Students gathered in room 220 for Disc Golf Club’s first meeting hosted by junior and club leader Will DiCarlo. Disc golf is a sport similar to golf in which players attempt to get frisbees into an elevated basket using as few throws as possible. Freshman and Disc Golf Club member Andy Wang said the sport is unique in that it combines hiking and throwing frisbees.

“It incorporates many different things,” Wang said. “It’s like hiking while playing a different kind of frisbee at the same time. I feel like it’s slightly frowned upon, but it’s a really good time.”

According to DiCarlo, disc golf allows one to explore in nature while simultaneously playing a sport. DiCarlo said the sport is enjoyable because it allows one to compete with friends.

“It’s fun just because you’re walking through nature and you’re hucking plastic, you’re just having fun in the woods, throwing discs around and competing with each other,” DiCarlo said. “I really like hiking, and so I just like walking around in nature, and disc golf just adds an extra layer on that of competition and proving to your friends that you’re better.”

Senior and disc golf player Carly Atwell said that disc golf can help players improve their ultimate frisbee game. Atwell said that disc golf helps people to improve at throwing discs greater distances, a skill required for pulls, which are similar to kick-offs in football.

“I think playing disc golf helps especially with pulls in ultimate,” Atwell said. “How you start each point is you throw the disc from one end of the field to the other team, and so disc golf really helps with that because you’re…trying to throw it really far and get it to go straight. And so that helps a lot with pulling in ultimate because you’re trying to throw the disc as far as you can and have it get a really long hang time. But it’s kind of weird in that disc golf [discs] act a little bit differently in the air than ultimate frisbees do.”

DiCarlo said that there are several differences in the behavior of of disc golf discs compared to regular ultimate discs. According to DiCarlo, disc golf discs curve in the air differently than ultimate frisbee discs.

“If you throw a backhand in ultimate, it’ll curve to the right oftentimes, and if you throw a flick, it’ll curve to the left if you throw it hard enough,” DiCarlo said. “But in disc golf, when you throw a backhand it nearly always goes to the left. And when you throw a flick, it nearly always goes to the right; you have to throw it a lot harder to make it go the opposite way of how it usually goes.”

In addition to disc golf discs behaving differently in the air, Wang said they also come in different sizes than ultimate frisbees. Disc golf discs are smaller and vary based on the distance they are meant to be thrown.

“There are three basic ones: There’s a long-range one, a medium-range one and a close-range one,” Wang said. “And they’re all shaped differently than ultimate frisbee discs, and the disc itself is smaller than a regular ultimate frisbee disc.”

Along with the sizes and behaviors of the discs, Atwell said the courses disc golf is played on make it unique. According to Atwell, the variations in each individual course allow players to have different experiences each time they play.

“If you played soccer, basketball or volleyball or whatever, you could go anywhere and find like a volleyball court or basketball court or a field to play a field sport on,” Atwell said. “You could probably do the same for disc golf except wherever you are playing disc golf, it’s going to be like a different experience where whatever course you’re going to, just because of the nature of that whatever is in your path makes it a different challenge each time.”

According to DiCarlo, many make the mistake of only factoring in power when throwing in disc golf. DiCarlo said that he has learned to ensure his throws are smooth and straight.

“A lot of people, they’ll just step up there and they’ll try to huck it really hard and it’ll go all over the place and all wobbly, but you really gotta stay focused and throw it smooth,” DiCarlo said. “The main thing I’ve learned about getting better in disc golf is that you got to always keep the disc smooth and not coming wobbly out of your hands.”

While achieving the perfect throw is a difficult part of disc golf, Atwell said the trees along the courses also present a challenge. According to Atwell, the hardest part of the sport is finding discs that get lost in the trees.

“Honestly, probably just finding the disc that go way off into the trees, that’s the hardest sometimes,” Atwell said. “I’ve spent like hours just looking for a disc that gets lost in the woods.”

While disc golf might have challenging aspects, Wang said that the sport has the potential to teach participants a life lesson. He said that disc golf allows him to become more patient.

“Patience, I think, like not giving up after, you know, you throw into the woods like six times in a row, but to keep going, trying to get the angle,” Wang said.