The Evergreen State College (Evergreen) brings the broader community to its verdant campus in many ways. One of those is with outdoor recreational opportunities like the college’s disc golf course in Olympia that is open to students, non-students, casual players, serious competitors and even pros.

Partnership Between Evergreen and South Puget Sound Disc Golf Association

The Evergreen State College disc golf course is a product of a community partnership with the South Puget Sound Disc Golf Association (SPSDGA). “It started out as nine holes,” says John Anderson, SPSDGA president and the local staff pro at Olympia’s PackEx Disc Golf store, which sells discs. The SPSDGA promotes the sport of disc golf as well as builds and supports courses. The SPSDGA and the college established the Evergreen disc golf course, and SPSDGA maintains it. “It became 18 holes about four years ago and it took a long time to get it into playing shape,” Anderson says. “It’s been a long process.”

“The community built this,” Anderson adds. “And it’s been a good thing for the college. It’s another thing for students to do.”

Evergreen’s Disc Golf Course Features

Disc golf is like traditional golf, but a player throws plastic discs down the course into elevated chain link baskets, rather than using a club to hit balls into holes in the ground. Typically, players must also maneuver the discs through trees. In fact, the reported motto for disc golf is: “That was perfect! Except for that tree.”

Evergreen’s 18-hole intermediate-to-advanced course is more than 7,000 feet in length and is located near the college’s athletic fields. The par-57 course leads through old growth forest and open fields with some long fairways, and some have slight elevation changes. This course has three par-4 holes, and the remainder are par-3 holes.

The Evergreen course offers several other features, too. One is the ability for players to use the UDisc app, an application which not only finds courses, leagues and scores but also tracks stats and measures throws. Another bonus is a lost and found box conveniently located on the course with a concrete walk leading to it. Golfers can drop other players’ lost discs into the box. Players looking for their missing discs can contact PackEx Disc Golf, which is where…