In 1970, two brothers in Rochester NY discovered that they could play their favorite game, golf, with their Frisbee discs.  They organized a tournament for a group of their friends in September of 1970. They enjoyed it so much they did it again in August of 1971.  They started the Rochester Frisbee Club in the spring of 1972, meeting every Tuesday night to play a round of disc golf and to socialize.  They capped their summer season off with a big City of Rochester Disc Golf Championship tournament.  They got great media coverage for their unique activity and repeated the summer series and the City of Rochester Championship event in 1973.

At the 1973 City of Rochester Disc Golf Championships, someone showed the two brothers a copy of the International Frisbee Association Newsletter.  They were amazed to find out that there was a huge Frisbee association out there, but were disappointed that they didn’t find any organized disc golf tournament activity.  They couldn’t believe that they were the only ones playing disc golf as a competitive sport on a regular basis, so they decided that the next year they would organize a big disc golf tournament to find out just who else was playing the game.

As an incentive to attract Frisbee players from around the country, they called the tournament the American Flying Disc Open, and offered a brand New 1974 Datsun for first prize.  They wanted to introduce disc golf as a competitive sport to the Frisbee community, and they succeeded. 

Dan the Stork Roddick blew away the field of some of the best Frisbee players on the planet at that time, including John Kirkland, Victor Malafronte, Doug Corea, John Connelly, John Sappington, Tom Cleworth and many others, half of which had never heard of disc golf before, much less played the game.  But they came because they were the best Frisbee players from their own particular geographical area. They each thought they had the new car in the bag. Those that had played some disc golf as an occasional recreational activity were even more confident.  But Dan Roddick had the most Frisbee experience, and put it all together to win this first professional style disc golf tournament.

Most of these big time Frisbee players had already been invited to Ed Headrick’s’ 1974 World Frisbee Championships that had been slated to be held in Pasadena’s Rose Bowl stadium later that 1974 August month.  Their talk of the Big AFDO disc golf tournament and Dan Roddick’s new Datsun automobile caught Ed Headrick’s ear.

Six months later, Ed Headrick hired Dan Roddick to head up Wham-O’s new Sports Promotion department and the reorganized International Frisbee Association.  Dan convinced Ed Headrick to include disc golf in the second annual World Frisbee Championship Rose Bowl event.  Ed began to take a big interest in disc golf as a sport, and because of the success of the 1975 WFC disc golf event, he resigned from the Wham-O Mfg company and started up his disc golf business, the original Disc Golf Association.

And as Paul Harvey always says, “You know the rest of the story”!

Today, disc golf is not just an activity of the Frisbee community; it is a full blown sport unto itself.

Disc golf has its own professional organization, the Professional Disc Golf Association, (PDGA), a professional competition tour, and complete support for competitive amateur disc golf, including an annual amateur world championships.  For more information, go to http://www.pdga.com/