The 2024 Discmania Open and the Return of King’s Pine
The 2024 Discmania Open and the Return of King’s Pine
Canadian Disc Golf Tour #8
Story written by Matt Lisac, Parked Pro
Elliotvale, Prince Edward Island - Two years ago, Hurricane Fiona ripped through the east coast of Canada and the northern US, leaving fallen timber and shattered windows in its wake. It was the third heavy hurricane to hit the Maritime provinces in six years; a frequency that has increased dramatically, forcing the residents to reevaluate their preparedness, their stubbornness and their desire to live in such proximity to the wild and vast Atlantic Ocean. With nature’s beauty comes nature’s terror. It could either be that this double-edged sword of coastal living draws a hearty and adventurous citizenry, or the famously staunch and welcoming people could be a product of the environment. Either way, East Coasters are a special bunch.
Full Results: Discmania Open 2024 >>
But even the strongest buildings, trees, and people were tested with the heaviest rains and winds the region had seen in generations. And while the debris can be cleared and the windows replaced, an old-growth forest that envelops a newly-created disc golf course cannot. At least not easily or quickly. There’s no shortcut to building a 100-year-old forest. It’s been said that a disc golf course is only as good as the forest it’s built around, so what do you do when 85% of that forest is ripped from the ground like dandelions from a garden? This is what happened to the King’s Pine DiscGolfPark in 2023 (a course that was only inaugurated the previous year for the 2022 Canadian National Championships).
Ben Smith, PDGA #34835
The third, and newest championship-level course on Prince Edward Island (PEI), King’s Pine DiscGolfPark was meant to be a crowning jewel on the island. Alongside Hillcrest Farms and Rose Valley, all inside a 1 hour radius, PEI had become the unquestioned competition-level disc golf destination in the country. This all in spite of being the smallest province in Canada by landmass and population, thanks to the abundance of work by Ben Smith and the dedicated team of volunteers across the Maritimes, PEI became spoiled for choice when it comes to internationally-renowned courses.
It was also the most meticulously-crafted course in the country, with special machinery used to limit disruption of surrounding vegetation, special care made to maintain appropriate shading, grass species’ chosen specifically to thrive in the environment, and all materials used for the course coming from the course itself. It set a new standard for sustainable course development that would be used as a demonstration case for years to come.
Pierre Landry, PDGA #120350
But sitting at a higher-than-average elevation on the island became a curse for the luscious and venerable forest at King’s Pine. 85% of the trees, many of which were older than every resident on the island, were uprooted, bent over, shorn from the earth and tossed aside, turning fairways impassable and making Smith’s original design unrecognizable in form. Even the eponymous King’s Pine on the 9th hole was broken in half; a towering marvel of a pine tree, honoring the course owner’s father, forever changed and scarred.
“It was a dark time. For 12 or 14 months, we didn’t know if we’d be physically or mentally able to rebuild… It fundamentally changed me as a person.” -Designer Ben Smith on seeing the course for the first time after the hurricane.
Kim and Carson Gill, the course owners, along with Smith, surveyed the damage in the days following the storm. They were devastated. The community was devastated. No one would blame them if they’d harvested all the downfall and re-purposed the land for other things. When the wrath of nature tells you that you no longer have a disc golf course, it’s fair to listen. But spurred on by the same community that had been inspired by the trio’s original vision of building the course in the first place, they started clearing timber.
FPO Podium at the Discmania Open 2024
One year later, and hundreds of tons of material removed, there was still no course. Or even a semblance of one. But Smith was adamant that they would get there. He, along with TD Luc Richard, committed to hosting the Discmania Open in 2024, two years after the hurricane, at King’s Pine. There were certainly doubts aplenty. With only a couple of months to go, a new version of the course took shape after two years of tireless work by the Gills, Smith, and a team of workers with a vision. A fairway emerged, a green took shape, a new hole presented itself. And on and on until this October.
“For the first time in 22 months, I got the feeling that we were back at an intentional place, and it wasn’t just destruction and sadness… it was really something that was celebratory.” -Course Designer Ben Smith on the course after reconstruction
And it was on this track, a mix of new and old holes with a very different skyline and fall colours in full effect, that the Prodigy of the Maritimes, Dylan Goudey, took home his first MPO A-Tier victory. Goudey, from Deerfield, Nova Scotia, is one of many young talents in Canada who took up learning disc golf at home during the pandemic, looking for a new start himself. Learning from YouTube videos, Goudey went from amateur to a winning professional on the Canadian Disc Golf Tour within 3 short years. With an average rating over 1000 for the tournament, it felt more like a first step than a final one. Tied with him after the first round were other young players, Ontario’s Ezra Lockington and Charlton Massachussetts’s Sam Streeter, neither far removed from high school themselves. In the end, PEI local James Mallard thrilled the hole 18 crowd with a circle-2 putt to cement 2nd place over Lockington (who had just made an even longer putt to force the issue) by one stroke.
Samuel Streeter, PDGA #69968
In FPO, another traveling American, Rose Shertick, also won her first A-Tier in an Open Professional division. She fended off Quebec’s rockstar Karen Martel, one of the strongest (and most popular) FPO players in the country, as well as Maritimer Tanis Trainor and former competitive nordic skier Julie Bisson. Shertick stretched her lead in the final round on the long and difficult new version of the course with clean and powerful backhands and a steady putter. She and Martel were both propelled above the 900-rating plateau after the tournament.
“Disc golf has its way of bringing a multigenerational group of human beings together and making them feel part of this indescribable family, you just need to sign up for your first event and you’ll realize why Disc Golf is what it is. As an organizer or TD, if for that one moment, I can make you feel like you’re great and valued … mission accomplished.” -TD Luc Richard
"The Maritime Disc Golf Association have been putting on events of the highest calibre in Canada for close to a decade now, and they needed all their resources and experience to bring this incredible course back from the dead to host another outstanding tournament. The community came out and made this a memorable event for locals and out-of-towners. We love PEI." - Andre Lodder, CEO Parked Pro Media
Other notes from the Discmania Open: The closest challenger to Goudey by score came from the MP40 division, by a player eligible for the MP50 division: Andrew Jones, from Winslow, ME. Jones averaged a 994 rating for the event and was one stroke ahead of 2nd place in MPO on the same layout.
This was the final event on the 2024 Canadian Disc Golf Tour filming schedule, but the points series will continue through the final A-Tier and B-Tier events of the season. The full standings of the CDGT can be found at CDGT.ca
Players can earn CDGT points at all Canadian A-tier and B-tier events.
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PDGA Canada re-invests Canadian player fees back into the sport in Canada, assisting tournaments, training events, course construction, media like the CDGT, and more. Their support makes the Discmania Open and Canadian Disc Golf Tour possible. The CDGT is an exciting new opportunity for players to compete at a high level and showcase their skills on a national stage, in a way that has never been available for players in Canada looking to make the jump to global professional competition. From providing structure, support and sanctioning for tournaments, to helping aspiring professionals reach their athletic dreams, PDGA Canada has been instrumental in bringing Disc Golf into the mainstream in Canada as both a sport and a competitive hobby.
Media Contact:
Andre Lodder
CEO - Parked Pro Media Inc.
(250) 308-4558
Additional Resources:
youtube.com/@parkedpro
Comments
Thank you for being a part of
Thank you for being a part of this. It was an event near and dear to our heart and the maritimers are honoured to be in such a position to host these. Thanks again for being here!