Goucher is one of the only colleges on the East Coast to have a disc golf course. Despite this, few at Goucher have played, or even know the course exists. It was designed to have 9 main holes and a practice hole. Mortimer, labeled distances, and a hole layout on the tees of every hole help inform the frisbee golfer on this weird course. Of course, a few are missing. Michael Wink’s Quindecim piece on the topic describes the sport better than I can, but to summarize: Disc golf takes the core concept behind golf and applies it to frisbee with specialized discs going into frisbee baskets.
In 2004, frisbee golf and Ultimate frisbee were two separate clubs, but now they are housed under one banner. And I have somehow found myself as treasurer of said frisbee club.
On March 1st 2025, I played a practice game of disc golf with Frisbee Club’s current President Max Frank.
We started at the practice hole in front of the Sports & Recreation Center (SRC) and behind the first year village. This is a nice short hole with a few trees but surrounded by parking and cars. Like all of the holes in this course, you have to be careful not to hit anything.
Max told me, “Hole 1, I only know where the tee is because someone documented its location online. There’s no indication of where it’s actually supposed to be anymore, ever since Froelicher was moved there.” We went down to the flat area between the tennis court and Alcock to where the tee used to be. On this fateful day, at this hole, he managed to get a disc on top of the Alcock dorm building. We found it on the ground the next day, as the wind had taken it down.
“Hole 2 has been unplayable the whole time I’ve been on campus, from what I heard it got completely overgrown during COVID,” President Frank informed me. The area between the tee and the basket is dense forest with thickets of bushes and other shrubs, making it easy to lose a disc, especially during the spring. So, we move onto other holes.
The basket for hole 3 is slightly into the forest. It has faced a few struggles: “in past spring semesters, there’s been a massive beehive in the giant tree in the middle of the line of play for hole 3, … has also had a tree fall on it at one point, rendering it unplayable and its visibility flag has faded in color completely so you can’t really see/find the hole unless you know where it is.” Walking to get some photos, I noticed the hive is back, which is great as an environmentalist, but is a notable safety risk when playing the course.
Holes 4 through 8 are fairly standard, some like Hole 5 missing its flag/cone combo it used to have for visibility, and all being close to the road and the unkempt forest edge. And there were lots of Facility Management Service (FMS) vehicle tracks across this part of the course.
On hole 9, with its basket gone, there is room for all kinds of creative makeshift holes as listed out in many online reviews. But the Frisbee Club has “just been throwing tee 9 -> hole 1 as a replacement since” Froelicher moved, and they took out the hole. After a long game and improvised extra holes, I ended with a score of 52.
Max Frank:
Max said he’s “been on the frisbee team for my whole time at Goucher, … on leadership since sophomore year.” President Frank enthused “Yeah for sure! I’ve been playing ultimate Frisbee since freshman year of high school/over 10 years, and I started playing disc golf 8 years ago.”
On the topic of frisbee golf specifically, Max told me, “it’s just been a nice way to take advantage of our large, very nice campus, it’s a good way for me to get outside and take my mind off things for an hour or so. And it’s right there, too, so it doesn’t require like a ton of planning.”
On academics: “I’m a data science major and (technically) a professional writing minor, I just won’t have time to finish that before I graduate because of scheduling. But I did take all of the linguistics classes and that was my primary aim with that. I’ve also dabbled in/explored the idea of getting a minor in Econ, CS, chemistry…You could say I’ve gotten nearly the full Goucher tour.”
Despite his early misfirings at other colleges, Max Frank has been a success story and campus leader for Goucher. He is an officer in three clubs, and this year was awarded The Kairos Award for Excellence in Writing, Rhetoric, and Research during convocation.
On Friday, for his capstone presentation on symposium day, he presented on “Shots, Saves, and Standard Deviations” in line with his goals of potentially becoming a sports analyst.
The campus will be sad to see him go, but happy to have had him flourish. And I have been told, as he is planning to live and work close by, he will come back for occasional frisbee.
The Mystery Behind the Name of the Loins Course:
The Loins Disc Golf course was created in 2004, but I have yet to find out why it has its name. I have spent the last few months on and off looking for who Loins might be, and why they donated to create the disc course on campus. I have asked the Alumni/Alumnae of Goucher College (AAGC), and scoured the web for answers, finding nothing. Or maybe Loins is referencing how the course is laid out like a piece of meat? If you have any tips please send them to me at Max.Ravnitzky@goucher.edu. The search continues.
Concluding Thoughts:
On April 27th, 2025, the Frisbee Club played disc golf, and I got to play a rematch against Max Frank with a few club members. Despite my best efforts, I lost by 10, the scores were in 30s; first-timer Tovi getting 36, Vice President Jonah Silk scoring 38, President Frank with a solid 39, and I got 49. As is clear, we are all amateurs, and for all but the Maxes, this was the first play-through on this tricky course or even playing the sport.
With the Frisbee Club having dozens of Ultimate frisbees, this year, I, as Treasurer, took the crucial step to get frisbee golf discs.
“If any athletes want something to do in their off-season that still gets them exercise, we’ve historically been very accommodating of Goucher athletes and working around their schedules. Our team used to have a significant number of school athletes on it,” President Frank informed me.
He briefed me that 1: “We’re hoping to run an introductory disc golf round for incoming freshmen next year,” 2: “If we get more members we’d like to probably come to some sort of arrangement where club members can check out disc golf sets whenever they like,” and 3: “At the end of the day, we still remain an ultimate Frisbee team, so we’d like to also build back the sort of team atmosphere we had back when I first got here as a freshman,” (which COVID damaged). He continued, “We’d still like to get back to running [twice weekly] practices and [regularly] playing matches versus other schools, but membership has been a little low for us to consistently do that.”
President Frank gave a word of warning. “If people plan on playing the course, they should make sure to play it safe and throw away from the forest, unless they want to dig through the undergrowth for discs, or accidentally end their round early if they only brought one.” He continues, “It’s really not a bad course, it just kind of shows its lack of maintenance, unfortunately.”
I know what my procrastination strategy for next year’s finals will be, and it’s not writing this, but instead practicing on the beautiful course we have on campus, so when Max Frank next shows up, I can win in the next battle of Maxes.
By Max Ravnitzky ‘28
