LAC LA BICHE - There was excitement in the air ... and discs ... as the Lac La Biche Disc Golf Club hosted a fun tournament on July 13.
Micheal Pruden who founded the recently-created disc golf club said 19 players signed up for the event – which organizers termed ‘The Creature from Lac La Biche Tournament’ and enjoyed a day at the nine-hole course at the Alexander Hamilton Community Park.
The tournament was split into a competitive division and a recreational division. Eleven players took part in the competitive level.
“The tournament went great…we had 19 competitors from all over Alberta compete,” Pruden told Lakeland This Week.
With the course recently groomed and prepared for summer play, Pruden said the players really enjoyed the day. Of the 19 competitors half were from the Lac La Biche area, while others were from Edmonton, Athabasca, and Saskatoon.
“We were able to upgrade the course, get new people out to enjoy the sport, get people from out of town to see the course in its best light and mostly have fun,” he said.
Lac La Biche’s James Couse, who is listed as an amateur with the Professional Disc Golf Association, won the competitive division. Lindsay Tkachuk was named Overall Female for the tournament, and local Keith White was the top disc golfer in the rec division and
“It felt good…I kind of throughout the day just felt that I probably would just seeing how I was comparing to the other people in the group,” White stated.
Playing in two groups of four, White and the other recreation disc golfers competed on a nine-hole course, going two rounds in the morning, and then two in the afternoon. The player with the lowest score for the group became the top winner.
As top winner, White received a trophy that holds a disc to be put on a wall or shelf.
White is a member of the Lac La Biche Disc Golf social media group. Although he has played on the course a handful of times, The Creature from Lac La Biche marked the first time that he had played with other members of the local group.
He explained that The Creature from Lac La Biche was a one-disc tournament, meaning that as part of the registration, those who competed were provided with a disc which they had to play with throughout the day.
“A lot of times people play with a whole bag full of discs, and so, everybody had to use the same type of disc that we got as part of the registration,” he said.
Organizing any sporting event takes a considerable amount of hard work and dedication – and The Creature from Lac La Biche disc golf tourney was no different.
According to Pruden, countless hours were put into the event. This included designing artwork, writing the caddy book, custom dying discs, along with course maintenance and upgrading the course. Furthermore, organizers put in new tee-pad markers for the short tee-pads, cleaned up the course and painted lines marking specific distances and out of bounds areas.
With this tournament being a great success, organizers plan on making an event either annually or semi-annually. Regarding the possibility of a winter tournament taking place at the local disc golf course, Pruden says it’s an idea they could pursue.
