Not your grandpa’s golf

Posted on Oct 11, 2009 by Spencer Willems.

Jeff Harper, a professional disc golfer from Coralville, prepares to throw toward the basket while playing on a course at Peninsula Park in Iowa City on Wednesday, September 16, 2009. The course was also designed by Harper. (Crystal LoGiudice/The Gazette).

OLIN — Tucked away on Highway 38, Olin has a gas station and a post office. The main street through town has a handful of shops, bars and eateries to offer its 800 residents.

But it also offers a disc golf course.

And over the past four years, the sleepy town has seen an upsurge of visitors from out of town and even out of state coming to test the course’s nine par-three holes.

Olin isn’t the only small town that has taken to disc golf. Mechanicsville, Tipton and Urbana are just a few with courses for one of the fastest growing sports in the country — one that, up until a few years ago didn’t reach much farther than college campuses and bigger cities.

In 2000, there were just more than a thousand disc golf courses nationwide. That number has grown to more than 3,000 just nine years later.

Here in Iowa, the 148 disc golf (also known as Frisbee golf to the uninitiated) courses rank the state second only to Texas in number of courses.

Adam Olsen, of Cedar Rapids, first played the game in 2001. He went pro in 2005. He’s played in 170 tournaments in the past few years, and he says he’s just getting warmed up.

“I’ve done cross country, track and I even played baseball at Mount Mercy (College),” says Olsen, 30. “Disc golf is something to be competitive in again.”

Olsen has vaulted into the top tiers of professional play. He placed 18th at this year’s World’s Championships, where he competed with 300 of the world’s best.

“Most people play the sport for recreation, for fun, so they think that’s all there is to it,” Olsen said. “They don’t realize that there is a competitive component… people are passionate about the game. There’s always someone out there trying to get better and beat you.”

Olsen isn’t the only pro in Eastern Iowa. With more than 100 professionals, the state has become something of a powerhouse. In fact, up until two years ago, the women’s world champion was Iowan.

Disc Golf

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Several different disc golf discs are packed tightly into a backpack before pros Jeff Harper and James Necessary played the course at Peninsula Park in Iowa City on Wednesday, September 16, 2009. The different kinds of discs include putters, all-purpose mid-range discs, and drivers. (Crystal LoGiudice/The Gazette).

“The growth of the sport here is outstanding,” Olsen says. “And everyday someone new is coming to the sport.”

Like traditional golf — or “ball golf” as disc players call it — disc golf has tees, holes, pars, birdies and bogies.

“The two sports are similar in the way you approach a hole,” says Jeff Harper, 44, of Coralville. “There are water hazards, out of bounds, and you have to play with discipline… focus.”

There the similarities end. There are no balls, irons, woods or putters.

Instead, players hurl plastic discs of varying weights and sizes across 400-feet-long fairways at “holes” assembled out of posts, chains and a basket to “catch” the disc. There’s no such thing as green fees and the game can be played year long. Die-hards take their discs out in the snow and cold of winter.

Harper has been playing since he was a teenager, and has designed a number of courses, including the one at Peninsula Park in Iowa City. He thinks the game is more welcoming to people than conventional golf.

“If you can swing your arm, you can play disc golf,” Harper says.

That’s all Gordon Thomas needed. Thomas, 64, retired with his wife to Olin four years ago. He didn’t know anyone in Olin, and he certainly didn’t know much about disc golf. Then one day a few locals invited him to join them in a game of disc golf. Thomas sold his golf clubs shortly after. Disc golf offered him a new way to exercise, meet people and have fun in the fresh air. He found the sport to be less “aggravating” than traditional golf. He tries to make it out for a full round five days a week.

Executive Director of the Professional Disc Golf Association, Brian Graham, thinks that the sport, which has been around since the 1970s, is pushing beyond novelty and into the mainstream. The game’s popularity, he says, is also tied to its perception.

“Many people think that most Frisbee players are long haired, tie-dye T-shirt wearing hippies but that is not at all true,” Graham says. “Our demographics are very diverse and the average competitor today is a college educated professional and weekend warrior looking for a competitive challenge.”