History of National Disc Golf Day

No one knows when or who invented this sport — or even who first played it. Varying accounts over the years show people have played golf with a flying disc, but they are separated by years. By all accounts, each of these stories have been isolated incidents.

Allegedly, a group of children in the early 19th century threw tin lids at circular ‘targets’ drawn in the sand on the playground at Bladworth Elementary School in Saskatchewan, Canada. People believe this to be a precursor to the current sport. While this sport — the modern version — came back to Canada in the late 19th century, people across the U.S. had coincidentally been playing this game for a while, too, since the 1960s, or so the stories say, becoming a formal sport a decade later.

One such instance was when college student George Sappenfield began working as a recreation counselor while on break from his university. He did not think this would lead to him inventing a new (for him) sport. One afternoon as he played golf, he wondered if the children in his playground would like to play too, but with Frisbees. They did. A year later, after finding out that his instructor in a recreation class, Kevin Donnelly, had also promoted Frisbee golf for children, he found a kindred spirit. As Sappenfield finished college, he went on to seek support from the American toy company Wham-O for a Frisbee golf tournament that he planned to promote. Wham-O was impressed, offered Sappenfield a job, and he went on to promote this sport everywhere. Unfortunately, this momentum slowed down as Wham-O changed its promotional plans. 

While at Wham-O, Sappenfield had already introduced his colleague Ed Headrick to this sport. Headrick went on to become a major contributor to this sport, so much so that he is known as the ‘father of disc golf’ in the U.S. He founded the first official disc golf course, created (and patented) the Frisbee that would be used in this game for a long time, and founded various organizations to develop and promote this sport. More on that later.

In New York, Rochester, Jim Palmeri, his brother, and a small group of people had also been playing disc golf competitively since 1970. They were surprised to hear of the International Frisbee Association (IFA) — put together by Ed Headrick and Wham-O — and wanted to see how many people played this game in the U.S. They launched an event they called the American Flying Disc Open (AFDO) and they even put up a prize for the winner — a brand new 1974 Datsun B210.

1975 was a major turning point for disc golf. Headrick saw the promise this sport delivered, and, as an executive at Wham-O at the time, reassessed the value disc golf brought to the business. In this same year, he introduced disc golf in the World Frisbee Championships, and it was a huge success. Seeing this, Headrick resigned from his post at Wham-O and started the Disc Golf Association the next year. Soon after, he founded the initial version of the Professional Disc Golf Association, a non-profit that currently internationally governs the game. He went on to develop the official rules for this game, and also invented and patented the disc golf chain-and-basket target.

Wham-O itself continued to sponsor the World Frisbee Championship event, a move that helped introduce disc golf to people all over the U.S. and Canada, too. 

While Jim Palmeri and co. were playing, the Berkeley Frisbee Group and, separately, the University of Michigan, designed golf courses on their campuses.

As recently as six years ago, this sport gained renewed interest because of features done on ESPN’s Top 10 Plays on Sportscenter.

The day itself was the brainchild of Minnesota PDGA State Coordinator Jason Wilder and non-profit Throw Pink’s co-founder Sara Nicholson. They consulted disc golf legends Dan “Stork” Roddick, Jim Palmeri, and Tom Monroe about the date, too, finally settling on August for two reasons. One, the legendary American Flying Disc Open launched this month, and two, Ed Headrick patented the first disc golf course, which is now par for the course (pardon the pun) for all disc golf course designs. This day was approved five years ago, and the U.S. has been celebrating it ever since.