Philip Shippy — Staff Writer 

Dordt English professor Joshua Matthews is starting a disc golf league in Sioux Center. It will be open to both Dordt University students and local residents alike. With enough interest, he hopes to make it a Dordt club. 

Matthews’ current goal for the league is to have fun and organize play for people in the area.

“I have three boys, so we already play together as a little family unit, and yet we’re meeting other people at Children’s Park, so why not try to make it a little bit more organized?” Matthews said. “We went over yesterday, and one person joined us, and then a second person joined us.” 

While Matthews does not have all the details yet, he envisions a typical meet-up to be going to one of the courses in an hour radius and playing an 18-hole game. While they play, league members would keep score and have informal instruction on how to improve at the sport. 

Matthews hopes to start meeting sometime in October, before the weather changes. Then, the league will take a break for the winter and start back up again in the spring. 

Disc golf is exactly what it sounds like: golf, but with frisbee-like discs. Players attempt to travel from the starting area, called the tee, to a 4’ 4” metal basket, which serves as the hole, in as few throws as possible. The sport has become increasingly popular, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Disc golf has some roots in Sioux County. Eleven-time world champion and five-time Professional Disc Golf Association player of the year, Juliana Korver, was born in Orange City just 16 minutes away. 

The closest disc golf course to Dordt is at Children’s Park, just over a mile from campus. The course was designed by Dordt graduate student Nathan Endemano. Le Mars, Cherokee, and Sioux Falls also have courses the league might go to. 

There are local tournaments within an hour’s drive from Sioux Center, but Matthews is still working out how he wants his league to approach them. 

“[The league members] would have to pay for [the tournaments] somehow, so currently it costs about $30 a person. … Should I ask people to pay for it? I don’t know. I mean, 30 bucks is something,” Matthews said. 

Matthews is looking into obtaining funding from Dordt to “supplement or even pay for a small group” by turning the league into a Dordt club. 

He’s also considering having an “ace pot” during regular league meetups, where members can chip in a little money so if a member makes a hole-in-one, called an ace, they would win the whole pot. 

Those interested in more information can email Matthews at Joshua.Matthews@dordt. edu, as details are not set in stone yet. 

“We’re at the very infant stage,” Matthews said, “just almost born here.”