When was disc golf started

Now you can find disc golf highlights on the ESPN Sportscenter Top 10 , live streaming across many platforms, and at your local course nearby. All Photos Courtesy of DiscGolf. Skip to content. COM In one documented account, George Sappenfield, a kids camp counselor, had an idea while playing typical ball golf one day that the kids could also play golf with flying discs instead of the ball.

COM With the success of the World Frisbee Championships and support from other players, Ed wanted more for the sport of disc golf. Sources: 1. More Disc Golf History. Ed designed and installed the original target course in what is now Hahamongna Watershed Park in La Canada Flintridge. The name of the park was Oak Grove Park at the time. He was the founder of the International Frisbee Association. It was the first pole to incorporate a basket and chains. He grew to regret that decision. National disc golf competitions in Canada began with object courses in the mids in Vancouver and Toronto Open Frisbee Championships.

The tournament was in Huntington Beach, California. The cash involved was a groundbreaking factor, with the massive payout mentioned in the title.

Competitors who qualified received invitations. There were 72 qualifying events established around the country. They brought the best disc golfers from the U. It ran independently and officiated the standard rules for playing the sport. When Ed Headrick died in , per his wishes, a limited number of discs were incorporated with his ashes and given to family and friends.

Some remain. Millions of people enjoy destroying discs as they play disc golf. They want to play the game, not become directors of a worldwide organization. That is problematic. We could be on the verge of exponential growth in the sport. Sophisticated management with business capabilities and ideas is needed. As with the Frisbee and Super Ball for instance, without thinking big, nothing big occurs.

Ed Headrick found out turning the sport over to the players was not a great marketing plan. This culminated in with a fully documented, Wham-O sponsored, citywide Frisbee golf tournament.

This highly publicized tournament included hula hoops as holes, with published rules, hole lengths, pars, and prizes; an event in which Walter Frederick Morrison, Frisbee inventor, attended. The more you practice, the luckier you get. This historic account is about early disc golf pioneers and their recorded first events that began organized competitions and modern disc golf.

By , they had even promoted two City of Rochester Disc Frisbee Championship events which featured disc golf as the main event. Jim Kenner Discraft founder and Ken Westerfield, even before the idea of disc golf played some random object hole Frisbee golf in Michigan.

In , the standardized disc golf target was introduced with the first players association. Ed introduced the formal disc golf target with chains and a basket called the disc pole hole. Today the park is known as Hahamongna Watershed Park.

In Canada, national disc golf competitions began with object courses in the mids at the Canadian Open Frisbee Championships in Toronto and Vancouver. See: History of Disc Golf in Canada. Held in Huntington Beach, California. The tournament was groundbreaking because of the cash involved, its massive payout right in the title, but also because the competitors had to qualify for an invitation.

Ted Smethers took over the PDGA in to be run independently and to officiate the standard rules of play for the sport.