Canadian disc golf is throwing and growing

The international community of disc golfers has suddenly discovered Canada.

For that, we should lay down our frisbees and applaud the Moens Family. Victoria B.C.’s Julie Moens recently brought home a second-place finish in the Amateur World Disc Golf championships. That is a big deal because, although the numbers are growing fast, there are still only 2,000 Canadians in the Professional Disc Golf Association ... compared to 57,000 members in the U.S. alone. 

Ted Moens, Julie’s dad, won the 60+ age division at the same Orlando, Fla., tournament that Julie charged through last month. A brother, and two more disc-throwing Moens sisters are all also playing at elite levels. And Nancy, their mother, is in the mix too.  

There’s a sweet spot in the life cycle of any young sport: established enough to get respect, still scrappy enough that players feel part of a cool community. That is where disc golf seems to be in Canada right now.

For the uninitiated, the sport plays exactly like regular golf. Eighteen-hole layouts, tee boxes, fixed pars, the biggest difference is that instead of clubbing little balls into cups, players aim frisbee-like discs at baskets made of metal and chain.

Kevin Underhill, who has played Ultimate for Team Canada for many years, is also an avid disc golfer and observer of the game. He points to the steepening curve of registered disc golfers, both pro and amateur. Ten years ago, there were only 14,000 PDGA members, worldwide. By 2020 that number had popped up to 70,000. And there’s a satisfying shift in who's playing too.

“It’s just anecdotally more diverse now. The sport is quite accessible. You see all races and genders playing in parks around British Columbia. Even though middle age white guys do still seem to be the typical disc golfer, it’s changing.”

Underhill put CBC Sports in touch with his old Ultimate teammate Julie Moens, who was more keen to talk about the players' community than her own fantastic result in Florida. Things are improving, but player stats still speak loudly. Of those 70, 000 registered players? 66,000 are men.

Moens does not sugarcoat the sport's growing pains.

“Starting in disc golf? Every woman I know in the community has had issues. But lately, we’re noticing more inclusiveness. Clubs are recognising that there is an issue and they are taking ownership. The majority are still that same white male demographic, but there’s a lot more women. I am seeing foursomes of women now and you never used to see that. In BC, a lot of women are vocal about wanting a better seat at the table. When I see women at the course I always ask them to join me for a round.”

As for her outstanding performance at the world championships, Moens would have been pleased with a top-10 finish.

“I haven’t played a tournament in two years (due to COVID)  and they are nerve wracking! This one was seven-and-a-half rounds, and that was a hard sustained effort over five days.”

About those nerves ... is disc golf like regular golf, where nerves do their worst in putting?

“Every drive I was jello. I would tee up and forget how to throw. But my putting was very confident so that was not a worry. So that let me relax with my drives, knowing I did not need to be right up on the basket.”

Moens is not a large athlete. But she can usually throw further than most women. Her maximum drives are often about 360 feet. In Florida she was bombing 380 and 390 footers.

“I played every sport as a kid. Parents put me in everything. So when I drive, I really give ‘er. I try to throw as far as I can. Other people I can see, they still throw far but I really try to wing it a long way.”

The Moens are an athletic family. Julie’s brother started them in Ultimate, then her sisters got into it. Julie played for Team Canada. Her mom and dad played a lot of disc golf when they lived in Germany.

The sport is big in Northern Europe. Julie’s little sister Jordan got into disc golf, gave Julie a bunch of discs and drew arrows showing how they’d fly on the back of each one. Then she turned her loose at a provincial tournament in 2017.

Can we call the Moens the first family of Canadian Disc Golf?

“My mum says if she wants to see her family she has to play disc golf, so there you go. We are four siblings who all play, and all our partners play too. There's also an uncle in Nanaimo and a cousin in Toronto, all playing. Not sure if we’re the first, but maybe we are the most in disc golf!”

Equal Play Equal Pay?

Will Moens turn pro after the world No. 2 finish?

“After this tournament it would be frowned on for me to go back to amateur. So I will go pro.”

But here’s where those male-female player numbers hit home. Prize money in disc golf tournaments is based on a percentage of entry fees in each division.

Moens says, ”The last tournament in B.C., the female winner got one dollar. The man got $500. Which sends a message ... I love disc golf. But I am a software developer and I am not going to beat that. I’ll play all the B.C., and west coast tourneys, but disc golf won’t be my job.”

After publication of this article, the tournament director sent an explanatory note. In the case Julie is citing, the male pro won $528 USD, which is 117% of fees collected from the field of 25.  The female pro was in fact the only entrant in her category...so she actually won $81... her own entry fee, plus 142% of payout value.   

Danny Voss, Marketing Director for the PDGA, recognizes that linking prize money to number of entrants is a problem when men outnumber women players so starkly.  This year, the PDGA has committed to equal payout for the top male and female finishers in the National Tour standings. Voss hopes that leading by example at the highest level of professional disc golf, will persuade individual tournament directors to follow suit, which should in turn aid the overall promotion of the women’s game.

Sponsorships help too, of course, and Moens’ outstanding play has won her a couple of them. One sponsor is Ace Runners, a Canadian retailer of disc golf gear. John Gould-Thorpe, Ace Runners CEO, moved to B.C. from Nova Scotia more than 20 years ago, with a head full of mountaineering dreams, but disc golf bit him first and hardest.

He was instrumental in building Raptor’s Knoll, a park in Langley that is perhaps Canada’s premiere disc golf course. Gould-Thorpe measures the uptick in his sport by supply and demand. In recent years, manufacture has expanded, but no disc makers can keep up with growing demand. Entire factory lots of discs are sold out within minutes of release. Ace Runners was a two-person company in 2015. It has a full time staff of eight now, and needs to hire more. The sport is undeniably taking off.

A few weeks ago, a bunch of old friends, hackers, were at the first tee of a disc golf course in Toronto’s Don Valley. A friendly stranger named Ron Bianchi walked up and asked if he could play along. Ron’s a former special Olympian weightlifter. He waited politely while we wrenched our shoulders, chirped each other, and flung our discs all over the joint. Ron stepped up and launched. We’d never seen anything like it. His shot rocketed away in a graceful S trajectory. It floated and floated and curved around a tree and came to rest, hundreds of feet away, a two foot tap in from the target basket.

With that one shot, and Ron’s ensuing crushing of the course, it dawned on all of us: there is a great deal more skill to disc golf than we realized. Also, there are few other sports in which a player of Ron's calibre would be caught dead among newbs like ourselves. And another thing.  If my pals and I are typical, the disc golf community really does have work to do in the diversity department.

Julie Moens has a thought about that.

“In Victoria itself I have met a lot of women who are now entering their first tournaments. Anything I can do to increase women’s enjoyment, I love that. There are eleven women in an upcoming B.C. tournament. Until recently the most I ever saw was three women. So I am excited to see that.”

Disc golf has caught on most noticeably in British Columbia and Ontario. Half of Canada’s 300 courses are in these two provinces. But there are places to play in every province and territory now. Props should go to Nunavut, with one course and counting.

Speaking of  the northern game, any tips on winter disc golf?

Moens says, “People laugh. I look like a marshmallow, I wear so many layers. And I keep battery-powered hand warmers in each pocket. I double in size with the winter wear.”

Underhill has a more low tech approach. “I played a tournament in February in Yukon, and the thing there is streamers that you tape on your disc, so if it buries in the snow, you have a good chance of finding it again. You could also perhaps carry a hot coffee as you play.”

A diverse bunch of friends, playing through a winter walk with their hands full of double doubles? That’s a Canuck slam dunk if there ever was one.

(Top large Image by Conrad Meyer Photography)