Williston Disc Golf Club holds sanctioned tournament

The Williston Disc Golf Club hosted the first ever Professional Disc Golf Association (PDGA) sanctioned tournament played on the newly-built 18-hole course at the Williston Town Park on Saturday, July 16.

The Williston Classic had 72 participants from across S.C. and G.A., which was a larger outcome than the Williston Disc Golf Club founders had anticipated.

“With it being our first one, we filled it. 72 out of 72 players signed up from all over the state,” said Dalton Mundy, founder of the Williston Disc Golf Club and assistant tournament director for The Williston Classic.

“We’ve got 72 players coming from Sumter, Columbia, Lexington, Augusta, Evans, Thompson, Aiken, North Augusta…” said Hal Mundy, founder of the Williston Disc Golf Club and lead of maintenance for the course. “We have about eight from local areas and the rest are from out of town and a couple from out of state.”

Father and son duo Hal and Dalton Mundy have dedicated their time to growing the sport and created the Williston Disc Golf Club to foster interest in their hometown. Soon, a nine-hole course was constructed in the town park and then expanded to its current 18-hole layout.

“We had no clue when we started that it would be going where it’s going now. So, we’re excited about the future of it,” said Dalton.

The Williston Classic was presented by Down South Discs, a disc golf company and tournament vendor. Down South Discs was present at the tournament with a range of disc and disc bags for sale.

The Williston Classic was a landmark event for Williston’s disc golf community. It not only brought together players from across the state and beyond, but showcased the course.

Unlike other disc golf courses, the Williston course has the added obstacle of a lake in the middle of it. While walking from basket to basket, players venture through wooded areas shaded with bamboo like at hole 13, or make scenic shots by the water.

At the event was disc golf enthusiast Dave Sexton, who played an integral part in establishing the presence of disc golf in Williston. Sexton made the growth of the sport known to town officials and then designed the initial nine-hole course which was later expanded with input from the Mundys.

With a camera in hand, Sexton snapped action shots of players and encouraged them with ‘good throw!’ or ‘nice shot!’ if their disc landed where they intended.

Check-in for the tournament began at 7 a.m., and the first round began around 9 a.m. Players began to fill the parking lot and explore the many amenities the course has to offer.

“Once the first round finishes, we’ll have an hour break and then we’ll start round two,” said Dalton.

As players make shots, they keep score through the PDGA website which automatically tracks the scores of all players at a particular event. These ratings are then readily available on the pdga.com under the name of the tournament. Scores for this tournament can be found under the heading ‘Williston Classic-Presented by Down South Discs.’

Ratings are based on how others play a course, according to Dalton. The PDGA website explains that “a score for a player on a hole is the total number of throws, including penalty throws. The total score for the round is the sum of all hole scores.” The method of scoring is similar to ball golf.

There were 13 divisions players competing in that ranged from pro to novice. The pro divisions were Open and Pro Masters 40+. At The Williston Classic, players in these divisions finished in the red, meaning they took less total throws than normally required for a particular hole or course.

The Williston course is a par 3 course, meaning experts may only need three shots to make a basket at each of the holes on the course. A ‘par’ is the number of strokes a pro player requires to make a shot.

In the Open division, Tal Wambeke, a professional player from Columbia, came in first with a par of -19. Following Wambeke in the Open division was TomMac Garrett, a professional player from Aiken who finished with a par of -17.

The Pro Masters division was for players aged 40 years and older. Mel Dickerson, a professional player from North Augusta, finished with a par of -12, and Jimmy Hlavin, an amateur player from North Augusta, finished with a par of -7.

The Advanced division contained players from Augusta and Grovetown, G.A. to Sumter, S.C., and scores ranged from -14 to +3.

In the Amatuer Masters 40+ division, two local players competed out of five total in the division. Timothy Summers of Williston finished with a par of +18, and Chris Blume of Williston finished with a par of +6.

In the Amatuer Masters 50+ division, Hal Mundy finished with a par of -3. Also in this division was amateur Matt Flynn from Augusta who finished with a par of -7, amateur Danny Howard who came in with a par of -7.

In the Intermediate division, amateur Craig Waits of Augusta came in with a par of -6, amateur Bubba Poole of Augusta finished with a par of -5, and amateur Jake Lucas of Florence finished with a par of +11.

In the Advanced Women division, amateur Marta Sand of Riga, Latvia finished with a par of -5. Sand has played in multiple tournaments in Georgia in the past year.

Although the Williston Classic was the first PDGA sanctioned event held on the course, the Mundys hope the tournaments will continue for multiple reasons. Not only has the event brought more people to Williston, but funding from it will go to the town’s recreational efforts.

“All the sponsors. I just want to thank all of them,” said Hal. “We’ve sold all 18 holes sponsor signs and we’ve sold five basket wraps.”

Each basket is sponsored by a local business or individual. The basket wraps are seen around the top of the basket. There are 36 wraps in total available for sponsorship.

“Those sponsorship monies go to course maintenance, it goes to running tournaments, and just helping what we want to do [to help Williston recreation]” said Hal. “What we want to do is like maybe once a month or every couple of months we can have something for the kids to come out, to say get a free disc.”

Hal explained that a portion of the sponsorships and club funds are allocated to the Williston Recreation & Activities Committee, where Dalton is a committee member.

“We are going to make a percentage donation for everything that comes to the recreation department to help those kids that want to play rec sports,” said Hal. “We even talked about maybe if the funds are good, we could maybe buy uniforms for all the rec department kids one year, or we can pay all the entry fees for one year.”

“That’s something that we have to build as the Williston Disc Golf Club to find out what we will be able to do,” said Hal.

The Williston Disc Golf Club recently made their first donation as a club to the Williston cheerleading camp, according to Hal.

Not only is the growing support for disc golf giving back to the community, but the establishment of the course has led to a cleaner park, according to Hal who volunteers to handle course maintenance.

Hal does this “just to bring these people to Williston to play in this tournament, to bring revenue to the town, to grow the sport, and hopefully get more people active and involved,” he said.

Although disc golf is a source of exercise, it provides fellowship too, according to Hal. He explains the “comradery of coming together” adds to his passion for the sport.

The future holds more PDGA sanctioned tournaments for the Williston Disc Golf Club and sponsorship opportunities for local businesses.

“We’re going to do a main course sign at hole one and then put sponsor signs around that to give everybody an opportunity to become a sponsor,” said Hal.

To view the scores of all the players involved, visit https://www.pdga.com/tour/event/60091.

For more information on the Williston Disc Golf Club, contact Hal Mundy or Dalton Mundy via Facebook or join the Facebook group ‘Disc Golf in Williston SC.’