At Gray Wolf Greens, the challenges start at hole one.
Too far to the right and you knock on a classroom window, too far to the left and you land in the center of Harmony traffic. Cactus, trees, and parking lots stand between you and your goal.
The narrow lawns by such a busy street are the last place you might expect to see Frisbees flying through the air. Yet there it is – FRCC’s very own disc golf course.
Opened for play in August of 2024, the course was realized by student life coordinator G McDonald and director of facilities Mike Baranovic.
A coordinator in the student life department, McDonald has played disc golf since he was 6. He said making a disc golf course was a lifelong dream.
He said that one of the main motivators to build the course was that Larimer campus didn’t have a gym. Though a gym used to be in the Longs Peak Student Center, it was removed in the 2010s, and with it many health and wellness opportunities.
Since its opening, he said that students and staff have been very happy with Gray Wolf Greens, engaging more with the campus by staying to play the course.
McDonald said that he has made friends with people from the I.T. department that he wouldn’t have otherwise.
“The sport of Frisbee golf is such a friendly sport,” he said. “To me, that invites people to make friends.”
McDonald said that many people from across Fort Collins came to play the course on opening day, with disc golf communities in Loveland and Windsor taking notice as well.
Though he said Gray Wolf Greens has already been a success, McDonald said he wants to do more with the course.
In order to make it “more than a passive opportunity” and “turn it into an active engagement,” he said he hopes to host events in the future.
McDonald employed a mantra used for many pastimes: “Grow the sport,” saying, “I think we are literally helping grow the sport of Frisbee golf in Northern Colorado.”
He also said that he would like the course to have two to three more holes.
Though there are no concrete plans yet, he said he wants to bring more health and wellness opportunities to campus.
Gray Wolf Greens is a par 3 course, sporting 13 holes that circle the campus.
McDonald said that his favorite holes on the course are five and seven. He said that the short, 100-foot hole five embodies what the course is about, while hole seven is the most picturesque.
Front Range students can rent discs and course maps for free at the student life desk.
The course is students-only from 8 a.m.-2:30 p.m, Monday-Friday, and is open to the public outside those hours.
More information about the course can be found on the FRCC Fort Collins UDisc page.
https://udisc.com/courses/frcc-fort-collins-8WFI
