Disc Golf Growing in Popularity

No there will not be any UFOs floating around Northeast Coachman Park this weekend as part of the Fun 'N Sun festival.

Those discs are not from alien life forms. They are coming from golfers.

Disc golfers.

Local disc golf enthusiasts are expecting 120 golfers to compete in the Fun 'N Sun tournament today and Sunday. The turnout is so large, tournament officials had to expand the course to 24 holes from the standard 18.

"That way we can accommodate 120 golfers," said Steve Beliview, tournament director.

Slots to enter the tournament were sold out weeks ago.

Not familiar with disc golf? It's sometimes known as Frisbee golf. The objective is just like standard golf, or what disc golfers refer to as "ball golf." Golfers use Frisbees, or discs, to throw to a basket. A throw is just like a stroke in regular golf.

The golfer with the fewest throws wins.

Holes have various degrees of difficulty. Depending on the course, a golfer has to navigate trees, hills, lakes and in some areas of the world, mountain ranges. Some golfers will carry as many as two dozen different discs. Like golf clubs, different discs perform different actions. Some are made to travel a far distance, some are accurate in only a short distance, others will curve a specific way after a long flight, some will curve another way after a short distance, and so on. Some discs have been known to fly over three football fields in length.

"Alternative sports are growing by leaps and bounds," said professional disc golfer and course designer C.R. Willey, a four-time world champion who lives in Seminole on why disc golf is popular. "It's free; most of the courses are free. And we have world champions from this area. I'd guess we have 200,000 people (in the Tampa Bay area) who have played disc golf. We know (through studies) 1 in 10 people have heard of disc golf. I have been on every morning radio show and TV show in the area. We have various disc golf clubs. We now have ultimate Frisbee which is disc football."

"I think it all boils down to alternative sports. So many people have gotten away from organized sports though baseball, football and soccer are still very popular. When you are too old to play slow-pitch softball, what do you do? I don't have to pay a green's fee but it's still golf. I also think people's fascination with flight is why it's popular."

Beliview was one such person looking for alternative sports. He played high school and college baseball but grew weary of the rigid organization of the sport and gravitated to disc golf with its freedom and ease of stress.

Though Beliview cannot play in the tournament because he is the director, Willey can. Like in regular golf, Willey says whoever succeeds will do so because of putting.

"If your putting is on, you are going to win," Willey said. "That's what it comes down to in tournament play."