The Southeast Asia Pro Disc Golf Tour

As many readers of this blog are aware, Jessica and I are avid disc golf players. For those who

aren’t, disc golf is a sport very similar to regular golf, but instead of using clubs to hit a ball in a hole, you are throwing a frisbee into a metal basket. It’s an incredibly fun sport that we played very casually but quite frequently during the quarantine days of 2020. As we were packing to move to Thailand, we knew that disc golf courses were a lot fewer and far between, so we decided to only pack two of our many discs “just in case.” We knew there was an island in the country, Koh Samui, that had some courses, so maybe we’d take a vacation there and get some throws in. We also made a promise to ourselves- we were NOT going to make any disc purchases, as we had more than enough back in the States.

Well, so much for only playing once or twice. Even more hilariously, so much for our vow not to buy any more discs. Before we knew it, we were knee deep in the Southeast Asia disc golf scene.

Our emergence onto said disc golf scene became quite rapid, even after an incredibly slow start. Between our arrival in Bangkok and the first 9 months in Thailand, we never picked up our discs once. However, much to our delight, a course was opened in Phuket in late November! Knowing that our winter break plans involved some disc golf, we decided to go out and try our new home course. We had a blast, and threw pretty well for two people who had just taken a 9 month break.

After our “warm up round,” our disc golfing began in earnest. Our first travel destination over our school’s winter break was the famed disc golf island Koh Samui. Samui has two disc golf courses, one on the North end and one near the South End. Needless to say, we spent each of our four days there bouncing back and forth between the two courses and LOVING being back to throwing discs. One course was famous for, pre-COVID times of course, a growing tournament that attracted some of the best disc gofers on the pro tour. The other had some amazing shots, including one leading straight up to the beach, and we were chaperoned around the course by the 5 year old son of the course owner, who is a disc golf prodigy and could throw nearly as far as us! Both courses were fun little 9 hole courses with incredible island vibes.

Up next on our winter break schedule was Chiang Mai, the beautiful northern Thai city up in the mountains. Naturally, we checked to see if they had disc golf, which they did! We took our motorbikes just outside the city with our teaching friends, Brock and Sam, to try Lanna Rock Garden Disc Golf Course, or LRG for short. LRG was GORGEOUS, set in a little valley up in a lush,

green mountain park. Beautiful location aside, this course immediately became one of our favorite courses we’ve ever played. The course had a full 18 holes with a wide variety of shots. Uphill, downhill, short, long, wide open, through trees- this course had it all, and it felt really good to have a disc golf experience like that again.

After the round, the four of us (and Brock and Sam’s adorable daughter, Marzie) were getting food at the cafe on the course and talking about our recent disc golf adventures. As we were, we were approached by another expat disc golfer named Danny. As we eventually found out, Danny was the guy who brought disc golf to Chiang Mai. A fellow California native who had spent time in Redwood City and Santa Barbara (!!!), he had modeled LRG after another of Jessica and I’s favorite courses, Delaveaga in Santa Cruz. As we got to talking, he told us about a big tournament coming up in January taking place in Chiang Mai, and he was looking for experienced players (myself) and women players (Jessica) to fill some spots. At this point, we had caught the disc golf bug badly, and we really loved Chiang Mai, so we thought it would be amazing to take a weeklong vacation back in January that lined up with the tournament. And since competition was back on the table, I signed up for one of the two Samui tournaments that was happening in February. Much to Jessica’s dismay, with Danny’s help I realized that my two discs would be insufficient for tournament play, so Danny helpfully produced some new plastic for me to buy in order to be fully prepared for the tournaments. The disc golf tour of Thailand was on, and Patton and Cope were its newest competitors!

Fast forward a few weeks, and we arrived back in Chiang MaI for our fist tournament: Guardians of the Chiang Bang. Jessica’s attendance made a woman’s division possible, while I signed up in the “Open” division, which is the highest level. The Open division was an absolute blast to play in. I got

to play with Danny, who was clearly the best of us, an awesome German guy named Pete who had been playing for less than a year but was already just as good as I was (😡), a super cool South African named Jaco who might as well have had a rocket attached to his shoulder, and a super chill Aussie named Lindsey who got promoted mid tournament due to an awesome score. They all knew each other as Chiang Mai locals, but they were super welcoming of me into the community and our rounds were competitive, but fun and supportive as well. We had two rounds of the tournament at LRG, and one round at another super fun course called Gymkhana, which is built onto a golf course and had some incredible holes. At the end of the weekend, I ended up finishing in 2nd place, a few strokes behind Danny and only one ahead of Pete. It was an awesome tournament. Brock had signed up as well, and he finished in first place in his division. Here’s Jessica to tell you about her experience:

