This Sunday, Yadkin County Park saw a different type of golfer when the Yadkinville Disc Golf Club held the Yadkin Open Disc Golf Tournament.
Sponsored by Innova, an international disc golf company, the two-day tournament saw more than 100 competitors in four divisions, with a $250 prize awarded for the professional division winner.
The park has had the disc golf facilities since 1991, and this was the ninth year the tournament has been held.
Twelve-year-old David Wiggins Jr. from High Point was one of the most accomplished of the golfers on the course. Wiggins, who moved to High Point with his family from California when he was 2, is a four-time World Champion in his age group.
He is the youngest person to win an advanced level tournament in the sport's history, and set the distance record for his age group when he threw a disc 484 feet at age 11. Wiggins said while most of his friends his age don't share his love for disc golf, he likes it for its individuality.
"Its just a great outdoor sport and a way to get exercise," he said. "It's not like a team sport where you have to rely on other people to play good. I like just being outdoors."
Ken Sizemore of Yadkinville said he and his golfing buddies have been coming out since the course opened.
"We just saw the poles out here and asked somebody what it was," Sizemore said. "We brought the big Wham-O discs out here until someone told us we had to use the smaller discs made special for golf."
The object of disc golf is to take a frisbee-style disc and throw it into a chain-link basket on top of a pole around four feet high. Most holes are around 400 to 600 feet depending on the par.
Each player carries an average of 20 different discs in their bag, each with a different weight and style for the shot.
Players tee off with driver discs and putt with putter discs. Many of the holes are in wooded areas adding to the difficulty.
Sizemore says he travels to Virginia, South Carolina and Tennesee to participate in tournaments.
One of the members of his group, Andy Baxter of Burlington, said it's a good, cheap way to stay active.
"None of us are couch potatoes," Baxter said. "You get to get outside. I would rather play disc golf than watch Tiger Woods play golf on television."
He said the golfers are a community, and they take pride in looking after the courses they play.
"There are a lot of rewards because we take care of the course," Baxter said. "A lot of the maintenance and cleaning up, policing people, is done by people who come out and play.
"We take care of the park. If anything goes down the disc golfers pretty much know about it."
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