General History

Younger Kid throwing frisbee

The first recorded game of disc golf took place in Bladworth, Saskatchewan, Canada. This took place at Bladworth elementary school, when a group of friends threw tin lids into sandy patches. In the 1970's the first professional game was ago in Canada.

Before any of this had been going on, and infact as early as the 1960's, Modern disc golf had already been frequently played in Houston Texas. There has been much debate about who's idea Disc Golf originally was, but the sport is popular today, and is undoubtedly the result of many different contributers.

Professional History

The official DGA's founding took place in 1976, with the sport already gaining momentum. In 1975, the World Frisbee Championships had major sucess, and when two men by the names of George Sappenfield and Kevin Donnelly convinced Ed Headrick, the lead of a company named Wham-O that frisbee golf would be a good event to include in Wham-O's next big event called the All Comers Frisbee Meet, Disc golf had it's first public professional recognition.

Ed would later resign his position and Wham-O, to start the DGA in April, giving up his secure job to try and promote something most people had never heard of. Ed began to build this company from the ground up, in a similar fashion to the last. He sent out a letter to the top 100 players living in the country, and asked them to be a part of the PDGA, the price being only 10$ for a lifetime membership.

Disc Golf's rapid growth

Being a particularly young sport, Disc Golf isn't what would come to the minds of most if asked what their favorite sport is, but the sport has grown quite rapidly for how recent its professional debut is. Every year hundreds of new courses are added, and the total number of courses in the last decade alone, has doubled.

In 2006 the amount of PDGA members was just over 10,000, but as recent as 2016, it's members total up to 35,000+. In 2006 the number of Sactioned PDGA events was as low as 700, and in 2016 that number was just over 3,000, and the numbers have been on a rapid increase since. In 2015, Disc golf had 3 replay sessions aired on ESPN, and 9 times in 2016, to contribute it's entertainment to the world of sports.

Frequently Asked Questions

The short and simple answer is that it depends. You will definetly want a driver, given that a mid range and putter will both be wildly insufficient for your first throw, even if you are playing on a small course. That being said a mid range and a putter both have practical usage when you are closer to the hole. When you put with a driver you will often find it diving off to the side or plummeting to the ground even at a close range.

Respectively from left to right the numbers mean: Speed, Glide, Turn, and Fade. A disc that has a high speed will need to be thrown harder in order to avoid wobbling in the air. Glide refers to how long the disc will normaly remain straight, before it starts to teter off to the side. Turn refers to how much of an angle the disc will turn, if a disc has more turn, it will tilt to about a 45 degree angle and come down sharply, where as a disc will high fade will not tilt down as much but will end up much further to the right or left of the inital path, directing it's velocity to the side rather than downward.

A mandatory obstacle, often referred to as a mando, is an obstable on the course between you and the hole. This obstacle could be a tree or a pole, designated specifically in the fairway, that the disc needs to fly past on a certain side. You will need to either throw the disc to the left or to the right of the designated obstacle, in order to avoid the easiest route possible. In tournaments these must be observed, so it's good practice to play by the rules by yourself to.