This year marks the 12and Opened in Tallahassee, but the first year the event is part of the Disc Golf Pro Tour, which brings more talent to Tom Brown Park than ever before. 145 disc golfers are registered, including professionals from countries like Estonia and Norway.
UDisc, a website dedicated to disc golf, ranks the course at Tom Brown Park as the best in Florida and has also rated it among the best in the world. While the course is open to the public most days, this weekend it is hosting a three-day professional tournament. For some competing this weekend, the tournament serves as a tune-up for next weekend’s Masters Championship in Appling, Georgia. This tournament is considered one of the most important on the calendar, organized at the headquarters of the International Disc Golf Center.
“It all started with a pie pan they called a Frisbee,” tournament director Marshall Griffiss says of the sport’s history. “And that’s how the frisbee industry was born. So it has grown over the years from local events like we have done here so far, the Disc Golf Prof Tour.
Indiana’s Trevon Crowe has managed to make disc golf his full-time job.
“On the road every weekend,” Crowe says of his career, “myself, I have a van that I stay in or I can crash at people’s or Airbnb with friends.”
It is his livelihood. If Crowe doesn’t play, he doesn’t get paid. The winner of the Tallahassee Open is expected to walk away with around $3,000.
Randon Latta also wants to claim this award. Latta has been playing professionally for ten years. He says traveling across the country for nine months a year isn’t for the faint-hearted, but the relationships built along the way are worth it.
“The disc golf community is awesome and I’ve made some of my best friends that way,” Latta says. “And people that I’ve been able to see in my life for a long time just by throwing Frisbees around the park, so it’s a very humbling community and they’re very, very caring and will help you in just about every way that you you need.”
The tournament consists of three rounds, starting on Friday and ending on Sunday afternoon. The champion will head to the next event with a large sum of money and a bespoke FSU-inspired spear as the event’s trophy.
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