Flying high

Kirk Yoo is too slow to play Ultimate Frisbee and too frugal to play golf, so he plays disc golf instead. It’s free of charge and still all in the wrist.

Yoo, a member of the Professional Disc Golf Association’s Board of Directors, was one of 89 competitors in the fifth annual Tar Heel Tournament on July 16 and July 17 at the newly revamped course behind UNC-Chapel Hill’s Outdoor Education Center.

Disc golf, which originated in the 1970s, is played on a par system like traditional golf, only the ball is replaced with thick, plastic Frisbee-like discs that are thrown toward a metal basket.

Last weekend’s contest was organized by the Carolina Disc Golf Club — a group that has been reinitiated as a campus organization after it expired last semester.

Andrew George, a second-year ecology graduate student, is the president of the disc golf club. He worked to pull the club back together when it was suffering organizationally, and he led the effort to spruce up the course.

“It’s a diamond in the rough,” he said. “It’s one of the best courses on the East Coast.”

When George realized several months ago that some of the bike trails behind the outdoor center were not being used, he saw the opportunity to build two new, more difficult holes in the woods.

The outdoor center, the University and a group of volunteers pitched in concrete, new baskets and hours of labor.

This came after a basket was stolen last semester and many of the course’s existing baskets were in poor repair.

Their goal was to finish improving the course by the tournament’s date, and the Friday before the first disc was thrown, George said, the finishing touches were still being added.

Players were split into five divisions for the tournament: Open, Masters, Advanced, Intermediate and Intermediate Women. The largest division was Advanced with 33 entries.

Taylor Adams, a rising freshman at N.C. State University, played in the tournament and helped with the course improvement.

“It’s the best I’ve ever seen it,” he said.

The world’s largest disc-golf company, Charlotte-based Innova, sponsored the tournament, along with the Raleigh Area Disc League. The Triangle has a flourishing population of disc golfers, with at least seven courses in the area alone and several world-class players in the region.

One such Raleigh native is professional disc golfer Walt Haney, who finished sixth in the Open division Sunday.

“Other than California, Michigan and Texas, our state has the most courses and the toughest pro field,” he said. “It would be hard to place well from out of state.”

Another tournament player, “Diamond” Dave McQuay, pointed at Haney as he passed by.

“He’s a god,” said McQuay, who placed fifth. Haney is sponsored by Innova and plays in approximately 25 tournaments a year for money. On Saturday, he carried 18 multi-colored discs in his shoulder-slung bag, but he has upwards of 600 at home, he said.

McQuay is no beginner, either. With 14 years of experience playing in the Triangle, he holds records for “speed golf,” which is disc golf at running speed.

He achieved a score of 11 under par in 11 minutes. McQuay said the landscape — there are open, grassy parts as well as hilly and wooded sections — is what makes the UNC-CH course so appealing.

George estimated that at least 50 people play the course every day, most of whom are students with the majority of them being graduate students.

He said that in the future, he wants more undergraduates to join the club, which currently has approximately 60 active members.

“The course is reborn, and I think the improvements make it more challenging — but a lot more fun,” he said.

Like most courses, it is free to the public, and it only takes a little more than an hour to play a round.

But if you go, just don’t talk during tee off — it’s still bad manners.

Contact the University Editor at udesk@unc.edu.