Disc golf — Steadily growing sport is easy to learn but hard to give up

HOLLADAY — When Walter Frederick Morrison, a Utah native, invented the Frisbee in 1950, he probably didn't envision his name being engraved in stone at a park dedicated to using his flying disc.

He also probably didn't foresee dozens of two-person teams gathering at that park every Tuesday evening playing a low-stakes game of skill.

Yet, the package for the Frisbee originally urged its new owners to "Play catch, invent games."

And so they did, and so they gather at Creekside Park in Holladay to participate in a slowly growing sport — disc golf — that, once learned, is hard to give up.

"I always liked to throw them at objects and try to hit them," said Craig Myrick, one of Utah's premier disc golf players. "But I had no idea what disc golf was. Then a friend invited me to come out and play with him back in '92. I immediately fell in love with it."

To feed that love, Myrick organized a random-draw tournament that's been playing every Tuesday night for the past several years. On a recent week, more than 50 pairs played at Creekside. With beginners and more advanced players each tossing their names into a hat, tournament directors Steve and Scott Sharp pair up the disc golfers and send them on their way.

"It's a very social sport," Steve Sharp said. "That's why I'm still involved with it. I meet people every week that I've never seen before and we become friends."

The Tuesday Doubles tournaments are not highly organized get-togethers. They're a come-as-you-are event with two competitive divisions and low entry fees — $7 for advanced players and $5 for the rest of the field. After taking a small administrative fee, the organizers return all the money to winners and runners-up. Start time is 5 p.m. through October, after which the league will go into its winter hiatus with only occasional tournaments.

Disc golf in Utah is much more than a fringe sport. National tournaments have been held recently on the mountain course at Solitude. And every year, new courses pop up at various city, county and private properties.

In addition to the 18-hole course in Holladay, there is a course in Taylorsville and several others around the state. New courses are currently in the works in Park City and American Fork.

"In general, it's an easy sport to learn the basics," Sharp said. "But it's very challenging to become very good at it."