Disc golf is here in Brantford, enjoy a fun outdoor sport with friends
Sienna Bilancia- A simple sport for anyone to enjoy. From children to grown adults away after a long day at work disc golf is a sport for all. Inclusive, simple to play and inexpensive. “Anybody could play I’ve seen somebody who was in a car accident in a wheelchair and could only use one arm. Not even their dominant arm and they learned how to play…and they were good”, said Jeff Berda, Owner of True North Disc Golf.
Brantford and the Brantford area are home to a few disc golf courses.
Not far from the Brantford campus is the Mohawk Park course it is an easy course for people to start at, a good course for player to start at or just for a group to play a relaxing game.
An amazing excuse to take a walk, enjoy the sun and spend time with friends.
“You can literally just, you know, pick up a Frisbee. You know, it’s like 15, 20 bucks. And you’re good to go, and most courses are free, so there’s you know, no charge to play the golf course. and you can still let enjoy the game, playing with one disc, and I often still play Paris was just one disc just to try different shots,” Dr. Robert Martinek, Member of executive team for Brant Disc Golf Club said.
Disc golf, as a sport, has been in Canada since the mid 1920s but was reintroduced as the popular game many people know today in the 1970s in Toronto.
It wasn’t until 2007 that it came to Brantford.
A teacher by the name of Melissa Lancaster and her partner, Dan Dropko, had an ad in the Expositor looking for sponsors to help get a disc golf course started in Brantford and it grew from there.
The community is bigger now; there are courses all over, including both Paris and Brantford.
A few examples being Brantford’s Mohawk Park course, and the Dwayne Bereziuk Memorial Disc Golf Course in Paris, that was recently renamed to honour Dwayne Bereziuk, who was a big part of the community and the construction of the course.
When things were first starting out there were hardly any people on the course and playing the sport, but now there is more interest the community for the sport has grown.
“We kind of started, making Brantford known sort of at tournaments and stuff like that and then it just continued to grow, and more and more people would try it, and it just kept getting more and more regulars and, now, whether we go to Mohawk Park or Paris, a lot of times we’re waiting to get on the course, because it gets so busy,” Dr. Martinek said.
There is a local store in Brantford called True North Disc Golf that sells discs and other apparel for those getting started just as well as seasoned vets.
Photo contributed by: Craig Snow
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