony joined up and moved things forward by asserting ‘hey, let's finally do this!’. He and I paced out a good course in under an hour. Later that week, we grabbed the webbing and tagged the first five, then he drafted the Frisbee Team to finish the back four, and it was done!”

The rules in frisbee golf are not unlike those used in the club-and-ball form of the sport. A certain number of tosses is set as the par for reaching each tagged item. Players have to get within an arm’s reach of the target in order for a toss to count as “in”. Scores are tallied as the total number over or under par. After that, each player takes up to three steps and fires away at the next hole.

Capitol’s nine-hole course begins at the end of the basketball court and ends at the soccer goals. It's a two-part course; after the first five, players go to the trashcan on the sidewalk outside the McGowan Building to begin the last four.

“We set it up to specifically avoid the birdhouses, the cars, and [Director of Student Life and Residential Services] Jason Kilmer’s house,” Antunes says. “As a bonus, it explores the tall hill and back  glade, which usually see little student activity.”

In total, the course amounts to a half-mile of pleasant walking.  Players can run it solo or in a group. They are allowed to use either a regular frisbee or the special smaller frisbees favored by frisbee golfers (and available at Sports Authority or the College Park Airport Museum for under $10).  The 'holes' are tagged with hand-tied rock climbing webbing, which can easily be removed or replaced if needed. 

“If there's great interest someday, we can consider adding the official baskets favored by the sport, but for now it's a simple, easy, and fun addition to our campus for spring and beyond,” Antunes says.