Riding a pandemic-fueled popularity wave, the Tahoe disc golf community celebrates new courses and players while staying true to its roots

Even 200 feet away, the ringing metallic sound is unmistakable: “Bbbbringg!”

“Bangin’ chains,” as disc golfers call the sound—and on this warm August evening at Truckee Regional Park, the reverberation of the noise hasn’t even left the air before it is drowned out by a raucous eruption of cheers.

With an arcing 250-foot toss, Truckee resident Brian Desmarais has just thrown an “ace,” what disc golfers call a hole-in-one, on the course’s par-3 10^th hole.

Donner Ski Ranch’s disc golf course features a few putting greens made of granite

Similar to traditional golf, or “ball golf,” as disc golfers call it, the premise of disc golf is to use as few tries as possible to throw your disc into the “hole.” Only the hole is not in the ground. Desmarais’ momentous shot has landed his disc in an elevated metal basket draped with chains designed to catch an accurate throw. 

The thrill of throwing discs and bangin’ chains has made the sport one of the fastest growing in the United States over the past five years. While disc golf’s hippie roots date back to the 1960s and ’70s, the sport grew modestly year to year until COVID sent everyone running outside for entertainment. 

Disc golf proved to be a perfect pandemic pastime, as thousands of new players have taken up the game since 2020. The popularity boom inspired the construction of hundreds of new courses around the globe, skyrocketed interest in professional tournaments and sped up a shift in the sport’s demographics. High schoolers and families flocked to courses, helping disc golf shed its stereotype as a “stoner sport.”

The scene in the Tahoe region has echoed the sport’s nationwide trajectory. When the first courses were built in South Lake Tahoe, Truckee and Zephyr Cove in the 1990s, the sport immediately drew dedicated local players. Disc golf’s casual yet competitive nature matches well with the laidback athleticism of many Sierra residents. And Tahoe’s courses, known for their towering trees, undulating terrain and spectacular views, are notably unique and challenging, making them a breeding ground for talented players and a popular destination for visiting golfers.

Fast-forward to 2025 and there are now a dozen courses in the Tahoe-Truckee area, plus a dozen more between Reno and the Carson Valley. The new courses have brought new players and competitive opportunities, but still no crowds. Whether you are a veteran player in it for the old-school camaraderie or a young athlete with your eye on a professional career, it’s a fantastic time to be a disc golfer in Tahoe.

Not Your Typical Terrain

Disc golf was invented in the late 1960s and was initially played on informal “object” courses. To complete a hole meant hitting a tree, trash can or telephone pole with your disc. The first official course with designated targets was installed in a county park outside of Pasadena in 1975.

Disc golf arrived in Tahoe in 1995 when an 18-hole course was constructed at Bijou Community Park on the South Shore.

Serjio Castaneda leans into an overhand throw, called a “thumber,” during the King of the Lake tournament at Zephyr Cove Park

“When I first played at Bijou in ’95, there were about a dozen professional baskets and the rest were homemade targets made out of 55-gallon barrels with the tops and bottoms cut off,” recalls Craig Getty, a member of the Northern California Disc Golf Hall of Fame. 

Getty, 68, is the unofficial godfather of Lake Tahoe disc golf. Now living in Indiana and still playing three times a week, Getty led the design and construction of nearly every course in Tahoe and Truckee. 

South Lake Tahoe Parks and Recreation tapped Getty to help oversee the course at Bijou, which led to him helping design three of the next courses built in the Tahoe region. Getty and local volunteers constructed courses at Zephyr Cove Park in 1998, Truckee Regional Park in 1999 and North Tahoe Regional Park in Tahoe Vista in 2006. 

All three of these legacy courses have stood the test of time and remain highly rated on UDisc, an app that helps disc golfers find course information and keep track of their scores. Getty’s second design, Zephyr Cove Park, is currently the highest-rated course in Nevada on UDisc.

