Disc golf fever: New course at John A. Logan College part of a regional trend - The Southern

CARTERVILLE — “Nice! Solid!” one golfer said to another as they watched his disc whiz through tree branches, avoid the pond and land squarely in the fairway, setting him up for an easy putt. “Uggggg — every time,” said another as his disc fell short of the basket. “Ahhh, denied — again,” rang out from another player a bit later.

As they made their way around the course, the men who gathered for a game of disc golf on the John A. Logan campus Thursday afternoon delivered numerous attaboys for well-delivered throws, and groaned and razzed each other over misfires. It sounded a lot like a game of traditional golf.

Disc golf is not a new sport.

But signs point to it growing in popularity throughout Southern Illinois in recent years. The concept of the game is similar to golf, as the name suggests. Except instead of swinging clubs at a hard little ball toward a hole in the ground, the game's objective is to get a hard disc into a basket — with metal chains attached to a pole — in the least amount of throws.

Much of the terminology is the same as well. The first throw is called a “drive.” The course at John A. Logan includes pro and amateur tees. Short tosses near the basket are known as “putts.” Most courses consist of nine or 18 "holes" or baskets.

The joys and frustrations — of sending an object sailing perfectly through the air in the direction intended, or flicking it into the water or out of bounds, into the rough — are also similar.

John A. Logan’s course opened last November. But it really began seeing heavy usage this year, said Rob Craig, the department chair of Applied Technologies and a faculty adviser for the John A. Logan Disc Golf Club.

Craig said he picked up the game of disc golf when he was a faculty member at Southern Illinois University. The disc golf course by Campus Lake was one of the pioneering ones in the region. “They taught me how to play,” he said of friends and colleagues at SIU.

“I just fell in love with the game at that point.” A few years ago, Craig said he connected with one of his John A. Logan students, Nate Shurtleff, over their shared interest in the game. He decided to set up a practice basket on campus, where students congregated outside in nice weather. Between classes, students would throw around a bit with the discs Craig left in the basket for them. “I’d join them and show them techniques,” he said. “Nate would do the same.”

As interest grew, the two got to talking and dreaming: Maybe they should try to build a course on campus. Craig approached the administration, and they met his idea with enthusiasm. He applied for a grant last year to the John A. Logan Foundation, and was awarded nearly $5,000 to build it. “We spent a ton of hours out here, putting stakes in the ground, throwing around from stake to stake. We spent hours doing this until we felt like we had a good layout,” he said.

It helped that Shurtleff had built a disc golf course before. Several years prior, Shurtleff was an employee of the Carbondale Park District when he was assigned the task of building a disc golf course at Hickory Ridge Golf Course. It was a project the park had agreed to undertake at the request of SIU’s disc golf club. Shurtleff said he’d never played before, but after hours of working on the course, figured he should enjoy the fruits of his labor — at least once. He gave it a try one day. He’s been playing since.

Now a junior studying avionics at SIU, Shurtleff still returns to the John A. Logan campus to play the course he helped build. He said that one of the best parts about it is that the course is great for dedicated players, but also for students who just want to get out and move around between classes. “You can just get up and chuck a couple of holes. It’s better than sitting in your car studying or playing on your phone,” he said. “It gets a little physical activity in you and your brain works better when you do that.”

They named the course at the southeast entrace to campus Black Jack Disc Golf — a nod to Civil War Gen. John A. Logan’s nickname. Silkworm in Murphysboro created the logo, which features a sword-wielding Logan on a charging horse. “They nailed it,” Craig said. The course hosted its first tournament during Hunting & Fishing Days last weekend, sponsored by Innova Disc Golf.

The Black Jack course is one of a number of newly built or planned courses for the region.

“It’s just exploding everywhere,” said John Wingate of Anna. Wingate helped spur the development of a new disc golf course at the city park in Cobden that opened in August. Wingate said people from throughout Union County and the broader region starting using it the week it opened, and more people are coming out as word spreads.

The course borders the Cobden school district. Students also utilize it frequently after school and as part of their physical education classes. Constructing a course can cost between $4,000 to $8,000. The village covered the up-front cost. Now, Cobden is selling sponsorships at each hole to area businesses and hosting other fundraisers to recover expenses. Discs with the Appleknocker logo on them are available for $10 at Village Hall, Wingate said. Its opening will be officially celebrated on Oct. 26 with a ribbon cutting that will kick off a doubles tournament.

Wingate said the addition of new courses in the region is exciting for players. They also have the potential to attract tourists from beyond Southern Illinois, he said.

Marion opened its 18-hole Pharaoh’s Way Disc Golf course in Pyramid Park in 2016.

There are three in Carbondale. In addition to the one at Hickory Ridge and the one near Campus Lake, there’s another on the SIU campus near the Student Recreation Center. There’s also a course at Fort Massac State Park in Metropolis.

Wingate is also encouraging Anna to get in the game.

Anna City Administrator Dori Bigler said the council recently heard a presentation by Wingate on the benefits of building a course, and creative ways to help pay for it. She expects council members will talk about it further in upcoming meetings, and hopes to see them consider one for the Anna City Park. Bigler said she’s talked with Cobden village officials about theirs. “People are coming from all over and using their course,” she said “They are pretty surprised. Once built, it's low maintenance for the city, she said. And it may help draw people to town. “And if they drive this way, they might need gas. Maybe they’ll stop for lunch,” she said.

Jake Dotson, of Johnson City, said it’s a great activity because it’s relatively inexpensive — a disc costs between $10 and $20 — and it's relatively accessible to people of a variety of ages and athletic abilities. He encourages people who have never heard of disc golf, or who may have seen people playing and been curious about it, to give it a try.

“It’s all about having fun,” said Dotson, who was among the group playing a round Thursday on the John A. Logan campus. A sophomore studying computer support networking, Dotson is president of the John A. Logan Disc Golf Club. He said that like traditional golf, it’s a congenial activity. If someone loses a disc, it’s likely to be returned by another player to its owner. Walking the course allows a lot of opportunity for camaraderie.

“That’s the one thing about disc golf that I really, really liked and why I got sucked into it — the community of it,” Dotson said.

2019-10-06 05:00:00Z
https://thesouthern.com/news/local/disc-golf-fever-new-course-at-john-a-logan-college/article_39ccd939-52b9-5756-a4c1-3d8ef6716a20.html