Life is funny. You think you know what is going to happen but really it's out of your control. When I was much younger I thought something changed when you got older. You became a different person. It turns out for most of us we just become more authentically ourselves. As a youth I didn’t plan. The only conscious choice I ever made was to surround myself with good people and then go with the flow. One morning at the age of 17 my best friend suggested we buy a plane ticket to as far away as we could and try to hitchhike home. That afternoon we landed in Calgary, six days later we were back at my mothers house. Many of my life choices followed roughly the same thought process; that is to say, ‘that sounds cool, let’s do it’.
When I played my first round of disc golf I knew it would be a part of my life forever. Beyond that I had no plan and no idea where it would take me. Eventually it became my job. It is a job I love deeply. I adore every second I spend working in the woods, finding lines, trimming trees, and doing all minutia associated with building a disc golf course. I love making proposals, meeting clients, and dreaming big. At first my goals were simple, basically grow the game in the place that I lived. I had this vision that I would build courses all over the maritimes so that when I drove places with my family I could stop almost anywhere and play a round of disc golf. I wasn’t aiming to be the best builder in the world or to change the industry. I wasn’t trying to make an impact on the global game or to become all consumed with my passion. I just wanted to build a few cool courses and do my part to grow the game. Not until much later did I ever dream about hosting National Championships or anything beyond. When I started I just wanted to play more disc golf and the only way to do that was to build some courses and run some events. I’m not sure I really know what irony is but I think the last few years of my disc golf life have been somewhat ironic.
Ironic: happening in the opposite way to what is expected, and typically causing wry amusement because of this
Things followed more or less a very logical pathway for me. I didn’t often think too far ahead during any of the disc golf teaching portion of my life. After I built my first course in 2008 (Gogans Greens) my high school offered to take students out to try the game. That led me to seek out other high schools who might be interested in trying disc golf. One after another they said yes and, eventually over time I ended up teaching over 17,500 students, in 4 countries, some aspects of disc golf. As I progressed down this pathway I realized that the educational component of disc golf was a huge key for growing the game. I saw how important it would be to formalize our teaching standards. It could put our game more in line with other high performance sports in Canada and that was a necessary step in our trajectory of growth. I learned about LTADs and performance pathways. I learned about certification processes and Sport Canada. It took me to CanDisc and eventually to the head of the Education Committee. I put in my share of hours to create a document and template we could use to teach this game across the country. For a myriad of reasons it failed. That failure almost killed my spirit. Eventually I accepted defeat and tried to move to something I could be more successful in. I saw that the educational component of disc golf was key to growth but I realized the task is too big for me. I didn’t realize how many people it would take to create a lasting impact. My lesson to myself was, and continues to be, teach anyone I can and simply be happy with that. Don’t think too much further ahead.
At the same time I (and my team) had been running events. As I was perfecting my first course I realized that many people still thought of disc golf as a bit of a joke. I’m only guessing here but it certainly felt like 90% of the time it was still called ‘frisbee golf’, and the name frisbee was still strongly associated with hippie culture and leisure. Nobody in the disc golf world was making a million dollars yet and we were still the weirdos of the sport world. It seemed like events were a great way to elevate the playing field and to show people our game was populated with athletes. Now don’t get me wrong, competitive disc golf in 2008 looked a lot different than it does now. The vast majority of events were not sanctioned. There was no Udsic, no PDGA live, no live coverage of any kind, and very few events outside of the major established disc golf hubs. In my opinion it was still worth it to spend my time trying to create cool events. Our first ‘big’ event was ‘The May 24’ in 2009 followed by the ‘Maritime Championship’ (This was an unsanctioned event in case anyone was wondering) around 2010. We had two players travel from PEI for the event and maybe 20 players total. Duncan won by one stroke after I went OB on hole 17 (in case you were wondering that too). That loss still stings. We more or less kind of plodded along running a couple of events per year until we found John Ansara and the Iron Leaf. Soon after that the ‘Maritime Tour’ was born with 5 or 6 events total including Pugwash, Halifax, Sackville, Fredericton, New Minas, and PEI. By 2014 we realized we kind of liked this aspect of disc golf. We ran the ECDGT at Hillcrest and had players from Maine, Ontario, and Quebec travel and tell us we were doing a great job. Eventually myself, and then a small group of us started to play in National Championships and realized we could host something like that too. Then comes 2018 and a wildly successful National Championship that we hosted at Hillcrest and Huck it with Paige, Simon, Nate Sexton, Zoe, DK, and a list of others. The following year we got even bigger thanks to Paul McBeth, James Conrad and a well loved list of pros. After a couple of Covid events we finally topped the 500 player mark with our best Nationals to date in 2022. Each event felt like the logical next step in a journey we had not planned on making. At no point did I ever think further ahead then the next season.
