I was walking through the park in Lethbridge, Alberta a couple of weeks ago and became fascinated by what I thought were very strange looking litter bins.
It was quickly pointed out to me that in fact they were ‘golf holes’ designed to be used with a Frisbee or a disk. Apparently ‘disk golf’ is pretty popular in USA and Canada – but I had never heard of it before.
When I took these pictures it was a rainy day but when I drove past a few days later there were loads of people playing it on a Sunday afternoon (some people even had different colored disks designed to be thrown different distances!).
What I thought was good about it was how an activity like this could really add values to a public space. I also wondered how easy it would be to re-create this activity on school playing fields or open spaces near schools.
Courses wouldn’t need to be permanent like the one that I saw in Canada – you could easily set up temporary ones or have the children design their own course using their local surroundings. The cost to a school buying twenty Frisbees is very cheap compared to an investment in other sporting equipment.
Interestingly, there are actually a few permanent disk golf courses in the UK and Ultimate Frisbee is also a pretty popular activity at Universities.
The idea of engaging young people in ‘hybrid sports’ is one that really fascinates me. Louise Jones was telling me about ‘Cage Cricket’ a few months ago and again I think that this would be really popular with young people.
Have a look at the YouTube video below if you have not heard of Cage Cricket before.
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