Putting around obstacles while sipping a mixed drink on the second floor of a century-old building. Throwing from the balcony of an arena through the jaws of an inflatable husky. Getting your disc golf fix by throwing real discs at full power as you play your way through a digital disc golf course while storms rage outside.
Though those experiences might sound like nothing more than disc golf fantasies, they're very real, and we'll introduce you to the people who've made them possible. Come with us as we visit a disc golf speakeasy in Arkansas, an Albertan arena, and a futuristic disc golf simulator in Finland – and see if you're inspired to bring a top-notch indoor disc golf option to your community.
A Disc Golf Speakeasy & Indoor Course – Perks and Re-Creation, Little Rock, Arkansas
Founded by Eric Ugolini, Perks and Re-Creation sprung from a love of disc golf and a return to Little Rock, Arkansas.
"I had been living out of state for some years and moved back to Little Rock and noticed that there hadn't been a new course put in the city since I moved away years before," said Ugolini. "So I decided to reach out to the city offering to donate a disc golf course. Months later, we ended up being given land to use at Hindman Golf Course the day they closed the golf course."
Ugolini and his team worked for several weeks designing a course on the closed golf course grounds, after which they were granted an additional area to work with. They installed two 18 hole courses under the name "Perks and Re-Creation." While some unfortunate city bureaucracy resulted in the eventual closing of the popular courses, their creation led Ugolini to envision a brick-and-mortar center of his disc golf operations – though with a bit of a twist in mind.
"The original plan was to get the store open downstairs and to then begin the design and installation upstairs," Ugolini said. "The goal was always to have a 'speakeasy' indoor disc golf course and bar, where you have to walk through the store and go through the backdoor to go up a stairwell to walk into something you wouldn't expect."
The team selected the historic Sterling Building in downtown Little Rock as the spot to build their dream location. Over 100 years old, it was the perfect place for the vintage decor of a speakeasy disc golf course and bar – named, respectively, Perks Putts and Par Bar. The shop on the ground floor opened in April 2022, but due to issues elsewhere in the building, installation of the upstairs course and bar was paused for eight months – though it resumed in time for a 2023 opening.
"When we started to work on it, we started from nothing," said Ugolini. "Everything about the course design concept was created. It was something that hadn't been done before, so I didn't have the luxury of following instructions on how to do it."
Ugolini imagined a maze of turfed holes within batting cages to keep wayward throws contained. He thought up different obstacles to give character and difficulty to each hole – things like wacky waving inflatable arm flailing tube men, stacked rain barrels, hanging chains and flags – one basket even sits in an office cubicle. The entire course, along with Par Bar and the shop below totalled 12,000 square feet/1,115 square meters.
Ugolini pondered scoring for quite some time. He knew that with somewhat short holes, the traditional pitch-and-putt would be too easy and that an ace meant you only got to throw one disc per hole. As a workaround, he incorporated point scoring, in which each player throws four discs on each hole. Each disc is worth one point, and the person with the most points in a round wins.
But that scoring method meant they needed discs – a lot of them.
"When we first opened, we used 200 DX Aviars," Ugolini said. "Allowing a maximum of 50 people to have discs at one time. A few months ago, we retired the Aviars and replaced them with the National Perk Service Death Prototype. These are the first discs made in Arkansas and are not released to the public yet."
As for business, Ugolini has seen a large influx of patrons – the establishment has had some busy nights where all 200 discs were in use, both by longtime disc golfers and newcomers to the sport.
"We have noticed that the course gets people into the sport – growing the sport by introducing it to them in an easy way," said Ugolini, "More of a putt-friendly introduction, not as intimidating as a 200-foot [61-meter] hole outside. I'd say 65 percent of daily business upstairs is from non-locals in the disc golf community. Because our location is in the heart of downtown, we seem to get a good number of tourists."
It is $5 USD to play the course, with the four discs provided and an unlimited number of plays. Players can take drinks purchased at Par Bar onto the course with them though certain beverages may impact one's ability to putt.