The tough thing was I took so many financial risks in the first year of nationals that it wasn’t actually the smartest move on my part to continue to run these events. However after the PDGA Canada had all their bids withdrawn and specifically asked us to continue to host Nationals again the following year we obliged. Each event we ran felt like progress and they all contained at least one moment of pure joy for me personally. Our players seemed happy, the courses were getting loved and improved, and we were generating outside interest that helped grow the game and showcase the sport, especially in the place I lived. It was also fun. After our last Nationals (2022) it felt like the next step we were supposed to take was to join forces with the DGPT. This had been simmering since the Steve Dodge days so this too was fairly logical. I won’t rehash it too much but the events that transpired between Sept of 2022 and August of 2023 were crippling, demotivating, and fundamentally changed me. Hurricane Fiona, the falling out with Hillcrest, and the DGPT decision on transgender inclusion all had a major effect on my physiological well being. Each one was a crushing blow to my outlook on the game of disc golf and in some cases my outlook on humanity. My passion had become work, and now my work place felt like it was crumbling outside of my control. Almost all of the fun was taken out of the game for me. It is worth noting that since then I have learned to live with the impact of the hurricane (and all potential future hurricanes), both myself and the owners of Hillcrest have taken measures to repair our relationship, and eventually the DGPT decision was explained and reversed. However, like the metaphor states, it’s hard to get the toothpaste back in the tube. I experienced a deep hurt that will have lasting effects. There was still a very bright shining light throughout all of this, as the eventual byproduct was that a Disc Golf Pro Tour Stop was being held at a course I had designed and installed. You can reread what it was like to pull back the curtain and run an event like that here, but for the most part it was an overall positive experience that left me feeling validated as a designer and as satisfied as a human being. When it was over I honestly thought I would be offered a paid job in the disc golf world in some capacity, not because I had run a DGPT event but rather because I started to have a vision on how to shape the future of our game. Then, after a while it became apparent that was not going to happen. I wasn’t mad at anyone, and it may have been foolish of me to assume that was going to happen in the first place. Regardless of all that I couldn’t help but feel the air had been let out of my tires. I had already committed to running another Discmania Open in 2024 (which is coming up soon) but I knew this one would not be the same as everything I had done before.
Simultaneously our local tour had blossomed from 5 events in its earliest days to 14+ in its current formation. I no longer ran everything but I still contributed heavily with 8 events (including the Chowder Cup) this year. My goal was to do right by the people who had invested in me so I set my sights on running the best events I could at some of the most important courses I had built, or worked with over the last 10+ years. So far so good. Each event this season has felt like a mini celebration and that is something I am very proud of. However I no longer have any interest in running events like I did in the past. I hope that the last 3 events of this season go the way I can see them in my mind. I want to put on 3 more ‘thank you letters’ to the course owners who have believed in me and to the player base who have allowed me to try and do so many creative things. The Iron leaf will be a celebration of friends and great municipal disc golf at one of the places where things all started. The Discmania Open will be a story of triumph and resilience with a family I love on a course that is so dear to my heart, and the tour championship will be a brand new experience on Ski Wentworth where I once again try to push the limits of intelligent design and player first experience. As an added bonus the Chowder Cup will be hosted at the Wallace River Golf Club on a layout that lives in a lot of players mind rent free. The only way I would consider hosting events in the future is if I am compensated for all my time in a way that has not really existed for TDs in Canada yet. It might happen, but I will leave that up to other people to create a proposal for what that looks like. I have more to give but I need to be certain I am giving it fully in a way that makes sense.
