Disk golf's ingenious solution to campus construction

I have put off this column for many months, purposefully. However, after a long, dull summer I've been back on campus for a little over a week, and in my brief moments of sobriety I've observed that this campus might be doomed.

In the waning weeks of summer there is only darkness — do not be fooled by the heat nor by the light. We all live in the Matrix, the Matrix that is Princeton.

They (benefactors, administrators, future Princeton students) take our green space, destroying and replacing the only thing (green!) we really need on this campus to survive (check with biology professors on this fact) and to keep sane.

Awfully soon we'll have no green space left. Poe Field, which a mere three years ago was Princeton's own version of Central Park, seems the victim of a monster truck derby, all mud and truck tracks now.

West Windsor field, you say? Okay, see you in 20 minutes.

And Alexander Beach? The sound of the waves are drowned out by jack hammer, electric drill, and bull dozer.

What this all does is push us inside buildings on campus — back into hot dorm rooms, the library, the fitness center, or the tap rooms of eating clubs (not a wholly terrible alternative). Where are the babes playing beach volleyball? The outdoor softball games fueled by keg beer? The multitude of soccer fields keeping sane our foreign graduate student brethren?

I said we might be doomed because I'm seriously questioning what there is to do.

I've found one group that has the answer. Back in the spring, when things were slowly getting muddier, I noticed a small cult which took to the streets, nightly, and engaged in a new, egalitarian form of golf, played with a flying disk.

These individuals treated campus as one big golf course, looking past the stone, entering construction sites when necessary, and enjoying a campus which truly has charm.

So I followed them.

The players have found what seems an ideal alternative game for campus living. Although it's almost a rule that they play late at night, so as to ensure a campus as devoid of people as possible, it is Princeton's emptiness which makes the game so peaceful and connective to campus itself.

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The rules of disk golf are, naturally, very much like those of golf. The course, whose designer is unknown, meanders through campus beginning behind Nassau Hall and appropriately ending there. Each "hole" has a specific area from which players throw, and a target, generally measured between three and five throws away (hence each hole designed as a par three, four or five) which players must hit with his disk.

Each road on campus is considered a water hazard.

A player must play his disk from where it lands. This makes for some interesting throws at times. One of the players I was following climbed on the roof of 1915 Hall and, using the hands of his playing partner and the drain pipe as a ladder, climbed up to fetch and throw his disk. From there he made an unbelievable par save.

If a competitor hits a pedestrian or public safety officer, he takes a one stroke penalty.

The players have a particularly queer fascination with hitting the various sculptures spread around campus, including using Nixon's Nose by West College as a target on one hole.

They have found green where green does not exist, and in the process have made the best of a campus which is slowly evolving.

The disk golfers have the right idea. Though green might have disappeared, somewhat, this campus is our playground. Whether academically, extracurricularly, or socially, there is a lot here to explore and experience, if you open your eyes and think just a tad differently.

And don't get caught up in the little stuff. When asked about their perception around campus, one disk player remarked, "We acknowledge that we're weird. Some people think it's cool we're playing, some people think it's weird. Whatever."

Whatever is right.