Disc golf is a quietly growing and evolving sport. Experiencing a boom in players and followers during the first stretch of the COVID-19 pandemic, the popularity of the sport has reached new heights. As one of the many players part of the COVID-19 influx myself, even I have seen how much the community of disc golf has changed.
The greater Eugene-Springfield area is home to several courses of all difficulty levels, with each course providing something different to offer. However, Alton Baker Disc Golf Course is a poster child for the evolution of disc golf.
Alton Baker Park, located on the northern edge of the Willamette River, is home to an abundance of different activities. Prefontaine’s running trail, a fenced off-leash dog park and the Cuthbert Amphitheater are a few of the many things the park has to offer. But the disc golf course is arguably the most unique and inclusive aspect of the park. Managed by Myron Clements, the course has undergone significant changes since he took over in early 2023, creating a new and refreshing atmosphere to the course.
When asked about making changes to a course in the mind of a course designer, Clements laid out a couple important steps in designing a disc golf hole.
“The first thing I look at is safety. If something isn’t safe, it isn’t fun,” Clements said. “The second spot, I try to put myself into the mindset of the player. It needs to be accessible.”
Accessibility is another important aspect of the sport’s growth. Now that more people are starting to familiarize themselves with disc golf, more people from different walks of life are expressing interest in playing.
However, a lot of the higher-difficulty level courses host rough terrains and require a lot of walking. People who aren’t able-bodied are extremely limited by those kinds of courses. So, for Clements, accessibility is one of his driving factors when designing a course.
“Disc golf doesn’t discriminate. There is nobody who can’t play disc golf, and there is nobody who is excluded from our sport,” Clements said. “I have a gentleman with cerebral palsy who plays here, and he has a mobility scooter. His son has cerebral palsy, and he plays too. They struggle, it’s hard, but they love it. It’s a place where they can be free and feel equal to everybody around them.”
Clements has only been the acting property manager for a little over a year now. Admittedly, I am an avid disc golfer myself, and I started playing at Alton Baker in late 2020, a couple years before Clements took over. Alton Baker in 2020 and Alton Baker in the present-day are profoundly different experiences, and that is in large part thanks to Clements and his crew.
When posed with the question of asking how the purchase of the property was for him, he took an affectingly long pause before describing it as soul-crushing.
“Our bid came out to be just over 40 pages long,” Clements said. “It was a brutal process getting through it and a lot of people wanted it. It became a dogpile, you get in there and you fight, and whoever is left standing gets it.”
Clements also has years of experience as a salesman and disc golf professional. In 2019, he worked at Disc Golf Depot in Portland, where he fell in love with selling discs and making connections with customers. He made notable attributions to customers coming back and telling him the disc they bought from his recommendation became their favorite as well as making it about the person first and the sale second.
With that valuable experience in Portland, he opened his own store in Eugene in 2021 called Oregon Disc Golf. Ever since Clements earned the rights to manage the property, he has transferred his Oregon Disc Golf shop on to the Alton Baker course.
When you pull into the parking lot, you see a small shack stationed in between a few of the holes on the course. That is where Clements is located, and you pay a five-dollar fee for a day pass. On top of that, Clements has several bins of used and new discs set up on tables both outside and inside his shop. For disc collectors like myself, the temptation to splurge on some new plastic makes itself present upon arrival.
The new and improved Alton Baker Disc Golf Course is emblematic of the evolution of disc golf as a whole. Clements has done an excellent job designing the course to have a hybrid of challenge and engagement, all while making it as accessible as possible given the nature of the property.
Alton Baker has further solidified its status as a hub for Eugene’s disc golf community, playing host to hundreds of tournaments and events since Clements has taken over. If you love going outside, getting active and socializing with your loved ones, Alton Baker Disc Golf Course should be at the top of your list.
A man throws a disc toward the basket. The Oregon Disc Golf Course is located in Alton Baker Park in Eugene, Ore. (Molly McPherson)