“Zephyr Cove isn’t your typical disc golf terrain. It’s very steep and bushy,” says Getty. “But I couldn’t resist putting a disc golf course in there. The views are magnificent, and the massive trees with the granite rock outcrops are just so beautiful.”

One of the reasons park districts support the creation of disc golf courses is because, unlike traditional golf courses, they require no watering, no removal of trees and no weed killer or fertilizer. A golf course designer might ask, “How can we turn this land into a golf course?” Whereas a disc golf course designer would ask, “Where is the disc golf course on this land?”

“The layout of a course really designs itself based on the topography,” says Getty. “I don’t force fairways to make left, right or straight shots. We use the openings Mother Nature gives us, and then look for deer trails to connect the holes.”

Another distinction between the two types of golf is the cost to play. A new set of golf clubs costs anywhere from $250 on the extreme low end to $3,500 or more on the high end, while the most affordable courses around Tahoe start around $100 for 18 holes. Many courses are considerably higher, while others do not allow the public at all. Meanwhile, a starter pack of three discs costs less than $30, and just about every disc golf course in the world is free to play, including those in Tahoe and Truckee.

Rollin’ on Truckee Dubs

Truckee resident Joe Akhavan is another Sierra disc golf legend who got hooked on the sport in 2004 after playing a midwinter round in the snow at Truckee Regional Park. He quickly became a “shooter,” as good disc golfers are called, and was once the highest-rated professional player in California.

Truckee disc golf kingpin Joe Akhavan lines up a forehand putt at Truckee Regional Park

Akhavan started volunteering to help with local course maintenance in 2006 and later joined Getty to design a course at Sierra College’s Truckee campus in 2014. Known for requiring tricky throws through tree stands, Sierra College is considered one of the most challenging courses in the region.

“Playing at Sierra College is going to make you a better player,” says Akhavan, who still plays three to five times a week and has 87 aces to his name. “It’s definitely the hardest course that we have, but the more you play there, the better your game is going to get.” 

Tight trees and undulating terrain aren’t the only things that make mountain courses more challenging than wide-open courses at sea level.

“The air is thicker at sea level, so as the disc is flying the air holds it up longer,” explains Akhavan. “When you play at elevation the air is thinner, so you have to throw it harder to get the same distance and flight path.”

Truckee native Brian Riofrio, a disc golfer since he was 5, winds up a drive at Sierra College

Desmarais recorded his recent ace at “Truckee Dubs,” a weekly gathering of some of the region’s best players organized by Akhavan and Andrew Irwin, a born-and-raised Truckee disc golfer who started playing when he was 12.

The Dubs crew has gathered three times a week for over 20 summers to play informal doubles tournaments at a rotating selection of local courses. Anywhere from eight to 20 people might show up to play on a given evening, with some coming from Reno and the Sierra foothills. Competitive vibes bubble under the surface, as the crew cracks jokes and beers between respectful silence when someone steps onto the tee pad or lines up a putt.

Most nights, Dubs is an all-guys group aside from one uber-talented local female disc golfer, Akhavan’s wife Leah. 

“Women in Tahoe haven’t shown much interest in disc golf,” says Leah, who also played pro tournaments for many years. “I think there is just too much other stuff to do and there aren’t a lot of women looking for a new summer sport.”

The Professional Disc Golf Association (PDGA) is the sport’s governing body that sanctions tournaments, validates results and assigns numerical player ratings based on performance in competitions. While there are many women who compete at the highest level—the PDGA’s Disc Golf Pro Tour—the sport still struggles to attract female participants. 

“Disc golf is a very male-dominated sport. Always has been, and probably always will be,” says Leah. “It’s intimidating to play with guys because they are naturally better and can throw farther. But if you follow the women that are playing professionally, they have a deep field of strong players, and the level of competition gets better every year.”