Events are widely important and to do them right it requires your entire heart. Finding advertising dollars, sponsors, creating caddy books, etc are all part of running a great event. Those aspects intrigue me as much as anything but when you are juggling several jobs at once you don’t have the time to do these things fully. I already knew if I was going to do something, I had to do it all the way.
Throughout the entire story of my working life has been the actual building of disc golf courses. Gogan's Green was easy. It was on my family land. I lived close by. All I had to do was buy 9 baskets out of pocket, do some chainsaw work and lots of grass cutting. Simple. At roughly the same time I opened up a landscaping company called Greensmith Contracting. Our motto was (and still is) ‘Quality work, Naturally’. I began doing all sorts of landscape projects and random contracting work. I eventually specialized in stone work and project management. I always kept my eye on building disc golf courses. I started sending towns, cities, and any possible person who would listen, basic proposals laying out reasons why they should consider building a course. After 7+ years the town of Sackville NB said yes and paid me a whopping $75 over the cost of baskets to install my first public course. It was a dream come true. A few weeks later I built the original layout at Hammonds Plains. Then came a retrofit and additional baskets for Bridgewater. Then Windsor, Bible Hill, Sydney, Sport Pugwash. All entry level courses with virtually no budget. I would basically take whatever resources I had access to and build these courses in my ‘spare’ time. Sometimes I would take my landscaping employees and get them to help with installation. I slowly started asking questions about RFP’s, land use, and how to build more ‘legit’ courses. At the same time I got a great opportunity in Dieppe. This was the start of me using machines to process land and the introduction to healthy forest management. It was also the first time I started to ask questions about how much a successful disc golf course should actually budget. I had no mentors, very few people I could ask questions to, and only modest expectations from my clients and players. Eventually I realized to acquire baskets in an economically viable way I needed to start buying them by the container full. For a few years I bought over $100,000 in baskets. Simple numbers started to become staggering. I couldn’t see much farther ahead than where the next baskets could go.
Just before the pandemic I decided to sell my landscape company, or at least my client list and go all in on disc golf. As a part of that deal I agreed to not work in the landscape industry (stonework and gardening) for at least 3 years. Little did I know what was coming. Covid came, the world changed how we did business and disc golf absolutely exploded. In 2021 I built 6 more courses including my first in Newfoundland, in 2022 I built 8, and in 2023 I built 9 courses and ran 9 events. Bids I had submitted 2-3 years prior were now coming back to me with clients who wished to move forward. I didn’t realize at the time but I was about to start working with antiquated budgets and new expectations. What was acceptable before Covid was no longer good enough after the explosion of the game. People (rightly so) wanted high class tee pads, better signage, and a level of course cleanliness that was not the norm when I started. Don’t get me wrong, quality has always been in demand but tee pads and fairways were both getting bigger and more complex. I didn’t understand how fast things were changing until I was elbows deep in the builds. I wanted to deliver a better product but I didn’t fully appreciate how much it cost. I squeezed out every last ounce of what I could offer with my back and my brain. It came to a blissful place with Kings Pine. This was the perfect combination of a client who fully believes in you and the space, time, and resources necessary to complete the project as envisioned. Holes 2 and 3 were brilliant. Hole 16 was epic. It was genuine and fair. It was every single thing I could have hoped for. It was also open less than 30 full days before hurricane Fiona destroyed it. We still marched forward. I understood what success could look like. I could see a little further down the fairway.
As time went on the bids I was submitting became more and more complex. I had no context for what they were supposed to look like. I have a partial degree as an English major. I was a tree planter for 8 years. I worked for a season in pro baseball and I worked as a landscaper off and on since I was 15 years old. I started to feel like I had missed the part where someone mentored me on how to do things the proper way. Being self-taught seemed like it was starting to bite me in the ass..
