Dirk.Unknown Disc Golf Tour

Washington State University Vancouver
Vancouver, WA

Visionary Landscapes:
Electronic Literature Organization Conference 2008

This stop on the tour had more to do with actual Unknown activities than has been the case recently. Scott Rettberg (Unknown co-author, ELO founder, busting-with-pride father of recently-born Jessica) invited me to attend this conference because like all Americans he has no real concept of geography and imagines that Spokane, Washington (where I currently reside) is a short cab ride from Vancouver, Washington. (Actually, 350 miles of barren wasteland lies between the two cities.) Plus, he offered to cover the cost of the hotel and help pay some of the costs of filling my gas tank with the byproducts of incredibly expensive imported oil (unfortunately, he forgot to do the latter). So, I drove to the Portland, Oregon / Vancouver, Washington area to partake of several days of electronic literature and the academic industry that has blossomed in its wake. For those of you who have ever had the pleasure of participating in an academic conference, it will not surprise you to learn that I spent a fair amount of time trying find alternative sources of amusement, meaning something else to occupy my time instead of listening to the umpteenth paper about the ontological appropriation of the digital cyborg mentality imbued within a postmodern postcolonial sensibility refracted through a post-post-capitalist aesthetic undermined by the instantaneous capitulation to the need to fill 10 minutes of presentation time given that I wrote this paper last night after drinking too much with my hypertext buddies and jeezus I could really use a cigarette right now. For those of you who have never had the pleasure, suffice it to say, I suggest you keep it that way.

So, anyway, I was studying the packet of materials I’d been handed upon my registering my presence at the conference and I noticed that the pixilated map of the Washington State University Vancouver campus included: Disc Golf Course (in the lower right hand corner, just above the stylized compass graphic to help the user orient themselves). A disc golf course? All right!!  I had, of course, thrown my bag of discs into the trunk of my car before leaving Spokane, just in case I had time to seek out disc golfing venues. So, during one of the breaks between sessions, I sought out the course indicated by the map. I was dismayed to realize that a massive construction project that obliterated the landscape—behind the Multi-Media Classroom Building in which most of the ELO Conference activities took place—had apparently also obliterated the disc golf course. I was bereft.

But I did not give up.

During a lull in the proceedings (or perhaps it was during what passes for a white-hot moment of scholarly insight and revelation delivered with all the passion an academic can muster after a continental breakfast and a luke-warm Mountain Dew from the hallway pop machine), I checked the WSU Vancouver website for more information. And lo! again! (and cue a choir of angelic voices!) the official website spit forth a map of the disc golf course in question. To have disc golf acknowledged by a university’s website is something to marvel at and be grateful for. At last, the true importance of flying discs is being recognized by our institutions of higher learning. Besides, the map seemed to portend a course of some interest: a compact nine-hole affair, with half the holes in a meadow, the other half in some nearby rain-forest-like woods. The latter aspect gave me new hope: I could still see the woods the map referred to: so perhaps, the massive construction project had not obliterated the course as I had feared.

A day later, seeking to avoid more academic-presentation-boredom, I took a long walk to the other side of the massive construction project . . . and lo! I saw, further down the hill, nestled beside a scraggly bush-like tree, the unmistakable outline of a disc golf basket. I was right! The course had escaped annihilation. Jubilation suffused my whole being. Without hesitation, I decided to skip the next session of scintillating academic twaddle and walked to my car, fired up its thirsty internal combustion engine, and drove slowly around the numerous acres of parking lots that make up a vast proportion of the WSU Vancouver campus, past a sign warning me that only authorized construction-type vehicles were allowed beyond this point, until I came to a cul-de-sac below the massive construction project that gave me my second view of the basket I’d seen from above. A round of plastic-flinging was imminent; my pulse elevated in anticipation. A parking lot just off the cul-de-sac in front of some university building not represented on the map and reserved for authorized personnel only became my base camp (it was a Saturday afternoon, school had been out for a week: I wasn’t worried about getting a ticket or getting towed). Putting my green disc golfing cap firmly upon my head and shouldering my bag of well-used plastic, I set forth with vigor and hope to locate the first tee and found it without any difficulty. Nine holes of disc golf quickly ensued.

It soon became apparent that the course I was playing was not the course depicted on the university website. Most of the holes were visible from the first tee and none of them were in the woods. It was a short course in a large grassy field; the equivalent, say, of a par 3 course in ball golf. Most were straight ahead, and the only “obstacles” were the extremely long blades of grass on either side of the mowed fairways (I was impressed by the mowed fairways, but I almost lost a disc in the grass, which seriously dampened my mood). The signage was well done and the tees were large wood-chipped rectangles. I’m not a big fan of wood chips at tees, however: it makes things too loose and I get worried I’m going to sprain something. Near Hole 7, the course butts up against a small stand of trees. There’s a path into the woods that crosses a bridge over a small ravine next to which stands a huge bell-like sculpture that features ecology-friendly quotations from people you’d recognize, though I’ve already forgotten their names (I think one was Gary Snyder). I tried the clapper but either I was too tentative or it doesn’t work as well as it should. Pretty imposing, though (20 or 25 feet high?), and cool to look at. After my brief retreat into the woods, which betrayed no evidence of disc golf holes ever having been in residence, I returned to the field and played the last two holes. The ninth hole was the only one that varied from the straight shot pattern, the basket hidden at the end of a severe dogleg left. I finished 2 under par, and had I made just a couple of putts that I really shouldn’t have missed, I probably could have been 4 or 5 under. This demonstrates just how patty-cake this course was, given that: 1) this was the first time I had played the course; 2) this was the first round of disc I’d thrown in nearly 9 months; 3) I was suffering from severe, and painful, tendonitis in my throwing arm elbow. All in all, a disappointing experience. The loss of the holes in the woods particularly bothered me. Play this course if you just happen to be on the WSU Vancouver campus and have 40 minutes or so to spare. I certainly wouldn’t recommend driving there just to play. I haven’t checked the PDGA on-line directory, but surely there must be better courses to play in the Portland / Vancouver area. Still, kudos to WSU Vancouver for even having a course and for recognizing it on their website.

Seatac exit.

The Unknown Disc Golf Tour is not really what Spineless Books is about.