Recently, Joe Feidt, PDGA #362, and a team traveled to Cuba to meet with PDGA Latin America Coordinator Luis Rodriguez as a part of a PDGA Marco Polo project. Check out the video and a brief rundown of the trip.
Bogota is one of the cities in Colombia that, despite its structural limitations, has bet on positioning Disc Golf as a competitive sport and a recreational activity among its inhabitants.
Thanks to PDGA members Nicolas Restrepo and Julio Castro and other players, the sport has grown considerably in our city.
Chandler Fry, left, looks on during a clinic in Uganda. All photos via the Paul McBeth Foundation.
After their course installation and visit to the Lake Victoria-side town of Katosi, the Paul McBeth Foundation’s Uganda Team turned its attention to the campus of Ndejje University, 40 km north of the capital city, Kampala.
Simply stated, this project has the potential to be the keystone of disc golf’s development across the East Africa region.
A deep team from the Paul McBeth Foundation led by Zachary Smith, Director of Operations, and including their media team members as well as touring pros Missy Gannon and Chandler Fry, together with Zambia’s top players, Wilborn Munkombwe and Melody Kawadza, arrived in Uganda, the “Pearl of Africa,” a few days ago. I am privileged to represent PDGA as part of the team following visits to the neighboring and PDGA affiliated countries of Ethiopia and Kenya.
The first teenagers from General Trias Cavite learned disc golf at the Road to Damascus Disc Golf Course and are now part of Team Friends Disc Golf Teens. Photo: Courtesy
To date, the course — in a beautiful setting — has helped host clinics, outreach programs and competitions with the assistance of a PDGA Marco Polo grant.
Mission accomplished as disc golf is taking off in Tagaytay.
Disc golf was recently installed at Heritage Golf Club in Mauritius. Photo: Tamarin Eagles DGC
Tropical temperatures, ocean breezes, deep sea fishing, waterfalls, beaches, whale watching, and now, disc golf.
Sounds like a nice vacation.
With an assist from the PDGA’s Marco Polo Program, the island nation of Mauritius, located in the Indian Ocean off the southeast coast of Africa, disc golf is taking off.
Luxembourg is the 48th PDGA Affiliate Country. Photo: Suessem, Je T'aime
Gérard Kraus has always had a knack for organizing events, from a video game club in junior high school to organizing a pop-culture convention, the first of its kind in his country.
After discovering the sport in 2019, Kraus combined his passion for organizing and his newfound love of disc golf. As a result of his efforts, Luxembourg has recently been added as a PDGA Affiliate Country.
Disc Golf Kenya is the latest recipient of a PDGA Marco Polo grant. Photo: Disc Golf Kenya / Facebook
Early next year, the Kenyan Open 2022 is set to become the first PDGA-sanctioned tournament in Kenya.
Before that historic event, Disc Golf Kenya organizers will cultivate the sport for elementary, high school and university students in the area as well as visitors to the site of Kenya’s newest 18-hole course at the Rimpa Estates Wildlife Conservancy.
Lithuania, whose affiliation was previously with the Vilnius Club in the capital city, changed its affiliation to the newly-formed national disc golf association, the Federacija Lietuvos Diskgolfo. Lithuania has been a PDGA affiliate country for 10 years.
Jonathan Mough has a plan to use disc golf to offer a safe, fun, recreational exercise activity to establish relations within his community, church and surrounding areas by establishing the first permanent 18-hole course in his country.
Mough also has a hillside area with substantial elevation changes, picturesque jungle canopy and water features.
Win, win, win.
With the help of the PDGA’s Marco Polo Program, which aims to support the introduction and development of disc golf courses into new countries around the world, the Philippines is set for its first permanent course.
Students weld baskets in Nicaragua, where disc golf has grown with the help of the Marco Polo Program. Photo: Jason Hendrickson
The 2010s saw exponential growth for both disc golf and the PDGA. We’re looking back on a phenomenal 10 years in our Decade on Display series, where we reflect and reminisce about the sport’s successes both on and off the course. Keep an eye out for more through the end of 2019.
Nicolas, age 9, lines up a shot at the new disc golf course at Campamento Bochica in Bogotá, Colombia. Photo: Joe Feidt
Chévere (cool) is a very nice compliment from a Colombian, and that’s what many of them called their first disc golf experience in their home country. It was at Campamento Bochica, the scenic YMCA camp located south of Bogotá that is now home to Colombia’s first disc golf course. This historic Marco Polo project to get disc golf off the first tee in the South American nation succeeded far better than expected and cost significantly less than projected. It was a one-week, whirlwind disc golf project that had its roots in an earlier trip.
Children learn to play disc golf at a demonstration in Zambia. Photo: Eagles Wings Disc Golf
Less than two years ago, a Marco Polo Program grant meant the start of something big in Zambia, Africa.
With the help of the grant, Eagles Wings Disc Golf took a team of eight to the Southern African nation to install a nine-hole course and teach the sport. The journey was well-received, and the team left with high hopes that disc golf would take root.
Ethiopia is a land of plenty with a long and noble history. For starters, it is the only African country never to have been colonized. Ethiopia is also renowned for its distinctive Christian tradition and association with the Ark of the Covenant. It offers the most dramatic scenery of unsurpassed grandeur (i.e. Simien Mountains National Park), unique rock-hewn churches, the spectacular Blue Nile Falls, the Great Rift Valley, the Danakil Depression, imperial castles, and monuments of an ancient civilization linked with the legend of the Queen of Sheba. Ethiopia was recently voted one of the world’s best tourist destinations in 2015 by European Council on Tourism and Trade.
Photo and Story Contributions from Sam Cann #48589
The Marco Polo Program was conceived and approved by the PDGA Board of Directors in 2011, with an official start date of January 1, 2012. The goals of this program are to support the introduction of disc golf into new countries and to strengthen its development in other countries around the world. The program provides funding for innovative international projects that promote the growth of disc golf, and create links between PDGA, the countries involved, and the local disc golf communities.
