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It takes a community effort to maintain the Weatherford Disc Golf Course, and it would seem that everyone interested is on board.
Located at 115 E Lake Dr. near Lake Weatherford, the course provides locals with an opportunity to pursue a rapidly growing sport, socialize with friends and fellow citizens and get a much-needed break from the hustle and bustle of their daily lives.
Originally designed as a nine-hole park more than 20 years ago, the Weatherford Disc Golf Course has grown into an 18-hole facility that features scheduled "minis" - or tournaments - each week and provides people of all ages and skill levels with affordable entertainment.
Barry Noggle, a volunteer who helps run the course and has been playing there for more than two decades, said that he and other volunteers willfully accept their roles as stewards and love to promote the sport to anyone interested.
"There have got to be a hundred disc golf courses in the Metro area," Noggle said. "Basically, whoever lives close to them, you essentially adopt that park. You try to get the city on board, and you have to explain it. Some cities are really good about it, and some are not. Some just don't care about it or they don't want it.
“But you have to have a group of people who are willing to do the up-keep because the city just kind of gives you the okay. People will come in to improve their par, but they don't really want to help you too much...this is just our love of the sport, and being appreciative of having a place to do it."
Noggle, 60, has been coming to the course since 2003 and said a lot of hard work went into making it what it is today.
"I started playing the course over 20 years ago," Noggle said. "There was a small group of us that tried to get that park turned around, because back in the day, there was an old dirt parking lot, and there would be condoms and needles. It was a place for people to hang out late at night and do whatever.
“We started kind of cleaning up the park and kind of adopted it and made it our mission to keep it clean. I think the community overall has been pretty happy with what we've done with it. It's a well-used park now.”
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The club now has almost 100 members, and Noggle said once the park moved from nine holes to 18 holes in 2007, it really started to blossom.
“Then we really started running the minis,” Noggle said. “We run the minis for a two-fold reason. It gets people out there to play, but also we run it to help pay for things.
"It's like a dollar of your entry goes into the ace pot. Somebody gets a hole in one, they get paid a big ace pot. We're also playing for cash, so say it's a $10 entry, part of it goes to the payout, part of it goes to an ace pot, but also a dollar or two, for a lot of these courses, goes toward your course fund. We use that money to basically put in all of the concrete for the tee pads."
Noggle said that the pads are what really make the course playable.
"You want a concrete pad to tee off from," Noggle said. "You want to be on a stable, flat surface. so we put in all of the concrete pads and actually upgraded the baskets three or four years ago. So everything down there, basically the club has paid for it. The city comes in and mows and does a beautiful job. It is absolutely gorgeous, but that's basically what they do is mow it. I came down there with a chainsaw and trimmed the trees and cleaned them up."
Noggle said during his 20 years of involvement, he has watched the sport grow exponentially.
"It's exploded," Noggle said. "There was a time when you could go to that course at almost any time and pretty much have it to yourself. It gradually got to be more and more, and if you go out there on the weekends now, there's a pretty good crowd. I run the mini on Saturday and we generally get 20 to 30 people at each mini. A mini is like a league night."
And there have been some memorable experiences along the way.
"We used to host a thing that is called the Ice Bowl," Noggle said. "We sponsor something that is like a food drive, charity event. A guy started it up in Michigan I think 30 years ago or more. The idea is that you have a tournament, but you do it in January or February when it's freezing cold, just to get the true experience.
“We had one for eight or 10 years, and we would give the money to Pythian House. We would raise money and food for them for a few years and then a different charity for a few years, but one year, we had a true Ice Bowl. It was a sheet of ice.”
The Willow Park man said it was 2016 and an ice storm had hit North Texas.
“Everybody that was there still talks about it,” Noggle said. “I couldn't even get there from where I live because it's so hilly. A guy came and picked me up in his four-wheel drive truck. There were probably 50 or 60 of us that did show, but the whole course was just a sheet of ice, and it was just a fun day. Those are the memorable days.
Noggle said one of the best things about the sport of disc golf is that almost anyone can do it, and it can be played under almost any circumstances, even during a global pandemic.
“Since COVID, the sport has exploded, because people were looking for something to do, and this is a sport you can play on your own or you can play in a group,” Noggle said. “We even had minis during COVID. And there are just so many factors that people enjoy, like the love of the flight of a disc.
"There's also such a range of people that play from all walks of life. I'm 60, and I'm not even the oldest guy that plays. We have some that are in their late 60s, and some as young as 12, and there are so many nice people that you meet while you are competing and the friendships you make. It's just a great sport."
Visit https://weatherfordtx.gov/181/Disc-Golf-Course for more information.
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