Interest in the sport has continued to grow, but how did disc golf show up in Lebanon?

When Michael Dunkle started playing disc golf in 1980, courses for the little-known sport were few and far between, and even less around Lebanon County.

But that all changed when Dunkle and his friend put up their own course in his own backyard.

Disc golf, or frisbee golf, as some people call it, has only been around in its modern form for a handful of decades. It was invented shortly after the Wham-O toy company began selling the Frisbee.

The sport, which much like traditional golf involves players going through courses of 9 or 18 holes trying to throw a disc into a hoop in as few turns as possible, was relatively unknown for much of its early existence and largely contained to the West Coast.

But popularity in the sport in the last 20 or so years has exploded, growing even more during the pandemic when people yearned for something they could do with some distance between others.

Dunkle, who is a kind of father of disc golf in Lebanon County, said that in recent years Pennsylvania became a mecca of disc golf, drawing in players from across the country to new courses being built every year.

In 2019, 700 competitors from around the world gathered in central Pa. for the PDGA Amateur Disc Golf World Championships to play through courses in three counties.

Before that, the 2005 PDGA World Championship was held in Allentown.

In the 80s and 90s, Dunkle and his friend, Charlie Greco, traveled across the East Coast to play different courses, which were few and far between. It was through those experiences that the two began to understand what makes a good disc golf course.

“A lot of times it’s elevation change, if there’s water on the property that’s always a good thing kind of like a regular golf course, you’re looking for any kind of hazards,” Dunkle said. “Usually I’ll walk the property, the park or whatever, I’ll walk it a bunch of times I’m there before I even start coming up with a plan just looking for different features.”

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The duo quickly decided that they needed a course in and around their area to play, and in 1994 they remodeled a course at the Conrad Weiser Homestead. Then in 1996, they built a course from the ground up at the quarry in Millardsville.

In 2001, they built their first course in Lebanon County, a small 18-hole course right in his backyard. It was there, “Dunkle’s Wetlands,” where the Lebanon Valley Disc Golf Club was started. About 10-15 people would gather on Wednesday nights and play in the wetlands.

The duo has since built 12 courses, five of which are in Lebanon County. They're all planned and built in their free time with the cost being offset by sponsorships.

Once the area began to get more courses, many of which were put in by Dunkle and Greco, the club would rotate courses week by week.

Lebanon Valley Disc Golf Club

In 2019, Dunkle turned ownership of the club over to Mike Snyder, who has been playing disc golf since 2017.

Snyder said that on Wednesday nights they average about 45 players but have seen up to 70 people come out to play.

Along with the weekly league, Snyder hosts tournaments throughout the season, all of which is organized on their Facebook page, Lebanon Valley Disk Golf Club.

Last year the club offered a more formal membership to the club, where participants paid $20-25 and received a branded frisbee for use in play during the season, which begins in mid-March.

The growth in interest in the sport, Snyder said, was something unbelievable.

"The best way for me to explain it is, if you wanna play in a tournament, or sanction your round so you have a rating that shows you against all the other players in the world you get your own unique number," he said. "Mine was 104,989, so I was the 104,989th person to sign up. The number now, from when I signed up in 2017, is up to at least 260,000."

Snyder said that people have travelled all over to come and play with the club, including one person from Alaska.

That player, Joseph Kulp, who's primary residence is now in Florida, is a pro diamond touring member with Gateway Disc Sports who has family in the Hershey area. He was playing in tournaments across Lebanon and York as a part of his tour that year.

"There's a lot of great courses in Pennsylvania," Kulp said, "and there's a really good culture. Allentown has a really good culture and so does York. There in Lebanon they're doing a really good job with what they have to work with."

Considering the size, population and resources that Lebanon County has, Kulp said that the disc golf community is doing a really good job.

He said that the South Hills Course, which Dunkle and Greco built in 2012, was one of the better parks that he has played.

Kulp said the nature of the volunteer force in the sport is what makes the community so great. Greco, Dunkle and Snyder and others work tirelessly to nurture the disc golf community by hosting clubs, planning leagues and tournaments, and building courses, generally at cost or even sometimes putting out money.

"It's all being done for the love of the game, for the belief in what the game represents and what it does for people," he said. "The flight of a disc is an addictive thing. It's magic."

Coleman Memorial Park and Dunkle’s hopes for Lebanon disc golf

Dunkle’s newest project is an 18-hole championship size golf course in Coleman Memorial Park. The course will have large 5x12 cement tee pads and two baskets for each hole.

They intend to utilize old growth trees, rocks, elevation and some of the old ruins to make the course more interesting and challenging.

During weekends or whenever they’re not at work, Dunkle and Greco head out to the park to plot the course, decided where the holes and tees should be and what hazards they should use.

Dunkle said that as of now, six of the holes have been plotted and they are on track to have the course completed by August.

“I’ve taken a few of the pro players there, and the feedback I got was phenomenal,” he said. “They’re like, really excited. Everyone’s excited for this course, it’s going to be one of those courses that people are really gonna want to come and travel to play.”

They’re currently looking for sponsorships for the course. While the entire course has already been sponsored by Lebanon Federal Credit Union, each hole also needs three sponsors (one for the tee and one for each basket) at $350 each. For more information on sponsoring, contact Dunkle at 717-926-0375

Sponsorships for the course are expected to cover the entire cost.

Daniel Larlham Jr. is a reporter for the Lebanon Daily News. Reach him at DLarlham@LDNews.com or on Twitter @djlarlham

This article originally appeared on Lebanon Daily News: Interest in disc golf has grown: here's how it happened in Lebanon