Bloomington disc golf players compete for the fun of it

Dark clouds lingered over Bloomington all day, but members of the Bloomington Disc Golf Club refused to let the rain interfere with their weekly round of tags.

As the rain began to fall, cars filled the parking lot at Crestmont Park.

Every Wednesday, members meet at the park to play a round of disc golf to compete for small plastic tags. The tags have numbers on them — players with the lowest scores at the end of a round take home the tags with the lowest numbers.

Once again, Mark Moore relinquished his tag with the number one on it.

Players gathered in the pavilion while they waited to tee off. A group of players discussed a team tournament they hope to compete in next month while others changed shoes and sorted their discs.

Some put a dollar towards the ace fund — if anyone gets their disc in a basket with one throw, they win the money that has been collected since the last ace. Currently the ace fund stands at around $120.

Moore then took out a deck of cards and each player picked one. The cards are used to sort the players into groups to play faster, and each group starts at a different hole on the course.

While the club has more than 150 members, only about 20 players usually participate in the weekly tag challenges. Wednesday, only 11 chose to brave the rain.

BDGC member Tim Murphy said the club is always looking for new members to join and participate in the events.

“It’s a lot of fun and everyone should join, especially women,” Murphy said. “We have players of all ages, and it’s really great exercise.”

Dan Ott, communications and events director of the club, said anyone with an interest in disc golf is encouraged to come out and play with the club. He said joining the club is also a chance to improve the community. The BDGC has an annual ice bowl and gives all proceeds from the registration fees to the Community Kitchen. This year, the club raised more than $900.

“If they already play disc golf, the club is great,” Ott said. “I’ve always loved playing with other people and we have players of all levels. You get better when you play with people better than you.”

Jim Kovach discovered the same thing when his cousin Tom convinced him to join the league. Kovach has been playing disc golf for six years, but only plays for fun. While other players carry a bag with a dozen discs in it, Kovach prefers to play with only three.

“I like that it’s such a free and individual sport,” Kovach said. “Anybody can pick up a disc and just start playing.”