Wham-O Celebrates Frisbee Golf Anniversary as Sport Grows

Sixty years ago, two USC graduates set out to start a sporting goods company in Pasadena. KPCC's Susan Valot says it soared into an outdoor toy empire that spun out a growing sport: Frisbee golf.

Susan Valot: Childhood friends Rich Knerr and "Spud" Melin wanted to make throwing knives and dueling pistols when they started Wham-O. But then, says the toy company's Chris Guirlinger, a building inspector came to them with his new invention – a flying disc.

Chris Guirlinger: Rich and Spud did some research, started doing what they did best, grassroots promotion, of their new product, the Pluto Platter, around the country. And when they were on the East Coast, they heard a lot of people referring to this game that they were doing with pie tins or coffee can lids or anything round and flat, Frisbie.

Valot: ... which was the name of a pie company imprinted on those tins. Knerr and Melin tweaked the spelling – and the "Frisbee" became Wham-O's first hit.

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Frisbee TV ad: What's a Frisbee? A Frisbee's fun! It's the flying saucer that you command! Watch. [Jingle plays: "This is the way to curve a Frisbee..."]

Valot: In 1975, California's first Frisbee golf course opened in Pasadena. Now, there are more than a thousand Frisbee golf courses across the country – or disc golf, as it's known now.

Matt McCance: Grip it and rip it. That's what you gotta do. You just hold on, wing that thing out there. [Clinking sound] There we go.

Valot: Twenty-two-year-old Matt McCance tosses his disc into a basket made of chains. Eighteen baskets dot two acres of gopher-riddled grass in Huntington Beach.

McCance: The whole course is a par three, just like regular golf. It takes three throws to get in the basket. So that way you would break even. So, you know, it's pretty much you hit the chains and it falls in. You know, you got it.

Valot: McCance says he's never gotten a hole in one – though one time he did make it into a trash can by accident. McCance's buddy, Alex Hickerson, says that doesn't matter. They just throw for fun. Hickerson says the game's a relaxing way to get some exercise.

Alex Hickerson: ... outdoors, you walk around. Open. You've got a good view of the mountains when it's clear. And then uh, I don't know. It's a lot better than club golf, I guess, because it doesn't take as long. (throws disc) Aw, he still does it. Get through there. Aww, nothin'.

Valot: It takes less than a couple of hours to play a round. And like a regular golf course, you've gotta keep your head up.

Hickerson: Uh-oh, turn back!
McCance: Yell fore.
Hickerson: Fore!
McCance: (laughs) That was right at the bench!

Valot: Golf discs are hard plastic. You use different discs, just as you would putters and drivers. The weights vary by several grams, depending on whether you want to hurl the disc long, or drop it softly into the basket. Most discs come with a beveled edge. That's a patented design from Innova, a Rancho Cucamonga company that makes high-end discs. An Innova disc can cut through skin with some speed. Matt McCance has never been hit. But he has hit other people.

McCance: I got a guy in the back of the neck coming off the hill. That was pretty intense. I didn't even know he was there! Fore!

Valot: Robert McIntee, who mans the disc golf pro shop at the Huntington Beach course, travels the country to play professional disc golf. He says discs are tougher to throw than traditional Frisbees.

Robert McIntee: You're getting a lot more of your body involved instead of just throwing your arm out there and letting the disc fly. You're actually using a lot more bodym and then the disc basically will rip out of your handsm because you're putting so much force behind it.

Valot: McIntee says top disc golfers can win up to $15,000 at a major pro event – double the prize from a few years back.

McIntee: It's kind of like surfing ten years ago. We're still trying to make it, still trying to get the sponsorship behind it. We're trying to get rid of the hippie era, per se, where a bunch of hippies would go out and throw Frisbees at trees. And we're advancing into more of a sport.

Valot: Robert McIntee says Innova's patent is up on the beveled disc. That should bring in new products, and maybe more players. McIntee says right now, the competition's flying in disc golf.