Throughout my building career every course has felt like a gift to me. Walking barefoot through the forest, picturing lines and envisioning holes is as close to a blissful state as I can imagine. Every opportunity has been sacred, and I mean that sincerely. It sounds silly when I hear myself say it, but I believe in my heart, each course contains a piece of my spirit and they all have given me something in return that I can’t define. Corner Brook and Whaleback gifted me an opportunity to paint a picture on a canvas that was divine. Rose Valley was an epic like the Odyssey for me. Kings Pine was perfection; version 1. Courses like Beech Hill and CDT are little gifts that make me smile every single time I think of them. Each course I have created has both magic and hidden secrets that you have to play to experience. Over time I began to understand more about my own mind, how it works, how I process things, how I plan. People played the courses and enjoyed them. They used my name as a curse word when I left one tree too many. I started to see things that the industry could stand to adopt that would make us all better. I began to arrive at a minimum standard for the ways a course should be built. Some designers from away wanted to work with me, others wanted to work against me. I began to see how, in order to move forward, I needed a team. Bids were being brought to my attention that were over my current skill set, not in the actual designing and building but in the work required to make proposals truly professional. I tried my best to fulfill them and to learn more. I spent my winters reading books on forestry, mapping, and mentorship. Then I bid on a course that I really wanted to win and I lost. I was embarrassed and ashamed of myself and all my shortcomings. I felt like a fraud. I didn’t have a clear vision of why I lost. It shook me. Shortly after I went to St John’s, Newfoundland to build the city's first 18 hole course. I wrote about it here. The experience I wrote about was genuine but after a bit of reflection I started to become horrified at what I had written. I felt like I was romanticizing working myself to the bone and I was building my business model on always having people to volunteer their time to help clean up the courses. I started to question myself in a way I hadn’t before. Still, I loved building. That never waivered. The McNiven project was so satisfying to work at every day. I adore Newfoundland. I love their people and the place itself. My work days were long but blissful. Like every course I want to create the best value for my clients and myself as possible. I wanted to be a part of the city’s fabric and add to its legacy. Just like I want to contribute to all places I build.
There are parameters placed on you on every single project that the average person doesn’t see. You don’t know the restricted zones, or the limitations you have to work inside. Most people see the hole for what it is, they don’t see how the course has to work overall. The way the trees have to be spaced for safety and longevity. How the shots have to vary from one hole to the other and how things need to be a little uncomfortable so that people always have a challenge long after their skill set evolves. Finding projects that have the space and budgets is the ultimate dream. In my mind I see a forest, slowly cared for and meticulously shaped. There is shade on the ground and the canopy is full of a diverse variety of trees and shrubs. I see tee pads that are spacious and strong, with tapered edges and a variety of measures taken to mitigate erosion. I see lines, shapes, and elevation changes. I see a masterpiece and I want to bring it to life. Hardly anything else seems worth doing.
Whole heart, whole mind. That’s what it takes to create your masterpiece.
If it were only that easy. Realizing it was only the start of the journey. Now comes the heavy lifting. Last year we tried our best to come up with an accurate number of disc golfers in Atlantic Canada. Through some anecdotal stories, soft surveys, a modest amount of course countings, and some simple math we arrived at 8,500. A disc golf course can change your life. How do you place a value on changing people's lives? I don’t know. Every single course I have written about here shares one major thing for me. It requires me leaving my home and being somewhere else. I suppose almost all jobs do that. But what is time away from home worth? The question is how much do you value yourself and your time? For me, I have historically undervalued myself and I would like to change that.
My children are 15 and 17 years old. One is working full time and I hardly see him, the other has a healthy social and sport schedule and we see each other a bit more frequently. There are only a limited number of days left with them. What are each of those days worth? I would tell you that there is almost no amount of money that would be too much for me to pay to spend a full day with my children but yet many days I chose to go to work instead of staying home with them. It is the parents paradox.
The disc golf industry grew slowly for a long time, then it boomed, now it is receding. For a long time I thought someone was guiding our ship, but now I see that is not the case. People like Doug B, Steve Dodge, Jussi M, and others are strong visionaries and are doing more than their fair share of the heavy lifting but their efforts can sometimes get lost among the endless tasks that need to be done. There are not enough people working full time in our industry to do all the grunt work needed to get us to the next level. We are still too isolated to create lasting economic models and binding standards that can be adopted and enforced by our entire industry. If we could find a way to do that, what would those standards be worth? How much do I value this? How much do you?
