From cut-throat tournament players shaving strokes off their score to college students casually throwing discs while they have a beer, a day at a disc golf course can display the diversity of the players.

The sport of disc golf takes the physics of the Frisbee and combines it with the sport of golf. Players use drivers, approach and putting discs to complete courses of nine or 18 holes.

Most courses are located in or around wooded areas or city parks.

Neils Johnson, of Ames, who is a nationally ranked disc golf player by the Professional Disc Golf Association, said Iowa is one of the best places in the country for disc golf. Johnson also said Iowa has the second-highest number of disc golf courses with only 10 fewer than the leader, Texas.

“Des Moines is considered one of the biggest meccas of disc golf in the country, and everybody knows about Des Moines because of all of our courses,” Johnson said.

Iowa was one of the first states, Johnson said, to begin to expand the size of disc golf holes from the 250 feet holes that were common into the late ’90s.

“Most kids can throw it that far now. It’s gotten to where people can throw 400-plus feet, so courses have been made to go 500,” Johnson said.

Johnson was introduced to disc golf by his daughter in 2001. Although he wasn’t very competitive with other sports, Johnson found disc golf to be an easy sport to get into and excel in.

“Disc golf kind of gave me that avenue of a sport that I could compete in. Basically, any age you can compete in this sport because there are different levels for people,” Johnson said.

Disc golf at Iowa State

Garry Greenlee, associate director of Recreation Services at Iowa State, was also introduced to the sport by his children.

“My kids took me out to play, they had their discs, I had my Frisbee. They were laughing at me for that, but it was fun,” Greenlee said.

When he noticed a lot of students were using the disc golf courses, Greenlee said he wanted to start up a disc golf intramurals league for Iowa State.

“With recreation intramurals, we’re always looking for something new, something different to offer our students,” Greenlee said.

The intramurals took over the Carol Marty Disc Golf Course in Gateway Hills Park a few days per week. Greenlee said he didn’t want to prevent other players from accessing the course, so he worked with Iowa State to build a course on Iowa State’s property near Frederiksen Court.

“Our course cost about $40,000 to put in all the baskets, do all the cutting down and cleaning up, putting in some tee pads.”

Iowa State’s course gained a lot of attention with disc golfers when the Disc Golf World Games held tournaments on several central Iowa courses. The games came to the ISU disc golf course just after it was completed in 2005.

“They selected one of our holes, Hole 16, as one of the top holes in the world,” Greenlee said.

A lot of the disc golf players participating in Iowa State’s intramurals were not typical athletes, Greenlee said.

“It’s not your traditional volleyball, football, basketball kind of guys. It’s another group of students that we’ve reached that maybe don’t play the team sports, but found something else they like to play and recreate at,” Greenlee said.

Getting started

Unlike other sports that require expensive equipment and extensive practice and training, Greenlee said many are attracted to the sport because it is cheap and easily approachable.

“It’s pretty affordable to do, it’s pretty quick, it’s simple and fun. You can do it by yourself, it’s free to use the courses. It’s got a lot of good things going for it, you can’t beat all those things when movies are seven, eight bucks and a round of golf is $50 with a cart,” Greenlee said.

The sport requires a lot of walking, Johnson said, so it allows players to socialize while they are disc golfing. He said this is one feature of the sport that initially attracted many of the disc golfers he knows who have become more competitive players.

“It’s just a sport where you can socialize. I think when people start playing it, they realize this is a lot of fun,” Johnson said. “Just about every player that you see that’s a good player now started out as just that.”

Selecting a good disc is one of the first things a beginning player must do to start out playing the sport. This can be difficult because of the wide variety of discs available.

“For somebody starting out, probably the best driver would be a TeeBird, because they are discs that will go fairly straight,” Johnson said.

A Stingray is recommended as a good beginning approach disc, said Johnson, because it also has more of a tendency for flying straight. Johnson said a putter won’t have too many discrepancies because they are pretty similar in the beginner levels.

Advanced play

Players really only need one disc to play, Johnson said, but if they want to really learn the game, they should have a driver, approach and putter. A player may want to carry a few additional discs as they improve their skills and learn how to use each disc for its purpose.

“I carry eight different drivers in my bag, five or six different mid-rangers, and a couple different putters. It just depends because sometimes you want to throw left to right, right to left, or straight,” Johnson said.

The flight of the disc is affected by what is called the disc’s bevel. On the underside of the disc there is a lip the player grips to fling the disc. The thickness of the bevel, its angle, and discrepancy in its width on the left or right will determine how the disc will fly, depending on how hard the disc is thrown.

As players develop, they look for courses and holes that are more interesting and challenging to complete. There are several characteristics of holes that make them stand out from other holes, but most importantly, the hole must force the player through technical challenges.

“If you get a place where there is a lot of trees, that’s great, ’cause then you can carve holes through the trees and it’s more of a challenge,” Johnson said.