Grant Zellner PDGA:
In the upcoming 2023 PDGA Board of Directors elections, one of the candidates asking for your vote, Luke Turnbull out of Charlestown, New South Wales, Australia. Luke is PDG number six three nine nine four, a business analyst by trade and obviously a person passionate about disc golf. Luke, thanks for joining us today. Why don't you tell us a little bit more about yourself?

Luke Turnbull:
Morning Grant, yeah my name's Luke from I guess the region is more better known as Newcastle in New South Wales about two hours north of Sydney which most listeners will be familiar with and yeah married two kids, two step kids, I think they like me most of the time so I'm doing something half right. From a career perspective, I've been a business analyst or operations manager for a little bit over 15 years and currently work in the public sector, previously having worked in the telecommunications sector and the banking industry as well. From a disc golf perspective, I was quite a reluctant convert. About 11 years ago, I had a friend that had been trying to get me out, and I couldn't think of anything less cool than walking around the park throwing a frisbee. He managed to finally drag me out, and well, it's 11 years later, and I've applied for a role with the Peter Jay Board of Directors. So you can say he was pretty successful. And he got me out there more as a get me out away from, time was a pretty abusive relationship and also some kind of fitness activity because I had led a very sedentary lifestyle and I don't say this lightly but disc golf kind of saved my life. At the time I was close to 200 kilos, which I think in the Imperial scales, a bit over 400 pounds in that time that I've been playing disc golf. It's been pretty incredible weight loss journey of about 70 kilos. So I'm pretty passionate about it from a, it saved my life. So I wanna give as much back to disc golf as I can. So that's from a playing perspective. In Australia, the sport wasn't huge. I think when I joined the Australian Disc Golf Association, I was somewhere in the low 200s from a membership number. We're over 4,000 now, so it's been a bit of growth. Locally, I had one course and just one club, so I would play with the same people every weekend and at tournaments. But since then... I've been involved at a local club level, helping run some of those local events. And then in 2014, I volunteered to join the Australian Disc Golf Board as a state representative. I moved interstate during that period and took over as the state rep in South Australia, which had no courses, no players, nothing. So my nearest course was about a 15 hour drive. So I set about starting a club, worked with a local school and a local council and we got a couple of courses installed. The club now hosts major tournaments every year with a player base of over 150. So that was a pretty fun little legacy piece to have in an area that didn't have any disc golf back in 2014. In 2017 I was elected as president of the Australian Disc Golf Board. So I've been serving on the national organization since 2017. In that time, we've had some outstanding growth, like all of Disc Golf has on the back of COVID. And we've managed to change our tour structure, going from around 20 to 30 events to over 100 events nationally each year. We've now got a player base well into the thousands. and that on the back of the growth, it's just been amazing to see the sport that saved my life dragging in so many new players now.

Grant Zellner PDGA:
Well, let's continue to talk about that growth that you have been a part of there in Australia on a grander scale across the entirety of the PDGA spectrum. When it comes to growing members, you yourself were, as you say, a reluctant convert when it comes to introducing the sport to more and more people in various audiences. What are some of your thoughts that you want to champion should you be elected to the board?

Luke Turnbull:
The first thing I'd like the PDJ to look at is a bit more focus on the Asia Pacific region. It's got two of the largest countries in the world. They're so big that if you took a billion people out of them, they'd still be the two largest countries in the world. So the population in the Asia Pacific region is enormous. There's already some fantastic work happening in Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Cambodia, from some of the locals there. forming an Asia-Pacific subcommittee similar to what they did with PDJ Europe now 15 or so years ago with a long-term goal for PDJ Asia-Pacific to be a standalone focus on growth in the area. The player base that's out there waiting that doesn't even know about disc golf is enormous in the region so I think it's a bit of an untapped area. In addition to the Asia Pacific region, I've already talked about my journey in disc golf, how it saved my life. I think the PDGA should be promoting disc golf as a viable exercise alternative as well. It's so accessible. I was extremely unfit when I started playing. I struggled to get around a short nine basket course and now... don't really blink at doing a 15 to 20 column in a day, like twice on a weekend. So it's a, it's a great gateway activity to get people up off the couch and out exercising. And if we just look at the statistics of the, the sedentary lifestyles and lack of exercise in Australia and the U S they sit at over 70% of people not getting enough exercise. So promoting disc golf as an alternative to get up and get active would be a huge benefit to the people that do it. And to the PDG.

Grant Zellner PDGA:
Okay,

Luke Turnbull:
And then,

Grant Zellner PDGA:
great. Great thoughts there.

Luke Turnbull:
I

Grant Zellner PDGA:
Mm

Luke Turnbull:
was gonna say, and then lastly,

Grant Zellner PDGA:
hmm.

