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| Things went on unchanged for the next few years. That is until 1968 when a key piece of the disc golf puzzle fell into place. It was so subtle however, it wasn’t really even noticed. The ever-growing popularity of “Steady” Ed’s annual International Frisbee Tournament held at the Rose Bowl fields in Pasadena was attracting a new generation of players. While the founding members of the “Guts” game continued to play it almost religiously, this new generation of players brought with them their own games of Frisbee, including MTA, fancy trick throwing and catching, and Ultimate. The two groups of players began introducing their respective games to the others and started to see the acceptance and value of other forms of Frisbee games. |
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An interesting Frisbee fact: In 1968 the US Navy spent almost $400,000 studying the flight characteristics |
| of the Frisbee in wind tunnel testing, following their flights with computers and cameras, as well as building a special Frisbee-launching device atop a Utah cliff to test a flare launcher prototype! |
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Even though the game of disc golf hadn’t gained |
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| national acceptance at the time, that didn’t mean itwasn’t being played. As a matter of fact, a group of players in Rochester, NY had discovered the game in 1970 and by 1973 were playing the game of disc golf as a competitive sport. That same year the group, calling themselves the “Rochester Frisbee Club”, was promoting their 3rd Annual Rochester Disc Golf Championship. In 1974 this gang of players introduced competitive disc golf to the Frisbee community by putting together a big tournament called the “American Flying Disc Open”. This event was key to the development of disc golf as a sport and is considered by many to be the first disc golf tournament of its kind. In an attempt to attract attention to the event, the organizers offered a brand new 1974 automobile as grand prize for the tournament. It’s said the event had a gallery of close to two thousand people! The organizers sent a letter to Wham-O detailing their event and it caught the attention of none other than “Steady” Ed Headrick. |
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The “American Flying Disc Open” was important for another reason as well. In the nine months after |
| the tourney, “Steady” Ed watched the explosion of interest in the game of disc golf and decided to hire the winner of the event, Dan Roddick, and bring him on board at Wham-O as the head of it’s new IFA Sports Promotion Department. Dan’s first major achievement in his new position was to convince “Steady” Ed to include disc golf as an event at his World Frisbee Championships in 1975. In preparation for that event, “Steady” Ed installed the worlds first permanent disc golf course (using pole holes as targets) in Oak Grove Park, in La Canada, California! Yet another key piece of the puzzle fell into place. |
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1976 was to be the year that would cement the game of disc golf into American culture. Three events |
| would come together to make that happen. First, Dan Roddick, seeing the huge potential of the new game, decided to make disc golf one of the key events in the 1976 North American Series of qualifying tournaments for the World Frisbee Championships, thus giving the game credibility and much needed exposure. Second, “Steady” Ed became so convinced of the potential of the game of disc golf that he resigned his position at Wham-O and went on to form his own company, the Disc Golf Association (DGA). Ed would use this company to sell and install disc golf courses and equipment all across the U.S. and Canada, and with it the explosive |
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expansion of disc golf couldn’t be stopped. With every course installed it inspired more and more players totake up the game and in turn they wanted their own courses in their own towns and cities. Finally, in that same year one of the biggest innovations of the game came into being. Not satisfied with the chained contraptions being used as targets at the World Frisbee Championships that year, “Steady” Ed began working on a new idea. After more than fifty-six separate attempts, he came up with the elevated steel chain basket! It’s the basic design seen on disc golf courses around the world today and helped give the game its own unique identity! |
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Throughout the next few years the game of disc golf |
| was gaining popularity and credibility around the |
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| country. In 1982 the Professional Disc Golf Association (PDGA) was established in order to organize and standardize the sport including everything from consistent rules to tournament organization to setting standards for course installation. One of the most important changes the PDGA brought to disc golf is that it helped change the image of disc golf from being a game to that of a sport. It accomplished that by organizing a membership base. By having players “join” the PDGA and assigning them membership numbers, it changed how the players viewed themselves within the sport. Membership was open to anyone, but by being a member it meant they had become part of something special and unique. Disc Golf had its own identity now and was no longer a craze that would simply fade away. |
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The final defining step in the evolution of disc golf into the game we know today came in 1983. Until this |
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| point the game of disc golf was still being played with traditional Frisbees designed primarily to be thrown and caught. Unfortunately, the Frisbee didn’t really perform well in any type of windy condition and was hard to throw for a lot of people. This is where Jan Sobel puts his stamp on the sport forever! Jan came up with a disc specifically designed for the game of disc golf; a flatter, heavier, smaller disc. He called his design a “Puppy”. It was to become the first modern disc golf disc and the prototype for most discs we see today. |
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Enter Dave Dunipace. Dave also |
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| thought it was time for a change and in his words, “I wanted to make the sport more dynamic by introducing drivers to the game that basically had a putter at best”. He went to Harold Duvall, then the PDGA Champion, and told him of his new disc ideas. Harold and his brother Charlie decided they would fund the project, and their buddy Tim Selinske would run the business and manage their first shop. Together they became known as “The Four Horsemen” and set out on their mission of taking Jan Sobel’s design, improving it, and turning what had been until that time a recreational game into a professional level sport. |
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| Quickly after the creation of the company, the Four Horsemen dumped the original Frisbee design and set out to create a series of categories of different discs for individual purposes on the course. he new designs featured beveled edges, and were high performance, non-catch discs that would perform specific functions. The company later became known as Innova Disc Golf and is the leading manufacturer of discs in the sport today. |
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What’s next for the game of disc golf? The sport continues to grow in popularity and courses are going |
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| into the ground at record pace. There’s even an effort today to get the game of disc golf added to the Olympics. So who knows, one day soon we might see our first Olympic gold medallist in disc golf! The game certainly has come a long way from those first kids playing catch with a tin pie plate. |
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| Special thanks go out to Jim Palmeri (PDGA #23), Dan "The Stork" Roddick (PDGA #2), Alan "Upshot" Brown (PDGA #30235), the DGA and Wham-O for providing much needed information and assistance for this project. And of course thanks to "Steady" Ed Headrick for having the vision and convinction to make the sport of disc golf what it is today! |
