Johnny Eastaugh brings unique disc golf shop to community

SANDPOINT — At 41, Johnny Eastaugh has already lived quite the life.

Right now, Eastaugh is pouring his heart and soul into his shop located in the Panhandle Business Center — Mogul's Disc Golf Supply and Custom Athletic Wear.

His store has become a hub for disc golfers in the Sandpoint area to get their gear. Traveling avid disc golfers also stop in to check out everything Eastaugh has to offer.

Besides the store, Eastaugh owns a pair of disc golf apparel lines — Run It Discgolf and A-Tier Disc Wear. But that’s not all he does.

“I’m kind of a jack of all trades,” he joked.

Eastaugh moved to Sandpoint last May from Santa Cruz, California, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. Over this past winter, Eastaugh searched for months for space to open his own disc golf store and in the middle of January, he moved into a spot in the Panhandle Business Center on the top floor. But just a month and a half later, a space opened up on the bottom floor of the center and Eastaugh settled into his current location in March.

During the winter months when disc golf wasn’t as active, Eastaugh got into designing and producing custom T-shirts for several local businesses and even fulfilled a special order for a bachelorette party. He is currently working on fulfilling a large order for The Sand Bar.

Eastaugh has also got into designing logos and business cards. It’s all about connections and he has made quite a few in his short time living here.

“It started by doing it for friends and then they’re like, ‘Johnny can do that,’ and next thing I know I’m on Illustrator and Photoshop doing something,” he joked.

His passion for designing a wide range of items was all born from Eastaugh’s love for disc golf.

Eastaugh recalls throwing a disc for the first time in 1997 in his hometown of Girdwood, Alaska. At the time they didn’t have any baskets, so Eastaugh and his friends would throw discs at objects and markers they put around the park. In 2000, Girdwood became home to Alaska’s first disc golf course.

Eastaugh got his culinary degree from University of Alaska Anchorage, and a degree in outdoor studies from Alaska Pacific University. He worked as a chef at a number of different places, including on trains and at ski resorts.

“You can go anywhere as a cook because everybody eats,” he said.

Eventually though, working in a kitchen became too much of a grind for Eastaugh and he made a change. He moved to Santa Cruz in December of 2014 so he could play more disc golf, including on the legendary DeLaveaga Disc Golf Course — one of the first disc golf courses in the U.S.

Eastaugh moved to California hoping to encounter more disc golf competition and he certainly did.

Eventually, Eastaugh found Cabrillo College in Aptos, California, and got into graphic design. They had 3D printers and all the tools needed to make custom clothing and he got hooked. Eastaugh sold his first piece of disc golf apparel in May of 2015.

Run It Discgolf was his first venture. He calls it the rebellious side of his clothing line. A-Tier Disc Wear is tournament style disc golf apparel that is meant to be affordable for players of all skill levels.

At his store in Sandpoint, Eastaugh has hoodies, T-shirts, jerseys and hats for sale for men, women and kids of all sizes. He also has single discs and disc sets for beginners to advanced players from most of the major disc golf companies.

“I can get anyone interested in disc golf set up here completely,” he said.

Eastaugh sells his apparel online as well at runitdiscgolf.com. He ships around the world and has served customers in Sweden, Norway, Finland, Thailand, Germany and many other countries. His biggest business in the U.S. comes from Michigan, which has become a hotbed for disc golf.

Eastaugh launched the website about five years ago when his disc golf apparel took off in Santa Cruz. He said most of his sales come from online, but it’s nice to have a store where he can talk to people and get them what they need. It’s also just down the road from the Baldfoot Disc Golf Course.

Eastaugh said there’s a huge collectors market in disc golf and he has a few historic discs of his own that were made around the time when the sport was first created in 1976. He never plans on selling them, but they are worth some coin.

“I got discs I can buy a boat with,” he said.

Eastaugh even collaborated with Joshua Jones, his friend and owner of disc golf company Above Ground Level, to create his first and only disc — the Ponderosa putter. Eastaugh only designed artwork for discs prior to this opportunity, so he said it was really cool to make his own, which is made of 70% plastic and 30% hemp.

Eastaugh said the putter is now AGL’s top selling disc. He also added that each disc AGL creates is named after a tree and a tree seed comes with every purchase of one of their discs.

In 2019, Eastaugh graduated from Cabrillo College with a degree in business and a minor in graphic design. While going to school, he worked as a head chef at a retirement center and played disc golf whenever he could.

After living in Santa Cruz for about six years, Eastaugh decided to move to Sandpoint partially because the area fits his lifestyle. The town wasn’t new to him either. He’s been coming to Sandpoint for ski races since 1988. He also visited a few times to play in the Farragut Open at Farragut State Park, which is the largest disc golf tournament in the state.

Prior to moving to California and attending Cabrillo, Eastaugh said he hadn’t really used a computer for almost a decade. He obviously had a lot to learn, but he picked up on it quickly.

Disc golf and graphic design have changed Eastaugh’s life immensely, and he can’t believe he is on this journey.

He said he used to be someone that wore raggedy pants and the same five T-shirts nearly every day. Now he’s designing his own clothing and can’t hardly decide what to wear each day, he joked.

“I never thought graphic design and clothing would ever be in my future,” he said.

The people Eastaugh has met through disc golf, is what makes the sport one of a kind, he added.

“I love it,” he said. “The disc golf community wherever you go is unlike no other. Everybody is so accepting and they encourage one another.”

Eastaugh has played a handful of professional disc golf tournaments over the years. In April, he drove from Sandpoint to Santa Cruz and played 77 rounds on 33 courses in two weeks. He said he got blisters on his hands from that trip and couldn’t log into his phone with his fingerprint for a while.

Eastaugh’s current shop is pretty small and he admitted his demand is starting to outgrow the space. In the back of the building, he has a storage unit with lots of inventory. Sometimes late at night when no one else is at the business center and he is trying to complete an order, Eastaugh said he extends his tables out into the foyer to increase his production space.

Disc golf continues to grow rapidly and Eastaugh said he recently ordered three new state-of-the-art machines for creating custom apparel. He said it will be tough to fit everything in his current store, so expansion looks to be in his future.

“Eventually I’m going to outgrow this little shop here,” he said.

Eastaugh would like to keep the storefront and have another place where he can do the production. The solo act would also like to add some employees.

Eastaugh enjoys thinking about the expansion and what the business could become, but he is trying not to get too far ahead of himself. He wants to take it one step at a time.

“I tend to take on too much sometimes,” he laughed.

While he looks for another location and disc golf dies down over the winter, Eastaugh is considering acquiring some ice skates for people to rent. He said the demand is there.

“I wouldn’t mind getting like 20 or 30 pairs of skates in here,” he said.

After moving around quite a bit during his life, Eastaugh has found his new home.

“I’m not going anywhere after this,” he said.

Mogul's Disc Golf Supply and Custom Athletic Wear is located at 1217 Baldy Mountain Road, Suite 100, in Sandpoint.