Hello everyone! Nice to see you. As Nolan mentioned earlier, we are both "avid" disc golf players. I started playing at the end of college, and really ramped up my skill over the time spent in quarantine. However, 95% of the disc golf I had ever played was extremely casual, where I never kept score or really worried at all about how I played. I loved tagging along with Nolan and his friends and family, but I was never competitive about it. Fast forward to arriving in Chiang Mai, we

played a round with Danny before the tournament, and he truly believed that I could be competitive in a women's division. I was absolutely terrified at first, thinking that everyone would be super intense and judgmental about my bad throws and missed shots. But, I could not have been more wrong. The weekend was amazing! Everyone was so supportive and encouraging, and I had so much fun playing with a great group of female disc golfers. On the second day of the tournament, I had one of my best rounds ever, and I ended up finishing in second in my first tournament that I ever played in. I was so happy that Nolan and Danny had encouraged me to play, because it was an experience that helped me to grow more confident in the sport and as a competitive player. Ok, back to the pro.

The week after the tournament was filled with tons of disc golf. We got out there with Brock, Danny, Pete, and others and played as many rounds as we could at LRG. We even got in a round of “disc dice” with Adam where we rolled dice to determine our throws, which was wacky and fun! After having such a stellar time at the tournament and in the days following, Danny made us each personalized shirts with the “Guardians of the Chiang Bang” logo on them, which were proudly worn at the rest of the events in the tour coming up. Danny even paid for my first membership fees to join the PDGA. He was such an incredible representative of the sport in Chiang Mai, and we really felt lucky to get to know him.

It was eventually time to leave, which as a bit sad, but brings us to the next event of the Thailand disc golf tour: the Samui Swine. Taking place at one of the disc golf courses we had played at in Samui, the course was 11 holes through tropical palm tree groves. Jessica had decided to sit this one out, so it was just me representing at the tournament. Our friends from Chiang Man, Danny and Pete, were also playing and staying nearby. Some of the highlights of the weekend were getting to play a ton of casual practice rounds with those guys, dialing in, and enjoying some good disc golf. When it came to the competition, it quickly became a battle between two titans at the top- Danny was facing off against a 6’5” viking from Finland named Tomi. Tomi is an up and coming pro in Finland, and was escaping the cold winter months of Scandinavia to practice his disc golf game in the much warmer Thailand. Just behind them was Pichet, a skilled player and the best male Thai disc golfer in the country, and just behind them was me! Because of that breakdown, I got to play on the “lead card” for most of the weekend, meaning the four players with the top score in the Open division.

For the first two rounds, I played some amazing disc golf and was within striking distance of the three players above me. In the third and final round, I showed up hyped, but too much energy and tournament pressure caused me to freeze up, and my game suffered a bit from a few missed putts and not the cleanest round. It wasn’t the best result, but it ended up being a great learning experience for me on how to manage my “tournament head” as Danny called it, or staying in the right mental state for success. I eventually hit my stride on some of the final few holes to put together a decent final score, and Tomi actually played a really cool role in cheering me on during that last bit of success. Another really exciting element of the last two rounds was that they were livestreamed on Facebook, which meant that Jessica and some family and friends got to watch from home! Eventually, the viking was too much for Danny as he had a few unlucky breaks, and Tomi took first. I finished in fourth, which was a great result and resulted in a little bit of cash winnings headed my way! The tournament was the highest level of competition I’ve been a part of in my young disc golf career to date, and I had a ton of fun.

Funnily enough, the most clutch moment of the tournament wasn’t a massive drive or excellent putt, but a moment of sheer happenstance. At one point in the live stream, the guy holding the camera gave a shout out to “Jared from Cambodia” who was cheering us on. Jared also mentioned a tournament that was going to be happening in Cambodia in a weeks time. This was actually excellent news to Jessica and I, who had recently found out that we couldn’t renew our Thai visas and had to go to Cambodia for a few weeks to get them renewed.

