The Case For Keeping Score
This week Bike Wentworth will be the host site for the Nova Scotia High School Disc Golf Team Championship. It will be a modest event that will feature at least 5 different schools all submitting teams of partners to compete in 4 age protected divisions. They will use the chairlift to get to the top of the hill and play 18 wonderful holes of disc golf around the peak and down. For some it will be the start of a lifelong engagement in the game, for others it will be just another sport experience to notch in their student athlete career. However, for everyone that plays it will be a true test of integrity, skill, and perseverance and an accomplishment that they should be proud of. Each team will play by the PDGA rule book and will be scored honestly. It will be a great indication of how far the game has come in our region over the last 15 years, and a wonderful starting point from which these student athletes can build their own skill set for life.
It is hard to capture the exact data but the best information we have access to suggests well over 50% of the people who try disc golf will never do it in a formal, competitive setting. Studies have shown that roughly 80% of all players play easier layouts and find disc golf to be a fun, lifetime game that does not require a high level of competition to be enjoyable. It is simply a good walk, enhanced. A place where players throw things in beautiful places. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that!
However there is a small group of people who have discovered the beauty, and sometimes frustration, of competitive play. There is nothing quite like a great round of disc golf, on a phenomenal course that demands your attention to be successful. It can be a lonely place, where each player has to use a wide variety of skills to overcome ever changing situations. A competitive round requires you to focus for 18 holes, it tests your mental acuities, your physical stamina, and in turn can reward you with a sense of accomplishment and satisfaction that very few games can. Playing your best round, when you are keeping score in a situation that matters is among the most pleasurable sports phenomena there is.
Special events, like the high school championship also drive the progress of the game. Lots of energy is put into making the course look and play its best for days like these. Athletes train for weeks, months, and sometimes years in advance just to test their skills in competitions, and although we acknowledge that the majority of the players chose to just enjoy the courses at their own leisure we have always built every course with the idea that anyone can play it and work towards growing their own skill set.
Having events like this at Ski Wentworth is something to celebrate. Over the next 5 years our goal is to get every school possible to play this course, to walk these enchanted woods, and to try something that can be a positive influence on them for the rest of their lives. You don’t have to be a student to try this game out but for this week it will be students keeping score and showing us the lines. We can’t wait to see how far they can take it.