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Brooklyn O’Krafka will take on the world later this year when she attends the Professional Disc Golf Association junior world championships in Peoria, Illinois.

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O’Krafka, a 12-year-old from Paris, captured the Ontario Junior Disc Golf championship last fall in to qualify for the worlds, which will take place from June 27 to July 1.

“I don’t really know what to expect because I haven’t played in America before,” she said when asked her expectation going to the world championships.

“My goal is to play as well as I would at a regular course and obviously to have fun with the other people I meet from around the world.”

O’Krafka is relatively new to the sport but it hasn’t taken her long to fill her trophy case.

In the summer of 2020, the O’Krafka family – which includes parents Trevor and Jaimie, along with son, Parker – decided to take up the sport.

Since the family lives relatively close to Green Lane Sports Complex, they started playing at the facility’s Dwayne Bereziuk Memorial Disc Golf Course.

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“I really liked it,” O’Krafka said of her feeling when starting the sport.

“It allowed me to be outside and active. It was pretty hard but once I did it more and more it got easier and easier.”

The Grade 6 student at Paris Central School entered her first tournament in 2021 and since that time, she’s played in eight total tournaments, winning seven of them and finishing second in the other.

O’Krafka qualified for the provincials last year after winning a tournament in Paris.

“I just wanted to have fun but I did win so that was a bonus,” she said of winning the Ontario championship at the tournament in Peterborough.

“It felt really good to know that I had improved since I started, which was really great.”

O’Krafka said the biggest strides she’s made since starting…