Throw for Show, Putt for Dough

Tahoe’s first disc golf tournament was held in 1995 at Bijou Community Park. There are now six major tournaments every summer in the Tahoe region, which are collectively known as the Sierra Tahoe series. 

The PDGA classifies tournaments based on the level of competition, the number of players and the amount of prize money up for grabs. The top level is the Disc Golf Pro Tour, followed by the Qualifying Series, and then A-, B- and C-tier events. All the Sierra Tahoe series events are B-tier, with 80 to 180 entrants and a $3,000–$12,000 pro purse that’s split among the top 40 percent of finishers in the pro divisions. 

Alex von Stade nails a putt on her way to winning the Women’s Pro Open division at the 2025 King of the Lake tournament

While many Tahoe athletes have competed in the Olympic Games and top-level skiing and snowboarding events like the World Cup and Freeride World Tour, no local has ever qualified to play on the Disc Golf Pro Tour. Greg Barsby, who grew up playing in Grass Valley and won the 2018 World Championships, is currently the only Sierra native playing on the Pro Tour.

Several young local players have their eyes on qualifying for the Pro Tour one day, however, and for good reason. Top professionals command seven-figure sponsorship deals and can easily take home six figures in contest winnings each season.

Alex Kalange, a 26-year-old from Tahoe City, is one such local who dreams of one day making the Pro Tour. Though he’s a relative newcomer to the sport, Kalange had a breakout year in 2024, winning three tournaments, including the 2024 Nevada State Championships.

“Disc golf has definitely taken over my life,” says Kalange. “I work multiple jobs and grew up skiing, so I like to do that too, but in the last couple years I’ve spent a majority of my weekends traveling around the West Coast for tournaments.”

Kalange is sponsored by Premium Disc Golf, a shop in South Lake Tahoe with a stacked team of talented young players, including Nate Toutolmin of South Lake Tahoe, Brian Riofrio of Truckee and Jedd Berger of Reno. 

“Tournament play is much different than playing a casual round with your buddies. It becomes such a mental game,” says Kalange. “You can throw a great tee shot and land your disc really close to the basket, but you still have to putt it in, and putting is the hardest part of the game.”

Players on the Pro Tour are known to be “automatic” from within 20 feet of the basket, expected to nail every putt from inside this distance. No putt is a sure thing until it’s in the basket, though. It’s not uncommon for an accurately thrown putt to bounce off the chains and end up on the ground. “Spit-outs” do not count and require an additional stroke.

“It’s golf, so anything can happen,” says Kalange about the highs and lows of putting. “High-rated players can have bad tournaments, and lower-rated players can shoot out of their mind and score really well.”

New Year, Another New Course

Even before the COVID boom, disc golf was a hot stock because of noticeable changes to who was playing the sport. Getty recognized this shift and used it to inspire the construction of another local course. In 2018, he approached Donner Ski Ranch with the idea. His pitch: Disc golfers will buy beers, burgers and pies.

“I showed them that the demographics of the sport have changed. It has gone from just local golfers carrying a six-pack of beer to higher-income people from the Bay Area and Sacramento who will spend money at the restaurant when they are done playing a round,” says Getty.

Alex Kalange floats a putt into the sunset during an evening round at Stampede Reservoir

The experiment paid off for Donner Ski Ranch, as the scenic 18-hole course that weaves around the lower ski runs quickly earned one of the highest ratings in the region. 

“The Donner Ski Ranch course has been a win-win,” says Getty. “It’s one of the most beautiful courses we have, and the restaurant has loved the traffic from golfers.”

2018 was a productive year for Getty, who also finished constructing an 18-hole course at Stampede Reservoir that was years in the making. The course flanks the south side of the reservoir and was built on land owned by the U.S. Forest Service. It features water hazards and has a couple of par-4 holes plus one par-5 hole, making it one of Kalange’s favorites.

“Stampede is such an awesome course,” he says. “It’s wooded, technical golf right down by the reservoir and it has some long holes, which we don’t have that many of in Tahoe.”