Luke Turnbull:
my experience with disc golf is that it's not enough to have just some courses to play and come and try days don't really work. The reason people come to disc golf and keep staying with disc golf is other people. My friend is the one that dragged me out to disc golf and he's the primary reason I kept coming back and then I met other people and then... reason I keep coming back. So an incentive scheme, a recruit a friend kind of scheme for disc golfers to introduce their friends to be PDG members I think would be a great thing to do as well.

Grant Zellner PDGA:
I like it. Now, when it comes to these players coming out and playing more, they're going to need more events to play in, more opportunities to compete at all levels. What are your thoughts? Should you be elected to the board when it comes to increasing the number of events, the quality of events and supporting those who run events?

Luke Turnbull:
Kind of a two-part answer for me for that one. We need more people to run them. We need qualified people to run them. So a PDGA-supported certification scheme, accreditation of some sort, whether it's a TD mentoring program, some kind of formal training, so that the people that run those tournaments know what they're doing. When I first picked it up, I didn't really know what I was doing. And I had someone help. So it could be as simple as that, a mentoring program where experienced tournament directors take someone under their wings so that we kind of keep generating that next wave of people that were on events. The growth post-COVID has been enormous. At least in Australia, I don't think the growth of the volunteer base has been as strong and we need to support that at a local and national and international level. And then the other thing is we don't really have a feedback mechanism to tell TDs when they've done something good. If you've ever looked at reviews online, the people that write reviews mostly are the ones complaining. So I would imagine that from a tournament director feedback perspective, you're only going to hear when things go wrong. So implementing some kind of post event feedback mechanism for PDG members to give feedback about their tournament director. So we've got some qualitative and quantitative data. to provide feedback to tournament directors so that we know areas they can improve in. I think it would be a great start.

Grant Zellner PDGA:
Great ideas, Luke. When it comes to the time that we have left, I wanna make sure you get a chance to highlight any other aspects of your platform that you want the voter to know when it comes to voting for you. In other words, what other priorities do you personally have that you want to champion should you be a member of the board?

Luke Turnbull:
I think I've talked about my three biggest priorities, Asia Pacific region, disc golf as an exercise alternative, and the TD mentoring program. Above and beyond that though, keep doing what we're doing. The growth has been amazing. Disc golfers bring other disc golfers in. The explosion at the professional level with the Disc Golf Pro Tour has been just crazy to watch from someone 10 years ago whose only content they could see was disc golf monthly on YouTube. just keep doing what we're doing and improving what we're doing. And I think that's the way forward at the professional level and the grassroots level. Just need to get more people involved. Yeah. Volunteers need, they already have the right attitude. We just need to give them the right tools so that their sport can continue to grow.

Grant Zellner PDGA:
Is there anything that we may have missed in our conversation that you would like us to know about yourself and your abilities, meaning your, your education or your professional experience that would translate into a leadership role, like a role on the board of directors?

Luke Turnbull:
Well, as I said at the beginning, I've been a business analyst or operations manager for since 2016. I did spend a couple of years in customer service at the beginning of my time in the telecommunications industry. So I've got a lot of stakeholder management and engagement skills. So talking to people, finding out what they need and how we can help them. is always a good tool to have in a position on a board. Obviously being a business analyst, I've got some analytical capabilities as well and that can help with any kind of quantitative analysis of any data that we have available to us. And I've also been a people manager as well when I was an operations manager. So I've got some good people skills as well to both work upwards with people above and obviously the teams of people that help out below. And obviously, you know, with now approaching seven years on the Australian Disc Golf Board, I've also got the skills there that translate to a board role.

Grant Zellner PDGA:
What would you say your biggest accomplishment has been in your leadership role there with Australian Disc Golf?

Luke Turnbull:
That's a good one. Probably navigating the COVID situation. For listeners not aware, we had some pretty strict lockdowns during COVID. We had border closures so that our disc golf events were extremely local. Some council and local government areas could play at their local course. Others could play within the state. And what we were able to do during the COVID period, obviously with no state borders being opened, we weren't able to have our Australian championships for two years running. So with the help of Steve Gantz at the PDGA, we were able to introduce an event similar to Women's Global Event called the Aussie Disc Golf Day. So they now become a staple on the calendar. We have 15 to 20 events around the country each year on a single weekend, just like Women's Global Event. And we have five, 600, up to 800 people one year competing across the country in this kind of celebration of disc golf that we have. So it's now a staple on the calendar. And it's something that people look forward to and long may. continue. It's less serious than the Australian Championships and I think it's the grassroots social disc golf day that everyone starts out with when they first play.

Grant Zellner PDGA:
And I have heard of it, so it certainly has gotten some international attention, no doubt about it. His name is Luke Turnbull. He's PDGA number 63994, and he's running in the 2023 PDGA Board of Directors election. Luke, thank you for your time.

Luke Turnbull:
Thanks, Grant. Cheers.