Disc golf catching on in Riverview, N.B.

There’s nothing better than hitting the links for a lap in a staggering -19 degrees.

CDT Disc Golf members Trevor MacDougall and Blake Reynolds were more than ready for a few rounds despite the cold.

The disc golf course is located in the woods adjacent to the Claude D. Taylor School in Riverview, NB and has been in operation for about a year and a half.

Its popularity is only increasing. Almost 11,000 people played a round on the 18-hole course in the first year of operation.

“I think the appeal is that it’s not a super long course,” said Reynolds, the club’s president. “It’s about a mile and a half loop. Anyone can enjoy it and it takes about an hour and a half to play a full round. I think that combined with the low barrier to entry makes it accessible to everyone.”

Reynolds, MacDougall and other community members realized that the 25-acre land next to the school wasn’t really being used for anything, so they partnered with the Anglophone East School District to build the course.

It took many hours of work to carve the course out of the wooded area, but the golfers knew they hit it right from the start.

“People were fascinated by it,” said MacDougall, the club’s secretary. “We have a very strong committee that introduced it to a lot of people. Many community groups, teachers, schools, physical education classes. It just kept exploding.”

The group is very proud of what they have created.

The 18 holes, each with a metal basket to catch the discs, meander through the trees, paths and streams in the beautiful wooded setting.

Both men believe the best thing about the sport is that it can be played by anyone, regardless of athletic ability.

“Early on, when we started teaching and playing in the community, we noticed that there was a very wide variety of age groups and parents taking their children from ages five to six to grandparents and 75 year olds just outside to enjoy a walk in the woods,” Reynolds said.

MacDougall likes the physical and mental health aspect of the game.

“It’s just such a wonderful reason to get out in the woods and stay active, and you can throw kids’ toys around,” MacDougall said. “It’s a very unique sport. It’s brand new for this space, but it’s been around for decades.”

The course will host an upcoming Atlantic-Canadian Junior Disc Golf Championship in May.

The Riverview group hopes to build another course in Moncton in the near future.