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Build it – a disc golf course – and they will come

( see photo gallery below ) With one of the most-recently-constructed courses, the Sandy Beach Disc Golf Tournament on September 12 was an amazing success, said Kelly Butz, who owns Sandy Beach Development.
Eileen Hupka
Eileen Hupka, who with her husband James, started the Sandy Beach developments in 1987, was one of the competitors in the first disc golf tournament at the development on September 12.

(see photo gallery below)

With one of the most-recently-constructed courses, the Sandy Beach Disc Golf Tournament on September 12 was an amazing success, said Kelly Butz, who owns Sandy Beach Development.

The course was constructed in August and there have been people playing on it ever since, he said. With so strong a commitment from players, it was established that this was the ? rst of an annual tournament. The next one is slated for July 30, 2016.

The rules for disc golf are very similar to regular golf with the difference that instead of launching golf balls, the players throw discs (well-engineered Frisbees).

Trevor Lyons, who was the tournament director, revealed that Aaron Kienle was the men’s winner with a score of 60, which is one over par. The women’s winner was Chanise Kienle with a score of 81, which was 23 over par.

For the longest-drive awards, Jason Kienle won for the men with 320 feet and Cindy Pittman won for the women with 125 feet. For the closest-to-the-pin award, Owen СƵ won with a shot that landed 14 feet and eight inches from the pin.

Sandy Beach has been in the development stage since 1987 when Jim Hupka subdivided 28 lots. Soon afterwards Hupka’s daughter and son-in-law purchased the property and took over the development. Under the direction of Kelly and Debbie HupkaButz, another 31 lots were subdivided in three different areas.

“Out of the 59 total lots available, we have 13 that are still available on our website: ,” said Kelly.

In recent years, “we were looking for something new and exciting that we could do differently out there, and we’re looking into costs of setting up a disc course,” he said. “Calvin Daniels had approached me this summer and asked if we would consider doing it.

“He came out and walked around with Trevor Lyons one day and mapped out a course. I liked it, and after finding out that we didn’t need the of? cial baskets and could use ‘tonnels’ or ‘targets’ instead of the official baskets. I was eager to get started!

“By the end of the weekend, we had the course set up and were playing.”

The interest in the Parkland region is steadily growing every day with the more people that hear or play a round of disc golf, said Butz.

“It is truly a sport that can be played by any age, and is inexpensive to play. We will be doing more fundraising with hopes of installing the back nine holes and eventually having the official baskets. Right now it is basically all our own costs with the ‘build it and they will come’ attitude.

“Our cabin owners that have played the course and love it! Word of mouth spread and I think most have tried and/or played in the tournament last weekend.” Butz said. “It is free to play, and we encourage everyone to come out and give it a try.”

This tournament came together so fast and was so big, next year’s tournament will be bigger and better than this year, he said. “It is a real good addition to our community here and we hope that everyone respects and helps to support it in the future.

“We were grateful for all of the community support in donated prizes this year. Everything came together so quickly that it is almost a blur!”

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