Lost and / or Found Discs

Read an insteresting blog post from the South Palm Beach, FL area I thought I'd pass on to our community casual league players.

The subject matter is lost discs. Folks can lose a disc in several places and several ways. They throw too many and forget how many they've thrown and where they all landed. Or, they can get lost in the weeds, woods or water.

At some point down the road, such discs do become found by other disc golfers or disc golf harvesters, aka: squids, who don a wet suit and face mask and hunt for discs in lakes and such.

The post I read mentioned the fact that these 'squids' after 'harvesting' the discs out of the local water hazards on the course(s) then sell the discs. The harvesting of discs was witnessed by a member of the Palm Beach Disc Golf Club. The club approached the harvesters and "politely asked that the disc harvesting stop immediately."

After several attempts to resolve the situation with no positive result, club members took the issue to the police. The police informed the club that disc golf discs with names and id on them are still considered personal property and are “not abandoned.” The post makes no mention of further action taken by the local police. However, the post's author does note that several of his "own discs with the word “TooNA” " were seen for sale on online auction sites. You can read the whole blog post here.

Since I began disc golf about three or four years ago, I was told to mark my discs with my name, phone number, and PDGA (Professional Disc Golf Association) member number so if one is lost and later found I would get it back. For the most part that has held true as I have had a few discs lost and returned. Though I did have one disc I lost in one spot, found by someone who called me up but it had already travelled to another local course. After leaving it where I could find it, and before I arrived, someone else made off with it.

Another league player was out on a course where he and his playing partner threw two discs across the creek. They noted the exact location of their discs and sfter completing their round they went to retrieve the discs and they were gone. Both discs were clearly marked. They've never been contacted about them.

I haven't contacted the local police to see if their take on marked discs is the same as the South Florida police or not. That'd be worth a phone call, I'm sure. But for a later time.

One day while helping a fellow player find a favorite disc lost in 5 foot tall grass, the player told us a story of a disc he lost. It was some time later when he received a phone call from an individual who had found his disc. The finder asked how he could get it back to him to which the player told him where he lived and asked where could they meet up. Turns out the caller was from Texas and he found the disc on a Texas course. The player of the lost disc told the caller to just keep the disc as it wasn't really worth the effort to send it back. So, though some might provide a finders fee, or gladly meet up with the finder to get a disc back, sometimes geographical distances prevent easy return. Or, one could say that letting the finder keep the disc was a finder's fee.

It is the right thing to make an attempt to return a found disc if there are owner's info on a found disc. Or, one could take it to a local Disc Golf Supply shop such as we have in Iron Lion here in the Illinois-Iowa Quad Cities. Often times they'll know how to contact the owner. Many players play with their favorite discs because they work especially well for them, so if one should find a disc that is marked, make every effort to return it to its owner. And, if you value your disc, mark with your contact info if you want the best chance at getting it back.