Discs away: Local disc golfers celebrate opening of new Pitt Meadows course

Jordy Stace-Smith had somewhere to visit after dropping off his kids at school. 

On a mid-December day last month, Stace-Smith, a Pitt Meadows resident, drove to see whether a new disc golf course was finished at Bonson Park. 

One day earlier, a friend told him that multiple tee pads were being installed in the park, which was once the site of a garbage dump. For years, the site has been relatively unused. 

Stace-Smith parked his car on a nearby street and hopped out. He noticed some city workers putting up a few disc golf baskets. They turned their heads as he approached, inviting him onto the first tee box.

“They’re like, ‘Hey! You got any discs?’” Stace-Smith said. 

After years of lobbying, it was only fitting that he played the first official round at the newest disc golf course in the region. 

In his youth, Stace-Smith, who grew up in Coquitlam, was a competitive swimmer who frequently practised at an outdoor pool that bordered a disc golf course. At first, he didn’t think anything about the few groups of people who threw a disc behind trees and across fields in search of a metal basket. 

But as progressed through high school, he gravitated towards the sport because it was cheap, accessible and something to do outdoors.  

“Disc golf is it, you buy a couple discs and play as many times as you want,” Stace-Smith said. 

His interest in the sport fluctuated as he got older, though. He moved to Pitt Meadows roughly one decade ago and started a family. Perhaps like most people, he found having children and diving deeper into a career didn’t permit many opportunities for sports and other childhood hobbies. 

About five years ago, however, he got back into the sport. His older brother started playing again and Stace-Smith introduced his two children to disc golf. He then dreamed of having a recreational course to play nearby with his kids. 

“This course is perfect for people like me, I just want to be able to take my kids here and play,” Stace-Smith said. 

Despite the growth of disc golf over the pandemic, the opening of Bonson Bowl — a permanent seven-hole, par 3 course — is the first disc golf addition to Ridge Meadows in nearly two decades. The community’s other only course, located at Thornhill Park, opened in 2005. 

Many disc golf enthusiasts celebrated the completion of the course online. 

“Nice little beginner course,” wrote one man on Facebook. 

The Bonson Park addition also comes just over one year after Stace-Smith organized a pop-up disc golf event at the park. The event brought out 133 people, illustrating a demand that surprised the city and showed there was an appetite for the growing sport in the community. 

“Within the first hour, [the city] was like, this is happening,” Stace-Smith said. “It wasn’t just disc golfers. There were many recreational players that came out just to check the course out.” 

It’s a small course that is suitable for both novice and experienced disc golfers, said Chris Hartmann, co-founder of INdesign, a disc golf company that designed the Bonson Bowl. He wanted each hole to have its own unique feature, whether it’s a raised green or different flight angle needed to land in a fairway. 

The park is a depression, meaning the ground declines from the main road and feeds into a bowl-like shape. One of INdesign’s first objectives was to build berms that changed the topography of the park. 

The fourth and fifth holes, for example, are built on elevated surfaces that may increase the difficulty for players. 

“We tried to make something interesting about each hole,” he said. “So, when people played them, they would play something different.” 

The course is 503 metres, with holes ranging between 58 and 85 metres. 

Despite officially opening to the public on Dec. 13, Hartmann says there is still more work to be done. Roughly 30 trees and a rock garden are expected to be planted in the spring, lining the fairways and changing the potential flight paths for players. 

While the course isn’t the most challenging in the Lower Mainland, Stace-Smith said he believes its relatively short distance and central location will make it a popular destination for beginners looking to be active outdoors. (The Fraser Valley Regional Library also offers disc golf sets for rent at multiple locations.)

“My kids come here and they may play one hole, throwing it the whole time and then they’re going to walk the rest of the way,” Stace-Smith said. “But they’re out here walking as many steps as I am.” 

Last month, more than a dozen golfers came to the park to play during a reprieve from the rainy weather, mingling with dog walkers and people at a nearby playground. 

Although it may be difficult to add another disc golf course to the city in the future, considering the lack of space in other city-owned parks, Stace-Smith said the popularity of the course shows disc golf should be considered for other public, multi-use spaces. 

“It’s not just a disc golf park, we’ve got a playground, lots of dog walking,” he said. 

“It is a nice use of park space.”