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Fifty million rounds of disc golf were played in 2020 around the world. That’s almost 100 games started every minute, according to UDisc’s 2021 disc golf growth report. They also reported a 50 percent increase in courses built from 2020 to 2021.

Each year, more people try their hand at disc golf, and that includes Indiana. Hannah Lengel, who graduated from Grace College in 2012 and now lives in Winona Lake, has been playing for a few years and is at the highest female amateur level. She is the highest-rated amateur woman in Indiana and the second-highest-rated woman overall in Indiana. 

Lengel started playing disc golf in 2019 when a friend introduced her to the sport. She liked it, but it wasn’t something she took seriously–until the COVID-19 pandemic hit. While sports have long been one of Lengel’s passions, the pandemic caused the cancellation of many of her favorite sports, so she turned to disc golf. 

“I really like the outdoors, and it was an active thing to do by myself,” Lengel says. 

Disc golfer Hannah Lengel is the highest-rated amateur woman in Indiana and the second-highest-rated woman overall in Indiana.The more she played, the more she enjoyed it. Lengel played her first tournament in 2019, and she went to even more tournaments after the pandemic. In 2021, she competed in an A-Tier tournament, a high-level tier with about 40-60 people, and won. With proof that she could compete at a higher level, she competed in the PDGA Amateur Disc Golf World Championships in 2022 with 74 competitors, and she placed sixth. 

Last year, she played in 12 sanctioned PDGA tournaments. 

There are three nine-hole disc golf courses in Warsaw that Lengel visits most often: Grace College, Lucerne Park, and Harrison Elementary. The Grace Course is open with a few tree obstacles, the Lucerne course has more obstacles, and Harrison is open. She’s also visited a new course in North Webster, Ind. 

Disc golfer Hannah Lengel is the highest-rated amateur woman in Indiana and the second-highest-rated woman overall in Indiana.As the popularity of disc golf grows, so does the need for places where community members can come together to share their interests. Andy Phipps and Alaister McFarren, both graduates of Grace College, recently opened Circle Disc Golf in Warsaw, a local store devoted to supplying discs for competitive and recreational players alike. 

In 2020, Phipps started Circle Disc Golf as an online store, and last summer, he approached McFarren…