Frisbee golf team returns from nationals

The frisbee golf team has returned to campus after participating in the National Collegiate Disc Golf Championships hosted by the Professional Disc Golf Association (PDGA).

The National Championships were held in North Augusta, SC on April 13-16, where the Pioneer team placed 23rd out of 49 teams. This is the first year the frisbee golf team has gone to nationals, mainly because it is only their second semester as a club. The previous frisbee golf team was abandoned and had been off campus for a few years.

“There were 3 flights. There was, championship flight, first flight, and second flight and I think there were around 80 teams there total,” said Jesse Peterson Junior music education major.

Faculty Advisor, Matt Drilling has previous experience with frisbee golf said, the clubs president, Peter Wilke Junior industrial technology management major. Wilke asked Drilling to be their advisor after finding out the experience Drilling had.

“He knew most of the insides and outs of the collegiate leagues and that’s how we get into tournaments and stuff,” said Wilke. Anderson said, he would like to do better next year, but is proud of his team members for the way they finished the competition.

Frisbee Golf member Alec Anderson has been watching his dad play frisbee golf since he was born. “I just kind of grew up with disc golf in my life,” said Anderson. Anderson has been playing throughout his life and won state three times in a row with his high school team that he started. Peterson as well grew up playing with his family members for fun however, wasn’t serious about it until his junior year of high school.

“I played a view local tournaments, like one per summer for the first view years and last summer was my first year playing PDGA tournaments as an amateur,” said Peterson.

Anderson said his favorite memory was all the team bonding. “Since it’s our first year as a team, me and the 3 other guys got super close,” said Anderson.

Peterson said his favorite memory from this season was playing at a course at nationals that wasn’t actually being played on for competition.

“The international disc golf center was like a half an hour away from Augusta, so we drove down there and played their championship level course, which is amazing,” said Peterson.

Wilke said, his favorite memory was playing in the MN tournament and meeting the members of the other team. “We played a team round with the University of Minnesota and we just had a ton of fun playing Blue Ribbons Pine Course which is a really pretty course up in Northern Minnesota,” said Wilke.

Anderson said, he is looking forward to next year and setting high goals for himself and his team members.

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