Our Thai disc golf tour was turning into a Southeast Asia Tour, with our next stop: The Khmer Cup! In order to make this tournament possible, we flew into Phnom Penh, the capital, on a Friday night, dropped most of our stuff off at our Air BnB, got on a night bus and slept through the drive before arriving in Siem Reap in the early morning. We hopped into a Tuk Tuk, and drove into the middle of the Cambodian countryside. Just before arriving to the course, Jessica was sure that we had mistaken the Google Maps pin and were going to be dropped off in a Cambodian village with no cell service and no disc golf in site. We were on a bumpy dirt road, surrounded by local houses and rice paddies, with children, chickens, and cows surrounding us. As we stepped out of the tuk tuk and the panic began to set it, we turned our heads and saw a big pile of discs in a small bamboo hut. We had made it!

The Khmer Cup was a totally different vibe than the other tournaments we had played in. Firstly, we were some of the most experienced disc golfers there. But the group of players, most of whom were expats, knew each other, and were good friends. Besides fellow American Jared, there was another Californian Timmy who was always quick with an encouraging word and a smile. We were joined by Trevor, an American travel writer- Greg, who splits his time between

Cambodia and the States- Ian, an Aussie who was a beginner to disc golf but was super excited to learn- Pich, the only Cambodian in the tournament and the owner of the "pro shop"- and Ben, a Brit who just kind of lived there, but was full of banter for everyone around. He and Jessica quickly bonded as partners in crime as Jessica got to unleash her rarely seen friendly banter. This group became instant friends for us, and led to fun experiences across Cambodia for the next two weeks of our travel.

The course itself was unique and incredibly fun to play. It was quite literally fit into narrow open spaces throughout the rice paddies of whatever Cambodian village we were in. Despite how it sounds, that added to the course’s charm and enjoyment factor. There were challenging tunnel shots, sharp angles on certain holes, and one perilous “death putt” where you threw into a bamboo basket standing atop a steep drop off into out of bounds. Suffice it to say, at the Samui Swine the better players got birdies more often than not, whereas at the Khmer Cup you really had to work for your birdies. However, by FAR the most unique and consistently hilarious and helpful aspect of the course was how it was staffed. The local village had a small horde of boys, all aged roughly 8-12, none of whom spoke a word of English, who followed the golfers to help with the more challenging elements of the course. When we first got there before the tournament

to practice the course, Pich told us that Mon, an adorable 12 year old boy, would show us around. Knowing the course, he was able to tell us where the tee boxes were and where we should throw. But the kicker came when, on the second hole, I threw a disc somewhat deep into a very spikey bush. As I was looking around, trying to find the best path in, Mon comes running up saying “No, no no!” He stops me, turns, then dives headfirst into this bush, fishing around for a moment, before coming back out with my disc. Jessica and I were blown away, and when we asked the other players later on, they told us that this was a common occurrence, and these kids would follow the disc golfers around while going into gnarly bushes and swampy lagoons, searching for the discs that players lost. Sometimes, they would even carry around big coolers of beer which were perfect for the extreme heat of the Cambodian country side! At the end of the day, they would get paid anywhere from 25 cents to $1 for their efforts, and they were ecstatic about it!

At the end of the Khmer Cup, Jessica described the course as “maybe her favorite course she’s ever played,” which given the courses we’ve gotten to play is high praise indeed. We left the tournament with each of us taking first place in our divisions, myself in the open division and Jessica in the women’s division. Due to the friends we were able to make in this tournament, we had fun social things to do almost every day that we were in Cambodia for the rest of the two weeks we were there. When we went back to Siem Reap the next weekend to see Angkor Wat, we skipped our second day of temple seeing so we could get another round in with everyone at the course.

Ultimately, the stretch of mid-December to mid-February has been the highlight of my time in Thailand so far. I got to travel from tropical islands to beautiful mountains to local villages and rice paddies across two different countries with my fiancé, and what really made those trips spectacular was the disc golf and everyone we got to meet and play with along the way. So many different people were welcoming, kind, and generous to bring us into the sport but also the community they were in. To me, it goes to show that disc golf creates a common ground for the Dannys, Petes, Jareds, Tims, Bens, and Gregs to get together and be some of the nicest, funniest, and most genuine people around. If you ever end up in Chiang Mai, Koh Samui, or Siem Reap, be sure not to miss the disc golf courses. I promise they won’t disappoint!