CUMBERLAND — For those who aren’t handy with a five-iron, this may be your chance to master a golf course.
The Twin Brook Recreation Area last month opened a disc golf course near the Tuttle Road entrance. In regular golf, the object is to get through the course in the fewest number of strokes; in disc golf, plastic Frisbee-like discs are tossed at above-ground baskets.
Twin Brook offers a nine-hole course that starts and ends at its red shelter. Loaner discs, score cards with a map of the course, and an informational bulletin board can be found on the east side of the structure, along with an honor box for payment. Players are asked to pay $5 a person and $10 a group for all-day, unlimited play.
The course, which is believed to be the first municipally run disc golf course in Maine, is open daily from dawn to dusk and closed only for major Twin Brook events or inclement weather.
“I’m always just kind of thinking of what’s the next thing,” Peter Bingham, the town’s recreation superintendent, said last week. Seeing a sign for disc golf in his travels spurred an interest to further explore the activity, and the more he learned, he said, the more he wanted disc golf at Twin Brook.
The Town Council approved the use in June. So far, the course averages about 40 paid rounds a week, Bingham said.
Disc golf is something that people can do almost anytime, when they have spare time, he explained.
“It’s a good family activity,” Bingham said. “We’re always trying to search for inexpensive family opportunities, and this is what we’re seeing here. … People are really excited about it.”
Among the fans is James O’Keefe. The Cumberland resident has played disc golf for about 10 years around Maine and in other states, and said “to have that as part of Cumberland now is just a real treat for me.”
He said Twin Brook’s course is not extremely challenging, so he is eager to bring his children there.
“The first time I used it I rode my bike there from home,” he said, “and just played nine holes, and I thought, ‘this is just perfect.'”
Log onto cumberlandmaine.com/discgolf/ for more information.
Alex Lear can be reached at 781-3661 ext. 113 or alear@theforecaster.net. Follow him on Twitter: @learics.
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Pete Bingham, Cumberland’s recreation superintendent, demonstrates disc golf, a new activity offered at the Twin Brook Recreation Area.
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