When Jim Van Lanen first picked up disc golf as a freshman at UW-Oshkosh in 1981, there were only four formal courses in Wisconsin. He and his buddies had to invent their own course around campus, aiming for trees, rocks and other improvised targets.
“We had to play through people’s backyards,” remembers Van Lanen, a Wisconsin Disc Golf Hall of Fame inductee from Two Rivers who volunteers on the Wisconsin Disc Sports Association’s board.
It’s time to pick your Milwaukee favorites for the year!
Discers, as they refer to themselves, have historically been associated with carrying six packs of beer and smelling of hemp.
But today, international tournaments advertise six-figure purses, and Wisconsin, with the second-most courses in the U.S., has become an international destination for the sport just now entering a golden era. The U.S. Women’s Disc Golf Championship, held last month in Manitowoc, featured discers from as far away as New Zealand and Estonia.
Fred Krause, a devotee of the game from Manitowoc, remembers “people laughing at me” as he traipsed around the state to compete in semi-formal tournaments throughout the early 2010s.
But he was right on the cusp of the discing explosion. The national Disc Golf Pro Tour launched in 2016. Just five years later, the No. 1 player in the world, Paul McBeth, signed a contract with gear-maker Discraft for $10 million.
Nobody is laughing anymore.
In contrast to “ball golf” – what discers call traditional golf – discing is more accessible to the masses. For $30-$50 at any sporting goods store, you can acquire a set of competitive discs: a long-range driver, mid-ranger and short-range putter.
The tenets of the game are similar to ball golf. Players throw discs (don’t call them Frisbees, a trademark) at metal baskets with hanging chains to snag the soaring saucers. The goal is to get a disc into the baskets in as few throws as possible across (usually) 18 holes.
Disc golf “boomed so much in the COVID years,” recalls Krause’s wife, Lindsey, an organizer of women’s leagues. That’s no hyperbole: the Professional Disc Golf Association’s membership, at 20,587 in 2013 and 46,457 in 2018, jumped to 136,636 in 2023.
“One of the biggest things about the disc golf community is it draws from all different walks of life,” Lindsey says. “It’s a holistic and welcoming group of people.” It’s also a sport for virtually everyone. Says Lindsey: “It’s affordable. It’s accessible. And it builds community.”
Stay Local
Milwaukee County operates six full disc golf courses – in Brown Deer, Dineen, Dretzka, Estabrook and Madison parks, and along the North Root River Parkway. Each has a mix of terrains and obstacles and holes for the beginner and pro discer. A single-day permit ($6) can be used at any of the full courses; annual permits are $42. The county’s five shorter practice courses are free to play.
Level Up
Four of the world’s top 100 courses – as rated by UDisc, a disc golf smartphone app – are in Wisconsin. Closest to Milwaukee are Standing Rocks, a challenging, densely wooded course in Stevens Point that tests discers’ hooks and slices, and Rollin Ridge, an exceptionally designed course in Reedsville that mixes forested tee boxes with open pastures.
