Want to play disc golf? How an El Dorado teen designed a course for this growing sport
Teenager Jacob Paturel’s vision took more than two years to become realized.
“I’m really proud and I’m really happy it finally got done,” Paturel said in a phone interview. “It ended up being way better than I thought it would.”
Paturel is 17 and a high school senior at Union Mine in El Dorado County. His project was the construction of a new disc golf course at Markham Middle School in Placerville, minutes away from historic Main Street in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada.
Paturel is a member of Troop 460 of the Eagle Scouts and decided to make building the disc golf course his official scout project. Only he didn’t expect it would take more than two years when planning began in October 2021.
Last year’s historic rainfall caused serious delays.
“Originally we were thinking we’d be done by Christmas last year,” said Patrick Paturel, Jacob’s father. “But it rained and rained and rained, so a lot of the work, which was concrete, didn’t get done.”
A year later than expected, the 10-hole course had an official unveiling in November. It’s mostly on the hillside on the east portion of campus, with bright red holes carefully placed to create the newest of the 11 disc golf courses in the area ranging from Cameron Park to Pollock Pines along Highway 50.
Part of physical education classes
The disc course is used by the school as part of it’s P.E. curriculum and is free to use by the public during non-school hours. Creating a disc course was important to Paturel given his family’s fondness for the sport. Patrick Paturel said he’s been playing disc golf for about 35 years, and Jacob began playing when he was 10.
“It was pretty cool that I was able to do what I wanted to do and that the opportunity was given to me,” Jacob Paturel said.
The idea was sparked by Markham Middle School’s teachers playing disc golf – think “frisbee golf” if you are unfamiliar with it – but not having a legitimate course. Teachers would use hula hoops as goals, a far cry from the sturdy, chain linked holes with concrete foundations used on real courses.
“So (Jacob) wanted to do something bigger, better, stronger, faster,” Patrick Paturel said. “So he decided that he wanted to put in a permanent disc golf course on school property for the kids to use for their P.E. But also, when it’s not school hours — weekends, evenings, summer — it would be accessible for the public to use.”
What is disc golf?
Like numerous other outdoor hobbies, disc golf has seen an explosion since the pandemic. The Professional Disc Golf association says it took 41 years to reach 100,000 members, but added its next 100,000 members in less than a tenth of that time.
Member No. 200,000 was counted on Christmas Eve of 2021 after the organization reached 100,000 in 2017.
Disc golf follows rules similar to real golf. Only instead of expensive green fees, uptight decorum and pricey equipment, disc golf is often free to play and discs — yes, similar to frisbees — can be purchased for well under $100.
And like golf, some discs are designed to be used off the tee for distance, and others are designed for putting near the hole. Strokes are simply counted by hurls of the disc while the best players specialize in accuracy and distance.
Holes at Paturel’s course range from 110 feet long to a 489-foot finishing hole No. 10. It’s the only Par 4 on the course while the other nine holes are Par 3s. Hole No. 9, Jacob’s favorite, is an island hole. He and his family also created 100 custom labeled discs for the school students to use that were designed by his older brother, Stephen, who also helped design the course.
A significant hurdle in the planning process was funding. Paturel wound up canvassing local business and was able to complete the project for roughly $10,000, with $9,200 coming in donations or sponsorship, according to the school. Businesses were offered the chance to sponsor individual holes.
“They were all very nice and I rarely was shot down,” Paturel said of his fundraising efforts. “If I didn’t get a sponsorship, I would get donation, so I was really lucky with that.”
This story was originally published January 11, 2024 at 5:00 AM.
