Recently I was thinking about the name of this sport we play. Disc golf. That's disc, with a 'c' not a 'k', as in a flying disc. And golf, as in an outdoor game played on a golf course with a small, hard ball and a set of clubs, the object being to hit the ball into each of 9 or 18 holes in turn, with the fewest possible strokes (Webster's New World Dictionary). The word golf comes from the Scottish gowf, meaning to strike.

Some players refer to the game as frisbee golf. The word frisbee being the transliteration of the proper name Frisbie as in the Frisbie Pie Company of Bridgeport, Connecticut, founded by William Russell Frisbie in 1871. The proper name Frisbie, in its various spellings (Frisbee, Frisby), can be traced back through more than 1,000 years of British history. It is thought to have originated from one of two hamlets located in Leicestershire, one called Frisby-on-the-Wreake, and the other, Old Frisby.

Legally frisbee is not a generic term. Even the spell check feature of my word processing software keeps prodding me to capitalize the first letter! The word frisbee is owned by Wham-O, Inc. which in turn is owned by Charterhouse Group International. Victor A. Malafronte, in his book (highly recommended reading), The Complete Book of Frisbee, argues in Chapter VII, The Frisbee Conspiracy, that this ownership of the term has had a detrimental effect on the growth of all frisbee sports. Victor might very well be right about the negative effects on the business of molding plastic into flying discs for sport games. He certainly argues effectively that the Federal Trade Commission should void Wham-O's hold on the term (read his book for more information, American Trends Publishing, 1998). But would other manufacturers rush to use the term on their products and would this lead to more growth? I don't know.

Registered names aside, when the average person hears the word frisbee, I dare say they think of cheap-o fastback style premium flyers, playing catch a the beach, hula-hoops, the 1960's, love beads, peace symbols, and the like. Is a modern golf disc still a frisbee? I would say that prior to the invention of the Aero, we played frisbee golf. Today, by virtue of all the high-tech plastic, now we play disc golf. But the word disc is associated with flat round objects such as CD's, brakes on cars and the like. Is disc synonymous with the word frisbee in the mind of the public? Is it descriptive and distinctive enough to help our sport grown and take its rightful place in the world?

Recently I was emailed a copy of a story that appeared in the Christian Science Monitor titled Playing 'folf' near bears and elk <http://www.csmonitor.com/durable/2001/05/30/fp3s1-csm.shtml>. I HATE the term 'folf.' We are in big trouble if it catches on in the popular press. That Seinfeld episode did not help. Folf first appeared in print in Frisbee, A practitioner's manual and definitive treatise, by Dr. Stancil E.D. Johnson (Workman Publishing Company, 1975). Since then it has been largely and justifiably ignored and scorned. Other terms, thankfully lost, include Saucer golf, and Sky golf.

It seems to me that we have reached an uneasy peace with the name for our sport. And some people say that the first ultimate players had a lot of guts (sorry) to name their new sport "ultimate." To all of this, I say, half seriously, that our sport should be called Ultra-golf. You see, the name is distinctive, even space-age in a Jetson's sort of way. And it relates to the name ultimate, and keeps us up with the lid throwers. What do you think? Look, I'd rather tell people I play Ultra, than say folf. Now, if I could just prove that ultra is the Scottish word meaning to throw . . .