OPINION
I've recently come upon a dilemma in the disc golf community; disc golf's reputation as a sport: up and coming or up in smoke. Don't know what I mean? Step into my office...
Disc golf's popularity has sky-rocketed in the last few years. Look at the PDGA's membership growth rates. With this new found popularity come a host of people and their individual ideas of what they view the sport to be and where the future will take it. The bottom line is we will never take this sport to the next level unless the sport as a whole receives an image make-over. The common view of our sport and the people who play it is that of some hippies out in the park smoking and drinking while tossing a disc. That reputation is well earned because what do you see when you go and visit disc golf courses in the central Oklahoma area?...golfers doing exactly that, littering the park with beer cans, cigarette butts, and passing around the peace-pipe. This type of behavior by the experienced golfer rubs off on the casual one. It also brings the type of people into our parks that we don't want there. You know the type...the type that would steal a pole-hole or vandalize some other course equipment. If you want disc golf to remain in the state it's in, do nothing. Sponsors and potential sponsors of events will eventually pull out or limp in with their contributions, not knowing if they are putting their "face" on a potential drug bust. If we want disc golf to get the publicity and promotion it deserves we have got to clean up our act! What you do in your own home is your business, but don't bring your habits out to the course where there are impressionable kids. It should not be socially acceptable to see someone smoking a joint during a casual round. If you see someone littering, let them know that it is not appreciated. If we continue to treat our parks like a bar, who knows, the course might even get pulled out of the ground! Who wants that to happen? Folks, it starts with you. What have you done today to make our sport better? ChrisP. |
