Disc golf takes flight in Adrian, Lenawee County with courses opening, clubs starting

Played much like traditional golf in terms of rules, scoring, etiquette and terminology, disc golf is quickly becoming one of the fastest growing and most popular sports in the United States.

Lenawee County residents who might be catching the nationwide fever of participating in disc golf leagues or clubs have some options available to them throughout the county and in surrounding communities.

Within the past year, two disc golf courses have opened in Adrian. One is on the campus of Siena Heights University and the other is on the PlaneWave Instruments campus on the north end of town.

Several hands went into making both courses possible, but a lot of the mapping, planning and plotting of the disc golf courses at Siena and at PlaneWave can be attributed to 2011 Lenawee Christian School graduate Blake Hohlbein, who is currently employed with Lenawee Christmas Insurance Center in Adrian.

Hohlbein, of Adrian, said he started playing disc golf in 2015 after he graduated from Huntington University and began working in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Some of his friends at the time took him to play disc golf and he had a blast, he said.

While in Indiana and growing more comfortable with the newfound sport, he started to conduct disc golf tournaments and he maintained the upkeep of local courses. He also ran a disc golf kids camp, which is something he has brought to the Christian Family Centre in Adrian after coming back to the area in November 2020.

Hohlbein operates the Adrian Orbit Disc Golf Club, which is on Facebook and meets weekly on Thursdays. Planning for tournaments and setting up leagues for the next season take place during the colder months, he said.

Disc golf has become one of his biggest passions. He has played on more than 140 courses in the country and is knowledgeable about providing lessons to beginners. He also enjoys the course mapping aspect, he said.

“We have gone through a lot of logistics to make it happen,” he said of bringing disc golf courses to Siena Heights and PlaneWave.

Both courses, while operational, are not 100% fully complete. Details such as hole signage and course cleanup to remove debris from trees and other natural conditions are still in the works, he said. Concrete tee pads at the PlaneWave course were freshly poured July 28 and are still being tended to, he added.

Hohlbein can be found on the Professional Disc Golf Association’s website. He is a certified official with PDGA and is rated 965 on the website, which, in layman’s terms, means he is a seasoned disc golf player.

Learning disc golf

While like traditional golf, disc golf differs from the club-and-ball sport by throwing specialized plastic discs from a tee pad and eventually getting the disc into a metal basket, which, like traditional golf, would be attempting to get the golf ball into the hole on the green. The basket is attached around a post. Suspended from the post above the basket is a ring that holds chains that hang into the basket to "catch" the disc so it'll fall into the basket.

A lot of the language in traditional golf is used in disc golf such as putter, approach, birdies, eagles, par and drivers. The scoring system is also nearly identical. The concept is the same: to either attain par or score under par at each hole.

Disc golf also differs from traditional golf in affordability and the relative low cost to install a course, according to the United States Disc Golf Championship.

Disc golf has attributes similar to the kind of club a golfer uses, Hohlbein said. Certain discs are going to cut through the wind a little bit easier than other discs, he said.

“Usually, the high-speed drivers tend to be more over-stable,” he said. “The fun thing I like is the dynamic stances you have to get in. You might need to stretch out to make your throw.”

And just like how golf uses specific clubs for certain areas of the golf course, disc golf has a similar system where discs are numbered depending on the speed of the disc.

The blunter of an edge for a disc, the slower the speed, Hohlbein said. Putter discs are considered 1-3 speeds; midrange speeds are 4-6; driver discs are 7-9; and high-speed drivers are numbered 10-13.

“You can look at those numbers on the disc and get a pretty good grasp of what the disc should do before you even throw it,” he said.

The disc-catching metal baskets are one of Hohlbein’s favorite aspects of the sport, he said.

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The chains that hang into the basket are important for slowing down the speed of the discs so the target can be achieved and fall into the basket without the disc flying all over the place.

It also adds in a pretty cool sound, he added, when the disc makes contact with the chain.

Playing a full 18-hole disc golf course tends to go much more quickly than a traditional 18-hole golf course, Hohlbein said. Disc golf also has less variables than regular golf and holes-in-one are much more common once people get the hang of the game, he said.

Disc golf courses in Lenawee County

The course at PlaneWave, which literally allows people to walk the grounds of the telescope-maker's campus, as well as the grounds of the Adrian Center for the Arts and the Sam Beauford Woodworking Institute, is an 18-hole, par-68 course.

Siena Heights’ course is 12 holes and was brought on by an initiative from the Siena Heights University Student Government as a way to get students outside and active.

SHU's course takes players throughout the main campus, and there is a possibility that six more holes may be added in the future, depending on the traction the current course gains, a news release from SHU said.

For students who are interested in playing, there are discs available for no-cost rental. The course is open to the public as long as they bring their own playing equipment.

“The disc golf course located across the Siena Heights University campus is a great addition to encourage students to hang out on campus and go outside. When the idea was brought up (in 2021) at one of our student government meetings, we all knew it would be such a great way for students to gather and have fun,” 2022 Student Government Vice President Hannah Thomas said.

A handy website that can be used to locate, rate and find details about nearby disc golf courses is www.udsic.com. Users can search for courses by distance or by name or location.

Heritage Park, one of Adrian’s major parks, is getting new baskets for its disc golf course, which is rated a 4.1 out of 5 on UDisc’s site. Heritage Park’s course is described as “mixed elevation, great use of trees.”

The Christian Family Centre/Lenawee Christian School has a disc golf course that is probably the best option for beginning players to check out, Hohlbein said.

Other popular courses outside of Lenawee County include Lambertville in Monroe County and a disc golf course at Ottawa Lake's Whiteford StoneCo Park.

This article originally appeared on The Daily Telegram: Disc golf courses in Adrian, Lenawee County popular among local clubs