It has been almost a year since quarantine began, and everyone has been finding different ways to relieve the stress of being stuck inside. After searching for my own form of catharsis for the majority of 2020, I finally found the objectively best activity for quarantine: disc golf.
Competition on the disc golf links can be as intense as you’d like. On some days my roommates and I wouldn’t even keep score, opting instead to just enjoy the day and our certainly-not-alcoholic beverages.
Eugene just so happens to have a handful of lovely courses like Stewart Pond and Alton Baker that offer a full 18 holes. The beauty of disc golf is that these 18 holes are nowhere near as long as those of a golf game. Instead of spending four or five hours on a course, you can spend one and a half and spend the rest of your day wallowing in the disappointment of your performance.
This brings me to the high skill cap of disc golf. Easy to learn but hard to master is the perfect description, as I can certainly throw a disc toward a basket — but getting it in efficiently is another story. If you’re looking for an opportunity to prove your commitment to mastering a niche skill, disc golf might fill that void.
Disc golf is also a great way to socialize from a distance. As long as everyone has their own discs, you’ll never have to be within 6 feet of one another.
Yet again Eugene proves itself to be an ideal location for disc golf, as the local second hand sports store Play It Again Sports has dozens of discs for as cheap as $5. Though there are a variety of different specialized discs for all possible distances and angles, you really only need one solid driver and putter. These means for $10, you can get all the equipment you need, making the hundreds spent on real golf equipment laughable.
Once you’ve joined the cult of disc golf, you’ll start to notice the signs everywhere. There are disc golf courses in every big city in America, and often also in places you wouldn’t expect like Wilder Park in Newport on the Oregon coast.
If your casual enjoyment of disc golf escalates and you find yourself in my shoes leaving your roommates miles behind in skill, there are tournaments almost every day all over Oregon. The Disc Golf Scene is a massive disc golf community that posts tournaments all over the country and offers a forum for all things disc golf.
Disc golf is sport’s best kept secret, and I apologize to the community for revealing this to the general public. Whether you’re looking for something to keep you outside, busy during COVID-19, or to fill the emptiness in your soul, disc golf is the answer.