In the midst of all this craziness I have had two of the most amazing experiences of my disc golf life. The fist has been my most recent experience with Parks Canada. Last weekend marked my third time doing a project with this organization as we slowly grow towards building a permanent infrastructure in our most hallowed of spaces; National Parks. This year we put a large focus on inclusion with a panel of speakers who talked about how the game has positively impacted them. We tried to show how disc golf is for everyone and there are very few inherent barriers that prevent anyone from playing. Regardless of their age, gender, race, or sexual orientation, disc golf is available to you. Improvements to our game are still being made for those with limited mobility but that is on the list of things we wish to improve. As a part of this year's offerings we set up a ‘glow in the dark’ course that had a whopping 76 players take part. The following day we put on a free PDGA event that had 116 players play at least one round. It is an epic course that we set up for 24 hours and people talk about for the entire 364 other days of the year. It is quality over quantity at its finest. It is a blissful 48 hours in my world that draws in such a unique set of people. This year I had the best helper you could ask for to spend time with me as we built and dismantled the course. We have never had a disappointed person play this event. That is an incredible feat.
The second, and quite possibly best experience I have had on a disc golf course, was our first annual Ruston Slam. When our dear friend Pat died this year Scott (Tiny Changes) and I knew we had to honor him in the best way we could. So we created this event. The Rushton Slam combined everything we loved about Pat. We made a layout on Tiny Changes that highlighted the things that make that course so special. We invited Pat’s disc golf family as well as his blood family and lifelong friends. We incorporated playing with random partners and good hearted gambling. We dressed in Hawaiian shirts and wore moustaches. We made side hustles, shared food, and generally tried to make it a living celebration of a person I admired and thought would be a part of my life for a very long time. We made one of the greatest disc golf videos of all time. There have only been a few times in my life where I have ever felt so genuinely satisfied with my work as I was during this event. The only thing it was missing was a giant bonfire, and with any luck we will make that happen next year. For myself and Scott (and as far as I can tell Pat’s family) we kept the spirit of our friend alive for that entire weekend and in every story that was told about him then and now. You can see in the video how much joy filled the weekend. What is the value of that? For me I would say almost infinite.
On a side note when I die I don’t need or even want a disc golf tournament. In fact I find it really amusing how many people will always associate me with disc golf when I feel like there are so many important things in my life that matter to me just as much. When I die I hope the people who loved me get together for one giant potluck. Hold it somewhere there are beautiful trees and water. Bring your favorite dish and share it with the amazing collection of people around you. Go barefoot for as long as you can stand it. Bring instruments, tell stories, play silly things like washer toss or the stick game. Show up when you want and leave when you're ready. Know that the biggest thing we can do with our lives is to love each other. Now, to be clear I am not planning my death here or hoping for it to come anytime soon, but rather I am simply reflecting on the past few years of my life and making plans for the future.
So after 44 years of living I am trying to give myself the freedom to fully pursue one thing with my whole heart and whole mind. I can see a course in my mind. It marries my love of simplicity, stone, and trees. It is time consuming but satisfying. It is all I need to do in a day.
Working for free and in so many different domains has been good for my soul but often breaks my heart. I believe there is value to what I do but I only want to work in places where I can execute my full vision. I have this very deep personal belief that I can create something incredible if I am given the opportunity but I am fragile in a way that surprises me. I don’t need to be adored but I need to be empowered and I do my best work when at least one person tells me they believe in me. All of the jobs I have had filled me with some level of satisfaction, but now I can see I only want to do the ones that I have time and space to do it fully and completely. I’d rather be broke than to do things half-hearted just to stay busy. I realize that I am truly fortunate to be in a position where I can choose my work and that is a luxury that most people do not have. For quite possibly the first time in my life I can see myself in the future. I can envision what my best tee pads look like, and the slow methods to select harvesting and building with minimal impact. I can see better forestry practices and erosion control. I can see fair landing zones and approaches. I have the time, space, and mental fortitude to make it happen. Can I bring that future into reality? Will I get the opportunity? I have no idea but at this point I would like to try.
I have 3 events left and one more trip to Newfoundland to conclude my 2024 schedule. I will put my whole heart into each of these and be thankful for the opportunities they provide. As the man says, ‘let’s make today our masterpiece’ and with any luck that's what I am going to do.
