Campus-bound athletes have a new favorite pastime: “˜frolf’

Miller will give a free round of disc golf to anyone who can
identify all of his hair products. E-mail your guesses to [email protected].

After an intense meeting with senior staff in the Sports cubicle
of the Daily Bruin office, I realized that I am not qualified to
write a column about disc golf.

I had been referring to the sport as “Frisbee golf,”
until sports columnist Jeff Agase informed me that disc golf
aficionados abhor the name “Frisbee golf” because the
discs used in this sport are not necessarily Frisbee brand, and the
discs are quite different from a traditional flying disc.

While Agase and sports editor Scott Schultz explained the subtle
differences in the shape of a “driver” and a
“putter” disc, my mind drifted to my carefree version
of the sport ““ Frisbee golf.

I realize that “Frisbee golf” is not necessarily the
appropriate nomenclature to describe the sport, and the decision to
stand by that name is surely in the spirit of the relaxed game.

Agase and Schultz assured me that playing disc golf involves a
lot of recreational drug use and alcohol consumption, and even
referred me to a beautiful course in Balboa Park, San Diego; yet,
all the pretense of the sport gave me a headache.

Enter Frisbee golf, or frolf ““ a name constructed by some
UCLA players I have befriended that combines the words
“Frisbee” and “golf” so that the
sport’s cognoscenti would not have to strain themselves
uttering an extra word when they refer to the game. I was
introduced to frolf by a UCLA freshman named Adam
“Gaducha” Hirsch, who honed his skills and developed
his love for the sport at home in San Diego and at summer camp.

Unlike the uptight establishment’s disc golf, the relaxed
version of frolf I play on campus is a very fluid game. Rules are
sharpened during each session, and our course is modified every
time my friends and I grab a couple of Frisbees late on a chilly
evening and head off into the serene night.

The campus course we have created is 18 holes, give or take a
hole depending on the wind-chill factor and how late in the evening
we begin playing.

Regretfully, the duration of the round also hinges on the number
of beers that some of my cohorts have consumed. Like golf, the
object of frolf is to get the Frisbee to the “hole”
““ the “hole” is often a door to a building, a
light post, or a Facilities Management truck ““ in as few
throws as possible.

We commence near the dorms with the first throw from the steps
above Puzzles, truly “where it all comes together,”
““ the target, a trash can below. Playing around the dorms we
often spy wide-eyed stares from students as we excitedly run to
grab our Frisbees out of bushes or from under cars.

As exemplified by the first hole, the course features many
elevation changes, making for many majestic throws.

Once on campus, players tee-off from the top of Drake
Stadium’s stands to the high-jump pits on the track below.
Standing at the top of the stadium, one can see most of the campus.
One’s visible breath fills the air in front of him as he
looks out to Royce Hall, enshrouded in fog, in the distance.

The course snakes past Pauley Pavilion, and one hole is played
up the steps directly south of Ackerman Union. Eventually players
make their way to the Math Sciences building. Here, one may indulge
in some of the products offered in the vending machines and there
is always a run-in with an opossum in the bushes.

The freaky creature, our unofficial mascot, has never formally
been made a “hole,” but the overgrown rat bears the
brunt of some frolf accuracy practice.

The portion of the course played in North Campus offers the most
amazing hole on the course ““ equivalent to the 18th hole at
Pebble Beach.  Frolfers throw off the top of Janss Steps, onto
the grassy area below, between Men’s Gym and Kaufman Hall. It
is difficult to convey the feeling that fills my heart when I watch
that tiny disc slice through the night. 

As for literary parallels, a friend of mine who played the
course, UCSD freshman David Saiger, articulated it best when he
said that throwing off the top of Janss Steps invokes a similar
feeling of elation a reader experiences when Santiago first hooks
the marlin in Ernest Hemingway’s “The Old Man and the
Sea.”

By now there are only a few holes left, culminating in the 18th
hole, hitting the Bruin Bear in front of the Morgan Center. Often
the victor chooses to ride the bear, but this is not mandatory.

Once, after a long, fulfilling round, Hirsch and I ran into some
students walking toward campus with golf clubs under their arms and
tennis balls in their hands. They smiled as they staggered toward
us, their shaky gait the product of too many beers. They
glanced at our Frisbees, noted our approval of their sporting
equipment and made a concise comment that still rings in my
mind.

“Campus sports, man.”