Nebraskaland

36 Nebraskaland • May 2026 DISC GOLF PRIMER There's a lingo to it, and, of course, special discs tailored to different shots. Drivers are aerodynamic for distance while others are built more for control. Sidearms, forehands and backhands get the disc down the fairway. Butterflies and flappers are for putting. "Each type of disc is designed to do something a little bit different. It depends on how you throw it for which direction it's going to go," Rodiek said. "If you throw a disc backhand, it will go left; forehand makes it go right." Sometimes, improvisation is necessary. "There are a lot of get-outta-trouble shots like thumbers and tomahawks," Rodiek said. "Sometimes you feel like you're doing yoga when playing disc golf." The average tee-to-basket is about 270 feet with a par 3. Championship level courses have fairways of 400-500 feet — a distance that proficient players can accomplish with a good drive. BIG DREAMS AND HUMBLE BEGINNINGS Had disc golf been born earlier than the sport with clubs and the dimpled ball, would it just be called "golf' and the other "ball golf"? The popularity of the disc game has picked up steam since emanating from the West Coast. The number of disc courses is nearing the number of "regular" golf courses throughout the United States, even though ball golf got a big head start. It's impossible to know who first made a game of throwing a flying disc, or perhaps a pie pan, at stationary targets. However, the late "Steady" Ed Headrick is given credit for being the "Father of Disc Golf," a title he earned dating back to his work as a key figure at Wham-O. It's the company that invented the Frisbee. His obsession with the disc golf concept began in the early 1970s as he and others informally walked around challenging each other to hit objects such as trees and trash cans with their flying discs. Wham-O didn't share Headrick's dream of building the sport of disc golf. When Headrick walked away from his lucrative job at the company in 1975, he put his passion to work developing and promoting disc golf and established Oak Grove, the nation's first public course for the sport at Pasadena, California. It first featured poles as targets but then installed the "disc pole hole" that Headrick and his son patented. It's the same basic design of today's baskets with chains that are found across the nation. It would be a while before the craze reached Nebraska. Roper East at Interstate Park in Lincoln, which was built in 1992, has the distinction of being Nebraska's first course. LEFT: Discs are tailored to throw various shots and distances. JEFF KURRUS, NEBRASKALAND ABOVE: James Fleege of Lincoln plays the Beal Slough Disc Golf Course in Lincoln, one of the top rated courses in the United States. ERIC FOWLER, NEBRASKALAND

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