Brandon Borgia spent a sunny July day constructing a disc golf course at Seneca High School.
It’s the seventh course Borgia has built since 2019. This one even features concrete tee boxes.
Borgia is the president of Lake Erie Disc Golf Club, which has grown the sport locally to the tune of 50 tag-carrying members since it was founded in 2017. While he’s not busy building courses, Borgia’s club hosts leagues, tournaments and more in Erie County.
Their flagship course sees upward of 300 rounds played per month. They have members with professional aspirations and members who are still learning the game.
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They’ve brought disc golf, once a local afterthought, to people throughout the county. Now, they want more to join them on their quest to match the strong disc golf communities in nearby cities.
Why has disc golf grown in Erie?
Borgia first helped build a disc golf course at Little Mount Country Club in Concord, Ohio in 1999.
He has since designed and built courses at Penn State Behrend, Erie County Community College’s 8th Street campus, Seneca High School, Pleasant Ridge Park in Fairview and Picnicana Park in Waterford, plus a course in Conneaut, Ohio and one called Road Apple DGC on private land in Cambridge Springs.
“Golf and disc golf are kind of the same — you want hazards; you want out of bounds,” Borgia said. “(The Behrend) course is pretty open (from trees) so it’s easier, whereas wooded courses like the Ridge present more challenges. When you design courses, you don’t want to make anything too easy or too hard, so it’s a mix of both.”
Lake Erie Disc Golf Club lists six “home” courses – Pleasant Ridge, Road Apple, Behrend, PennWest Edinboro, Woodcock Creek Lake in Saegertown and the Albion Fairgrounds. All feature nine holes except for Pleasant Ridge which, as the club’s only 18-hole course, hosts most of its competitions.
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“In other sports, competitiveness takes the forefront,” said Joe Johnson, the club’s vice president. “We’re all about having fun and supporting people. I’m genuinely happy to see good shots, even from people who are playing against me. The competitive nature is there, but at the same time, the competitiveness is secondary to the joy we have for playing.”
Johnson started playing in 2015, when reaching a quality set of courses required an hour’s drive from Erie. He credited the game’s local growth to more course access and the COVID-19 pandemic, which encouraged outdoor activities like disc golf.
“We have outstanding people who are passionate about the game but also passionate about getting people involved,” Johnson said. “We’ve been really pushing opportunities for people to play in leagues and tournaments.”
When, where and how do disc golfers compete?
Lake Erie Disc Golf Club hosts leagues and tournaments throughout the year, including its “Sunday Funday” league, which rotates between courses and is open to anyone. Its Thursday league at Pleasant Ridge, sanctioned through the Pro Disc Golf Association (PDGA), sees an average of 20 players per week.
“It’s a year-round sport,” said Borgia, who netted his first career ace July 23 at Road Apple. “You don’t put your discs away in the winter just because it’s snowing out.”
Play is tracked through the UDisc app, which records performances using a numerical scoring system that uniquely judges each round based on course difficulty, player skill, weather and more. The sum of a player’s scores creates their rating, equivalent to a handicap in golf, which anyone can receive by purchasing a card from the PDGA.
The club hopes to install concrete tees at Pleasant Ridge, which averages 300 rounds scored per month on UDisc, plus however many rounds go un-tracked. An 18-hole course without concrete tees costs roughly $10,000 to build, Borgia said, and the tees themselves cost upward of $5,000.
Lake Erie Disc Golf Club’s Facebook group has more than 850 members and 50 players have purchased member “tags,” of which the club sold numbered 1-100. Players range in age from 14 to mid-70s.
One of those players is Marcus Rickard, who carries a player rating of 925 and competes in the MA2 division.
Stepping up his game
Rickard has been playing disc golf for three years. Well, two years competitively.
He’s an officer within Lake Erie Disc Golf Club and among its most serious players. Within the next two years, he hopes to turn pro.
Amateur disc golfers compete in one of four divisions — MA1 through MA4 for men and FA1 through FA4 for women, one being the most competitive class and four being the least.
Professionals compete in a class called MPO and their player rating is often around 1,000. Colby Howell is Erie’s lone MPO player, but his competition schedule is limited since he his children.
To improve their rating, players must score better than their rating in sanctioned UDisc rounds. A score of 1,000 is considered near perfect. Rickard scored 1,000 at Pleasant Ridge earlier this year, shooting 9-under with nine birdies and nine pars.
“You have an idea of what (the score is) going to be, but you never fully know, since they’re different every time dependent on course and whatever other variables,” Rickard said. “I really lean on my putting. I work from home and have a backyard so I’m able to keep a good putting routine.”
Rickard practices his putts every day. Equally important, however, is his stretching routine.
“When you think about throwing a disc, a lot of it has to do with the rubber-band motion of your body,” Rickard said. “If you’re tight, you’re not going to be able to explode correctly, and you’ll eventually hurt yourself. I do a lot of stretching of my hips and shoulders, plus isolated strength training for shoulders and forearms.”
Rickard won the club’s spring tournament at Pleasant Ridge before traveling to Nashville, Tennessee for an “A-Tier” tournament, one of the PDGA’s top competition classifications. There, he finished tied for fifth out of 125.
Rickard most recently won a tournament at Pine Crest Country Club in Brookville and will next travel to Milford, Michigan for an A-Tier tournament Aug. 18-20. Lake Erie Disc Golf Club already has 40 players signed up for its “Battle of Lake Erie” tournament Aug. 20 and can take up to 72, the maximum for PDGA-sanctioned events.
“We have all the nuts and bolts. I think everything is in place to grow,” Johnson said. “It’s just a matter of that growth happening through time. We’re putting in the effort to build good facilities, put on good events and make sure people do feel welcome to come try it out.”
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The goal is to host bigger, more frequent PDGA events. Pittsburgh and Buffalo boast large disc golf communities, Johnson explained, and Erie hopes to catch up soon.
Borgia likely isn’t done building courses. He views Millcreek Township as an ideal location for a new one. The work he and his club have already done, however, has left its mark.
“People seem to be intimidated like we’re some fancy golf club or something,” Rickard said. “But we’re just a bunch of people who enjoy the sport and enjoy seeing other people enjoy the sport.”
Contact Jeff Uveino at juveino@timesnews.com. Follow him on Twitter@realjuveino.
This article originally appeared on Erie Times-News: Disc golfers expand courses, game throughout Erie County, PA