The Other Course

They gather on the steps of Mead Chapel, some dressed for the occasion, others wearing the clothes they wore to class, and make small talk while waiting for the one or two inevitable latecomers. When everyone is in place, materials in hand, they come together and perform an age-old hand ritual to determine their order. Then, one by one, each launches his disc into the air — some over the heads of curious passerbys, unaware that, by ascending up the path to the chapel, they are in fact walking the length of the first fairway. Do they call them fairways, on The Other Course, I wonder as I watch my four companions “pulls” — Frisbee-speak for drive. It’s immaterial, ultimately, as the five of us saunter down the campus’s main walkway, our backs to the setting sun — there are too many other things I want to ask.

“I’ve noticed the air is so much better in the fall,” says Sam Hage ’16, a sophomore member of the Middlebury Pranksters, the College’s ultimate frisbee team.

“No, summer nights are the best,” contests Jeff Hetzel ’14, the captain of the Pranksters, the reigning D-III national champions. “Air is huge — we got a great night for air.”

The Other Course is made up of a crisscrossing circuit of “holes” stretching as far South as McCullough, as far East as Old Chapel, reaching Munroe at its northern-most point and Proctor terrace at its Western tip, before concluding where it begins, at the entrance to the chapel. It’s an eccentric course that requires participants to map the flight plans of their Frisbees — you call them discs if you want to be taken seriously — through tree branches, around buildings and, at times, over people.

“When we were here this summer, during language schools, we got yelled at by some old Russian professors,” senior Ben Savard ’14 says. He puts on his best Russian accent: “This is not for you … this is not your place!”

“On the eighth hole you have to drive over the picnic tables outside Proctor and we took adequate precautions to make sure no one got hit,” Hage says.

“This is not your place!” Savard repeats, for good measure.

Hetzel begins his round with a pair of birdies by hitting the fourth lamppost from the top of the hill in three tosses and then, from there, striking the face of the clock outside McCullough in as many throws.  He does so using primarily backhands — preferred for distance — save for the sharp-angled shot to connect with the clock face, which is better suited for a forehand. Hetzel quips that he is on pace to set the course record; it doesn’t quite work out that way.

Teddy Smyth ’14, who has already dropped off the pace after two holes, owns the course record, nine under, which he set in May of this year. Or at least what they think is the course record. Because, like everything else the group shares with me about the history of frisbee golf at Middlebury, the course record dates only as far back as the individual who shared it with them. In this case it’s John “Waldo” Cox ’11, who set the previous low-round playing with two discs, one all-forehand, one all-backhand, shooting a seven-under with both — or so the story goes. There is no Middlebury ultimate archive online, no post-tournament recaps on the athletics website, no college press release when, last year, the Pranksters were the only team, varsity or club, to win a national championship.

“Are you guys vandals?” inquires a faux-suspicious student. The others are too busy attempting to land their discs on the top step of Old Chapel to answer, so I tell her they’re playing disc golf. My answer seems to perturb her more than if they really had been vandals.

We finish the rest of the round without further incident — the angry Russian professors are months and continents away — save for a few altruistic students, determined to return the discs to their owners. They can’t realize they’re just another element — another hazard, if you will — of The Other Course. And how could they? The course is unmarked, goes unrecognized by tour guides and, unless the faithful few who play it are in the middle of a round, reverts to its resting function: as your footpath to the library; the reminder that you’re five minutes late to your class in Axinn; the stone steps where Otter Nonsense initiated you to Middlebury on prospective student day.

 

-Damon Hatheway ’13.5 is a sports editor from London, U.K.