Recent advancements in disc technology and throwing technique have allowed golfers to throw farther than ever off the tee pad. The average length of a par-3 hole is 200–350 feet, while experienced players can routinely throw drives over 400 feet. 

But what Tahoe courses may lack in distance, they make up for in technicality. Two 18-hole courses built in 2024 at Kingvale Snow Park on Donner Summit are prime examples. Kingvale I + II are both shorter, but highly rated, technical courses with tight wooded fairways that require a variety of different shot shapes. The courses are maintained by For Real Dough, a pizza restaurant where golfers check in before playing and celebrate their aces after a round.

On the other side of the Sierra Crest, several new courses have sprung up in Reno and the Carson Valley in the last five years. 

Carson City Parks, Recreation and Open Space opened the Carson Ridge Disc Golf Park in 2019. The complex is home to an 18-hole “Stadium” course and a nine-hole, beginner-friendly “Pony Express” course. Both use shrubby pinyon pines and small elevation changes to make engaging fairway layouts despite the lack of tall trees.

The City of Reno Parks and Recreation Department used $100,000 of a much larger federally awarded COVID relief grant to build Mayor’s Park Disc Golf Course at McAlinden Park in 2021.

“Mayor’s would have been just a dirt hill if we didn’t have the grant,” says Skot Meyer, president of the Reno Disc Golf Association. 

Meyer was a competitive player for 15 years, and now owns a disc golf shop in Reno called Disc Giant. He helped design the unique hole features Mayor’s Park is known for, including “mandatory” poles that golfers must bend their shots around.

“The mandatory poles make it so you have to shape a specific shot,” says Meyer. “Because the landscape out there is mostly devoid of vegetation, the built-in features make the course a lot more fun and interesting.”

Master the Motion, Join the Fun

The one elephant in the room for the Tahoe disc golf community is the proposed redevelopment of Truckee Regional Park. If the new KidZone Museum and Truckee Library are built as planned, the 18-hole disc golf course will be lost. 

On the bright side, the Truckee-Donner Recreation and Park District (TDRPD) has plans to replace the course.

“The TDRPD is trying to be proactive and stay ahead of things,” says TDRPD General Manager Sven Laff. “We are currently working on designing a new 18-hole course elsewhere, and hope to get it built with the help of partners before either project at Truckee Regional Park breaks ground. And if the course at Truckee Regional is affected, we plan to turn it into a nine-hole course.”

With a cross-step perfected over two decades, Andrew Irwin glides across a tee pad while playing a round at Truckee Regional Park

Even with changes afoot at Truckee Regional Park, Tahoe disc golfers have little to complain about.

“There is not one bad course in Tahoe,” says Kalange. “Every course has a beautiful landscape and anywhere you play in North Lake or South Lake, you’re going to have a good time.”

The Sierra disc golf community is also notably social and inclusive. Beyond the Truckee Dubs group, there are similar informal tournaments held weekly at Bijou Community Park and Zephyr Cove Park, as well as the Ranch Disc Golf Course in Reno. The events are open to anyone and are a great way to learn how to play competitively. 

For those looking to improve their game before diving into competition, practice makes perfect. Top players often set up a target basket in their backyard and throw putts from various distances daily to become “automatic.” Mastering proper throwing form is the secret to throwing a disc farther, as the necessary arm speed and whipping action is not an intuitive motion for most people. There are tons of informative disc golf skills videos online to learn from, as well as hours and hours of pro tournament recap videos that can be beneficial for learning disc and shot selection. 

The buzz of throwing an ace, or bangin’ chains with a 50-foot putt, can’t be felt staring at a screen, though. Catching those highs requires falling in love with the flight of a disc through the trees and putting in your time walking in the forest with friends—both things that make disc golf a terrific Tahoe sport. 

Seth Lightcap is a writer and photographer from Olympic Valley who just added “throw an ace” to his athletic bucket list.