The Michigan State disc golf club, a co-ed group with more than 100 members on the team’s email list, is hoping last year's unexpected championship run will inspire this season. Playing for a national championship is challenging, even under normal circumstances. It faced more difficulties than usual last season, due to a lack of organized practices and trying to revive the team after the COVID-19 pandemic.
The disc golf club has disbanded and reformed multiple times, with the current one around since 2019, but had not entered competitions before last season. Still, the club qualified for the College Disc Golf National Championship and 10 members headed down to Marion, North Carolina to compete over spring break 2023.
“We played like four rounds of disc golf a day at the nicest courses I’ve ever played at,” Luke Conway, a sophomore accounting major and the club’s president, said.
Disc golf is similar to golf, except played with a Frisbee. Players throw the disc towards a metal basket, with the goal of getting into the hole in as few throws as possible. In college disc golf competitions, there are teams of four with rounds of alternate doubles, using the best-shot format. The team round is followed by an individual one. Team scores are calculated using the average of the singles round, plus the score of the alternate doubles round. Like golf, the lowest score wins.
“It’s a single person sport and we’ve turned it into a team sport,” Zach Rose, a senior finance major, said.
The club left a week early for the national championship to practice and do team bonding. Rose said that trip was his favorite memory and helped him get to know his teammates. He joined the club late, but still made the trip down to North Carolina.
“We drove down there in two cars. We had eight people and lived together for a week,” Rose said. “To be honest, I didn’t know anyone at the club at the time, I just kind of joined in and we made so many memories and they’re just my friends now,”
Rose said that the college disc golf format makes it more of a team activity, though the sport is usually played alone. Strategizing and teamwork are important in the alternate doubles rounds.
“Yes, you do have a singles round where you need to compete by yourself, but then the other rounds you’re playing with three other people. It’s more than just yourself, you’re out there with your friends and your team,” Rose said.
Lincoln Lloyd, a sophomore statistics major and the club’s vice-president, said although the team did not play well at the championship last year, placing 57th, it was still a good experience.
“It was like a torrential downpour two of the days, but it was still super fun getting to compete and it felt like a real professional tournament so that was really cool,” he said.
This season, with more organized practices and the team hosting its first-ever tournament, the goal is to win the national championship - or at least not finish second to last, Lloyd said. The team has qualified for regionals, but must place well at regionals to qualify for the national championship in South Carolina.
Conway made it his goal to get the club involved in local tournaments and have organized practices to give players the best chance at doing well in the tournament. He began playing disc golf in 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, and has won some high profile tournaments in the mid-Michigan area. “During COVID, I didn’t have much to do and I found disc golf and played with my brother a ton and then ever since then I’ve loved it,” Conway said.
He won the CCR Open, the highest non-professional disc golf tournament in the region, in Holt, this past July. Winning this tournament is how Conway first got in contact with Gary Vigil, director of sponsorships for Discraft, a disc manufacturing company in Wixom.
Vigil, an East Lansing resident and director of local tournaments, handed his card to Conway and told him to reach out if the club needed any equipment. The club is now sponsored by Discraft.
Discraft has also partnered with other university club disc golf teams, like Ferris State, Grand Valley State, and Toledo.
Sponsorships are a key aspect of helping players go professional, which is Conway and Lloyd's goal. Both players have Instagram accounts showcasing their skills and Conway has a discount code with Great Lakes Disc, a disc golf company in West Michigan.
Conway, Lloyd, and Rose want to make this club long lasting and prevent it from disbanding again. The team won the first tournament it hosted in Oshtemo, in a come from behind fashion after being in third going into the final two holes. Hosting and competing in tournaments is the best way to get involved in the local disc golf community and gives the team valuable practice.
“Honestly, the work that these kids have put in to make this club the way it is I think just growing the club and establishing the club,” Rose said. “So if we can establish something and keep it going and keep it around for a while that would be cool.”