What’s up everybody, and welcome to the final post of my Disc Golf passion blog! If you’ve been reading along, I thank you, and I want to take this last post and talk about my personal experiences with disc golf and how it has changed me as a person. I’ve realized recently that I’ve never personally shared my story with the sport and what it has done for me, so I figured it would be an awesome way to cap off the passion blog experience!

I grew up throwing discs in the park every couple months with my family, but the first time I started to play in a more than casual way was the summer before my Junior year. As some of you may know, I ran cross country at a relatively high level in high school; I was lucky enough to be a part of a varsity team that hung out outside of practice, and the main way we’d do that was through disc golf. Our normal summer days went a little bit like this; we’d wake up, run 5-10 miles, cool off in the creek, go play disc golf, and sometimes get lunch together. At the time, I was pretty terrible at disc golf and did it to hang out with my running friends; little did I know that it would become an obsession in the following years.

After the cross country season ended, I stopped playing disc golf almost entirely. I had bought a few discs and had some fun with my friends, but it looked like disc golf would be a purely recreational activity for me. However, things would change when I would help found my school’s Disc Golf Club in the spring. We’d play every other school day in the park that was adjacent to the school, and it was in that park that I would throw the shot that changed my life. 

Although I was a complete beginner, I somehow managed to throw the luckiest shot of my life and ace one of my park’s holes (which is a hole in one in disc golf); the first person in the club to do so. Some of my closest friends were playing with me and exploded with cheers when it went in, and it was that feeling, that high, that has propelled me into playing disc golf competitively. 

Skipping a lot of development in my game, I would get my PDGA number, which allowed me to play in sanctioned tournaments, in August of 2022. In the fall of my senior year, 2 things would happen that elevated my love for disc golf even further; I would become the GCHS DGC President, and I would play in my first ever sanctioned tournament. Through both of these pathways, I would meet more experienced players who would offer me tips on improving my game and who genuinely believed in me; the community I found there was different from running (which I hated) in every single way. Instead of trying to beat one another, disc golf was about throwing frisbees in Mother Nature with likeminded people. I still liked being competitive at tournaments, but the basis of disc golf was to have fun, which is one of the things I do best.

Fast forward to my college search process, which also happened to be at the height of my consistency of playing the sport, I learned that Penn State had a collegiate team and some courses nearby. One thing I’ve never told anybody in this class is that I did NOT want to go on the tour at Penn State, to the point that I asked my parents flat-out to not go on the morning of. Thankfully, they convinced me to go by telling me they’d play a round with me at Penn State’s professional quality course, Harvest Fields. So, it’s thanks to disc golf that I came here on a tour and fell in love with PSU.

Playing my First Round at PSU (Before I even wanted to come here)

The connections between disc golf and Penn State don’t end there though; once I was committed to going to PSU, my parents told me that I’d have to submit the Schreyer application to justify the finances of going. When Schreyer asked for a description of myself, I wrote about how disc golf shaped me as a person and reflected my love of nature, my love of community, and my dedication at improving myself. When I think about it, disc golf is one of the reasons I’m even writing this blog about it!

Nowadays, my love of disc golf is greater than ever. I joined Penn State’s club team, and competed in region tournaments that helped qualify us for the College Disc Golf National Championships. Recently, we got back from our week-long trip to South Carolina where we competed with over 300 colleges across the country for the collegiate title. I play every chance I can get, have played in 2 individual tournaments while in college, and am signed up for 5 more over the summer. My passion for the game has even led me into mechanical engineering; if the field is large enough and people are hiring, I’ve testified that I’d work in the disc golf industry designing new technologies for the rest of my life. As I write the end of this article, its amazing to me how disc golf has gone from a simple hobby with friends to something I’d consider as a career choice; whether it be  the fire for improvement, the amazing community, or the experiences I’ve received from it, disc golf has fundamentally changed my life story.

Thank you for reading my blog, and remember that a passion is an amazing thing; even if your passion isn’t remotely near disc golf, if it’s something that has captivated you in your entirety, make sure to chase it!