Canada's best disc golfers compete for national glory in Thunder Bay

Despite all his accomplishments on disc golf courses around the world, Toronto's Thomas Gilbert admits he's feeling a bit of pressure in Thunder Bay.

Gilbert, Canada's top-ranked disc golf player, is in northwestern Ontario for the 2023 Canadian National Disc Golf Championships, and is among hundreds of competitors.

"If you ask most people this weekend, I would be the favourite to win," Gilbert said Thursday morning at Dragon Hills Golf Course — one of three courses hosting national championship rounds through Monday. "That's also a little bit of pressure on myself to just compete as well as I know I can.

"But I enjoy the pressure," Gilbert said. "I always play really well here up in Canada. This year, I'm 3 for 3 in tournament wins in Canada, so hopefully just add another one on to that list."

Gilbert arrived this past Monday and has played some practice rounds at Birch Point and Dragon Hills, the two courses hosting professional players (amateur players will play rounds on those two courses, as well as the Bayview course).

Thunder Bay boasts 'beautiful' courses

The courses are "beautiful," with a good mix of strategy required to be successful, he said. 

"Birch Point is such an amazing public park that they have a disc golf course on — lots of really cool amenities there and lines to hit. Then here at Dragon Hills, it's a little more open. You can be a little more free with your distance shots." 

Andy Noel, a Thunder Bay disc golfer who plays in the amateur MA1 division, which is just below the pros, helped with the design of about half a dozen courses across Canada.

Noel said his love for disc golf grew out of playing traditional golf when he was younger. However, traditional golf can get expensive.

"One day we were walking around a local course here at Boulevard Lake and saw the disc golf basket, and I was like, 'Oh, try this out,'" he said. "Next thing I know, I was hooked. You throw a disc two, three hundred feet for the first time, and you just get hooked."

Since then, Noel's involvement in disc golf has grown.

"When I first got into the disc golf community here, Birch Point was very small," he said. "We just had a little pitch-and-putt, basically, course. I started watching YouTube, seeing these bigger courses. I said we need more, we need to bring more to Thunder Bay because this is growing, and in the United States it is growing fast.

"Next thing I knew, I was on the committee. We were redesigning Birch Point."

Noel said players will face quite the challenge this weekend.

"Dragon Hills is probably one of the top five courses in Canada in my opinion, not just because I helped design it — but it is a world-class golf course," he said. "The pros here are going to expect to deal with the wind."

Ontario Disc Golf Association president Chris Ozolins said a total of over 400 players have signed up for the tournament and they're expected to be in town for about a week or so. 

"Many of those bring guests, family, friends, caddies, spectators out here too," he said. "So we're looking at about 600-plus folks in town."

The amateur players start Friday and wrap up on Sunday.

The pro rounds will get underway on Saturday and continue through to the championships Monday at Dragon Hills.

Disc golf a growing sport

While some may still think of disc golf as something of a niche sport, Ozolins said that isn't the case at all.

"It may have been a niche sport, certainly before the [COVID-19] pandemic," he said. "But the pandemic was a boon for our growth. We we grew 60 per cent year over year in the pandemic.

"In Ontario alone, we have over 160,000 disc golfers now. Canada-wide, it's exponentially more. We're seeing growth of 20 to 25 per cent per year, still. We're right on pace with sports like pickleball right now for popularity."

A full schedule of qualifying and championship rounds can be found here.