First things first: it’s not a Frisbee, it’s a disc.
Secondly, participants aren’t a bunch of weekend warriors content with a simple jaunt around the park while downing a couple of cold ones.
On the contrary, they practise daily, have personal trainers and play for money in tournaments across North America.
There are even organizing bodies worldwide and player rankings are maintained on the regular.
Such are the intricacies surrounding disc golf, a sport similar to traditional golf that’s seemingly exploding in popularity across the world.
Organizers of this week’s inaugural Team Disc Golf World Championship are hoping to capitalize on that momentum, as teams and spectators from all corners descend upon Vancouver to crown the kings and queens of all things disc.
“It’s something that anybody can play and that’s the coolest part about it,” said Vancouver’s Leanne Fulton, a member of Team Canada’s eight-player contingent. “My dad can play, my niece and nephews can play, and they’re all under 10 years old. It doesn’t matter if you’re fit, if you’re super competitive. There’s a place for anybody’s interest or ability in the sport.”
Running Aug. 18 to 21 at Queen Elizabeth Park and on Grouse Mountain, the showcase event features teams from Japan, Brazil, Australia, New Zealand, the U.S. and Canada.
The tournament format will include team, individual and doubles matches and more than $5,000 is up for grabs in prize money.
Yes, money will awarded for essentially throwing some plastic in to a basket, but that’s the norm on planet disc.
Take Fulton’s latest competitive foray, for example: when reached by the Courier, she was in Emporia, Kan. playing in the 2016 Disc Golf World Championships. The town of just over 20,000 is a hotbed for disc golf, hosts multiple tournaments annually and sees a tangible boost in the local economy from the sport alone.
The games are even live streamed on YouTube in most of the town’s watering holes.
“It’s so fascinating — it’s a little town in the middle of nowhere, but they are disc golf crazy here,” Fulton said. “The whole town has gotten behind it and it’s a big source of industry for them because they hold major events every year. For a town this size, it’s a really big deal.”
According to tournament director Dan Laitsch, the sport first became a big deal in the mid-1970s: that’s when rules were formalized and facilities began springing up across North America.
The courses are a no-brainer for municipalities, according to Laitsch, due to the low costs involved (about $9,000) and the spin-off benefits of offering recreational facilities on public lands.
Laitsch took up disc golf in the mid-’90s while camping in Virginia and he’s now involved with the British Columbia Disc Sports Society, serving as past president.
Yes, there’s a provincial society devoted to disc sports. And it boasts more than 500 members.
“We have a member who dropped between 50 and 75 pounds just by playing disc golf,” Laitsch said. “It gets you out of the house, it gets you walking around and it gets your heart rate up. Some people just want to walk through the park and throw a Frisbee around, then you have people like the competitors in our upcoming event who appreciate the perfection of a well-thrown disc and the opportunity to test themselves against their fellow competitors.”
The rules in disc golf mirror those in traditional golf: the end goal is to get the disc in to a basket in the fewest shots possible. The discs are made from varying types of plastic to accommodate specific shots: drivers have sharper edges to cut through the wind, while putters have duller edges and tend to go straighter.
Games typically last 15 to 20 minutes on a smaller course, three hours on longer courses and a starter set of discs runs you about $30.
Along with Laitsch and Fulton, Vancouver’s Steve Crichton is helping to organize this week’s tournament. A Team Canada member with 20 years of experience under his belt, Crichton says his team has an ace in the hole leading up to this week’s tee off.
“We know these courses — Queen Elizabeth and Grouse are pretty much our home courses, so we’ll have a distinct advantage with the familiarity with the courses that we’ll be playing,” said Crichton. “Most of us who are on this team from B.C. have played together, so we all work really well together. There’s a continuity within the players that are on this team that will definitely benefit us.”
To follow the disc drama that will play out this weekend, go online to pdga.com/teamworlds.
@JohnKurucz