Along with the Perks and Re-Creation store in Little Rock, there is a Perks clubhouse at JB Hunt Park in Springdale, Arkansas, and their new, 18-hole Uplands Disc Golf Course in Memphis, Tennessee.
Disc Golfers Get an Arena Out of the Cold – Fort McMurray, Alberta, Canada
On the Athabasca river in the northern half of Alberta, Canada, you'll find Fort McMurray. Hugely important in the petroleum industry, the town of around 72,000 people boasts some extreme weather, with its scorching record high summer temperatures at 104° F/40° C and blistering record lows of -64° F/-53° C.
Disc golf made its way to the region around a decade ago. Kyle Warren, president and founder of the Wood Buffalo Disc Golf Association (WBDGA), was instrumental in this process.
"I started disc golf in Edmonton about 15 to 20 years ago and then began looking to introduce it to Fort McMurray when I moved here about 10 years ago," recalled Warren.
A chemist by trade, Murray had a history in water treatment but now focuses on the chemistry of cleaning equipment of bitumen and scale as well as dust treatment. In tandem with local community service organizations, Warren was able to bring the first courses to the town.
"I worked with the Oilsands Rotary Club and the Lions Club of Fort McMurray Tarsands to get the first couple courses started up and now we have five on the map," Warren said. "I'm proud to say that I helped design and install most of them."
While the courses he helped create were quickly popular, the intense cold and shortened daylight hours in winter left Warren seeking alternatives.
"The indoor disc golf idea was kind of borrowed from what I'd seen clubs like EDGA [Edmonton Disc Golf Association] and the Grande Prairie Disc Golf Club do in the past," said Warren. "I had already been doing some indoor clinics for youth, working with the Wood Buffalo Sport Connection, so I explored the options we have at the excellent sport rec centers that are available in our city, what with the huge oil companies sponsoring and supporting the facilities."
In 2021, a stroke of luck led to Warren meeting Keegan Kuhr, program director for Keyano College who operates out of the Syncrude Sport and Wellness Centre.
"He set up a program for us," Warren said. "So rather than having to take on the burden of renting the entire soccer field pitch and taking that expense directly to our little club, they just opened [the center] to the public and it resulted in only a five dollar drop-in fee for anyone to attend the indoor disc golf sessions for two hours on Monday evenings."
The club gets a later time slot – from 9 to 11 p.m. – but its seasonal value is immense throughout the winter months, with lots of practice for approaches and putting. To keep thing interesting, the group uses their 12 mobile baskets for a variety of games and setups.
"The first game is 'putting stations,' where we take a tally of how many discs we got in the basket in total with five discs from three to five stations," said Warren. "Next we do a short course of nine par 2 holes with all sorts of variations. Typically it's mandos using pool noodles, hazards, and OB lines using the soccer pitch markings, penalty boxes, or goal posts."
They've also played DISCY – their version of SKATE or HORSE – where successful trick shots have to be recreated by opponents or they are burdened with a letter. They've also created disc golf versions of horse shoes and 21. And to keep things exciting, the overall winner of the night gets a prize – typically a new disc or other disc golf-related item. The club runs a tournament in the facility to round out the winter season, too.
"We will be hosting the 3rd Putts n' a Round indoor tournament, where the facility puts a giant inflatable husky head in the middle of the field, which we use as a triple mando obstacle," said Warren. "They also let us go out of the fieldhouse upstairs, into the bleachers, and [onto] a second floor balcony to allow for some really unique elevation changes. The event is always super fun and very accessible to all abilities. All of the throws are between 50 to 150 feet [15 to 45 meters] and we have 18 very unique par 2 holes set up around the rec center."
While the indoor league was Warren's creation, the WBDGA Vice President Mike Knight and Director Todd DuPont are crucial collaborators in the endeavor. Keeping disc golf alive and thriving in such a remote and industrious area is truly a team effort.
