Photography by Kathy Tran
Cole Benge and Julie Langford swap discs at the Roger W. Lytle disc golf course at Founders Park.
It seems like Founders Park has always been there at the end of the Houston Street and Jefferson viaducts.
But this dramatic 16-acre city-owned tract wasn’t turned into a proper park until the 1990s, after the fledgling Friends of Oak Cliff Parks pushed for it.
The park sees more traffic than ever since the Roger W. Lytle Disc Golf Course was installed there in 2015.
“It’s the cutest course in Dallas,” says Daniel Sobalvara of Kessler Park. “You always have a view of Downtown Dallas from there. No other city have I found that you have the same backdrop as Founders Park.”
The 40-year-old traveling chef has been all over the country to play disc golf, and his favorite course of all time is at Golden Gate Park in San Francisco. But Founders is his home course and his favorite in Dallas.
It’s the perfect place to introduce people to the sport, he says.
“You can learn, and it’s not intimidating,” he says. “Because some courses are big, and they’re like OMG I have to throw it that far?”
It’s not deep in the woods, and players are never very far from the parking lot. The course is short, and while there’s interesting topography and scenery, it doesn’t require very much walking, says Cole Benge, who plays the course about once a week.
Benge says he’s had two aces on the course. That’s a hole-in-one, and disc golf players say this course is known for its relatively easy aces.
But let’s back up. Disc golf became popular in California before the mid-1970s. From regular golf, it borrows the typical nine or 18 holes. Founders Park is unusual in that it has 11.
The object of the game is to throw the disc or Frisbee into a chain basket. Each hole has a par score, and there are putters, mid-range discs and drivers. The player with the lowest score wins.
The course at Founders Park is one of four in Dallas proper, and there are more than 60 courses in the Dallas/Fort Worth area.
It’s a game for all ages. Sobalvara got his dad into it several years ago, and they recently played a round on his 74th birthday. He says “a little kid” once showed him the ropes on the kid’s home course near Lake Tahoe.
Unlike regular golf, disc golf is free. There are no tee times, and players can come as they are. Getting started takes at least one disc, and second-hand ones cost about $5-$8 each.
George Clark, a Founders Park regular who lives in West Dallas, recommends that newcomers to the sport start from the basket, learning to make it in and practicing putts and then moving out to driving distances.
Clark, a 36-year-old mortgage loan originator, plays at least four times a week. His job in Plano is near a course that he plays on his lunch breaks. He hits the Founders course after work. On the weekends, he might venture out.
“It’s addictive,” he says.
By the way, disc golf has a reputation as a stoner sport, and some players carry cans of beer in their bags. But it can be a sober sport as well.
Freddy Bear, another regular, says he took up disc golf after spending nine months in alcohol rehab. Now two years and four months sober, he says the sport is part of his therapy.
“It’s one of the smallest courses, but it’s one of the most fun courses,” he says of Founders.
Clark says there’s “not a lot of riff-raff” in the sport. He grew up playing golf and says disc golf is a low-pressure way to stay active.
“I’m not a huge workout buff or anything,” he says. “It doesn’t take a lot of time to get ready to go play. You can just go and pick up a game or play alone.”
Sobalvara is heading to a job in Telluride this summer, where he plans to spend a lot of his free time on a course there that can only be reached by gondola.
He says “my course,” Founders, is not the most difficult course in Dallas, but it does have its challenges. He came up with a way to shoot 22 holes there by teeing off at each of the 11 holes from two spots, and lots of regulars have learned it, he says.
The most remarkable thing about disc golf is its culture of friendliness, Sobalvara says.
He once met a guy at Founders who was carrying a plastic bag with a disc in it.
“He said he was from Denver and was about to fly out in a few hours and had time to play,” Sobalvara says. “Long story short, we started throwing, and I wound up taking him to the airport eventually. That’s how easy connections are made.”
To anyone thinking about taking up the sport, Sobalvara recommends giving it a shot because there will always be some friendly person around who’s willing to explain the course.
“Just go out there and get it,” he says.
