So I’ve got this cousin who, a few years ago, let me know he was entering into a disc golf tournament. He gave me a website to use so I could track his progress. I had heard of disc golf, but I had to wonder to myself…they have serious tournaments? Not only that, but they have a website with an actual leader board to track the players? Did I miss something? Is this sport really that popular?
Well the answer, quite simply, is yes! There are now approximately 3,000 disc golf courses throughout the United States and an estimated 3,000 more abroad, mainly in Canada, Western Europe, Japan and Australia. Of those 6,000 courses worldwide, 5,000 have been opened in just the past ten years. Wow! Talk about a fast-growing sport! But what is it though that makes this sport so popular?
Simply put, the basics of disc golf are pretty much a carbon copy of traditional golf, but it is a simpler, less expensive option that can be played just about anywhere provided there is enough space. This includes public places such as parks and greens. In place of clubs and golf balls is a disc (not a Frisbee). In place of holes, are metal baskets. A player attempts to get the disc into the basket in as few throws (in place of strokes) as possible.
Scoring also works just about the same as actual golf. But the rapid rise in popularity, I believe, has much to do with the relatively low cost at which this game can be played. A disc can be purchased for about the price of a cheap box of golf balls and a few baskets can be had for the price of a good set of clubs. Since you throw the disc, the additional (sometimes outrageous) cost of golf clubs is not necessary. Not too mention, since the sport can be played in a public place, greens fees are eliminated. This may also be a reason the sport is gaining popularity on college campuses such as UC Berkeley, where a permanent disc golf course has been laid out since 1970. Easy enough to understand right? OK, so when and where did this sport begin?
The origins of disc golf can be traced back as far as 1926 in Vancouver, Canada where a group of school kids would use tin lids to throw at targets such as trees and poles. Throughout the next several decades, similar games would pop up around North America, but none ever taken too seriously…until 1965. It was then that a man named George Sappenfield, a summer camp counselor in California, came up with the idea to have his camp kids play golf with Frisbees. Upon his college graduation a few years later, he contacted Wham-O and was able to get them to donate Frisbees and hula-hoops (for targets) for a disc golf tournament.
However, it wasn’t until the early 1970’s when a Wham-O employee named Ed Headrick, inventor of the modern Frisbee, would begin to take the sport mainstream. It was Headrick who trademarked the name Disc Golf. With the formation of governing bodies and standard rules in the coming years, a new sport would officially be born.
Today, as evidenced by the past five to ten years, disc golf is one of the most rapidly growing sports in the world. There are over two million people in the United States alone who participate in the sport and it has been estimated that one in every five rounds of golf played is a round of disc golf. Additionally, many tournaments and championships are now played all around the country with the most popular being the U.S. Disc Golf Championship (held in St. Louis in 2009), and the Professional Disc Golf Association World Championship, which was held in Kansas City in 2009 (and is scheduled for Marion, OH for 2010 and Charlotte, NC for 2011).
So will the popularity of disc golf continue to grow and expand? Or is it just a passing fad which will never be taken too seriously in the mainstream sports world? No one can tell for sure. But at this point, there are no signs the sport’s growth is slowing down.
For additional info on Disc Golf, take a look at these links:
I’ll close this out with one of my favorite discoveries about this sport. Ed Headrick passed away in 2002. One of his dying wishes was to be cremated and to have his ashes used in the molds in a limited number of discs to be sold to fund a museum at the PDGA International Disc Golf Center in Georgia. His wishes were granted and the discs were created, completed with Ed’s ashes, and sold. However, at the grand opening of the center, one of the discs was thrown on the roof by his wife. The reason? To fulfill the old adage “Old Frisbee players are like old Frisbees….They don’t die. They just end up on the roof.”