"We have a great community of disc golfers up here that are all willing to chip in in their own way to ensure our courses remain pristine and events operate smoothly," Warren said.
Real Throws, Digital Course – Disc Golf Simulator at KiekkoKingi (DiscKing) in Kaarina, Finland
At 25, Eemil Matti may seem young to own one of the largest disc golf retailers in Finland. Matti founded KiekkoKingi (DiscKing in its English translation) in 2021 as an online-only shop. His primary goal with it was to learn about e-commerce and entrepreneurship.
"I had just completed my military service and was preparing to start my university studies in the fall," Matti recalled, referring to a Finnish policy requiring all male citizens to participate in military or civilian service. "While I had played some disc golf before, the sport had grown immensely popular during the pandemic. Most of my friends were getting into it, and I saw an opportunity."
Many players will remember the new disc shortage in the early days of the pandemic, and the supply chain issues in Finland were no different. With an investment of about €1,000 Euros (around $1,200 USD at the time), Matti started the business in his parent's garage and focused on selling used disc golf discs as it was a much more available option at the time.
Sales quickly picked up, and all profits were reinvested back into the business. By 2022, KeikkoKingi was able to open up a brick-and-mortar store, as well as add new – rather than solely used – discs to their product range. Continuing to expand, they moved to their current location by the end of 2022, which included about 5,382 square feet/500 square meters of space for retail, warehousing, offices, and a unique offering – an indoor training center.
"The training center opened in October 2022 as part of our store," Matti said. "Initially, it featured throwing nets, a radar for speed measurement, and putting baskets. The idea was to create a high-quality indoor practice facility for Finland's long winters while also bringing customers into the shop during slower times."
This collection of putting baskets quickly expanded into a full-blown putting league, KingiLiiga, which sees dozens of participants including hobbyists as well as professionals like Jakub Semerád and Väinö Mäkelä. Furthering their endeavors in creating an advanced indoor disc golf offering, KiekkoKingi collaborated with TechDisc and in 2024, added a simulator to the training center.
"We began discussions with TechDisc over a year earlier, but their technological advancements last fall finally made it feasible to build the simulator," said Matti. "Since no comparable solution existed, we had to design everything from scratch. The result is something we are extremely proud of – we can confidently say it's one of the best indoor disc golf training facilities in the world."
Tech-oriented readers likely know the gadget Matti is talking about, but those who aren't familiar with it can learn more in our conversation with one of TechDisc's co-creators. As a quick primer, the TechDisc uses a small disc attachment to calculate and track all sorts of stats in relation to a throw – speed, spin, wobble, hyzer, likely distance, and nose angles.
"It has been well-received, and professional players, including Rasmus Saukkoriipi, one of the world's longest throwers, regularly use it for offseason training," said Matti. "I believe simulators will be the future of off-season disc golf training and a great tool for individual coaching."
Matti also wrote a blog post on how anyone can build a similar simulator setup in their own homes using a TechDisc and a net. This has led to KiekkoKingi selling many TechDisc and Visionary net packages across the globe this winter.
Players can reserve time on the simulator on KiekkoKingi's website at a cost of €8 per hour in the putting area or €30 per hour for the simulator with discounts for packaged sessions. The center is also reserved for a variety of events like children's birthday parties, private coaching, and even corporate wellness days.
While the training center was never intended as their main source of revenue, it has added significant value for the customers and the business, serving as a unique feature and building up their reputation as an ultra-modern, innovative company.
The Outlook for Indoor Disc Golf
It's hard to foresee what the future of indoor disc golf holds. While the sprawling length of typical courses make it difficult to adapt the sport for indoor areas, the three examples here all show you can do it in a way that will draw people in – keeping people throwing discs even when Mother Nature is throwing a fit.
If you think your community has created an indoor disc golf option that the world should know about, feel free to get in touch with us about it at [email protected].
