GNDG workin' to preserve the course

Preserve and steward the Baldfoot disc golf complex in order to provide a place for the free, safe, healthy, and enjoyable pursuit of disc golf for the regional community.

That is the mission statement for Great Northern Disc Golf Inc. A non-profit organization founded in January 2022.

“We had started the process in either November or December, but we had been talking about it for years," Great Northern Disc Golf board director John Gaddess said. “We grouped together and started our own nonprofit and began finding ways to legitimize it.”

Before the group opened up the nonprofit, it was simply known as the Sandpoint Disc Golf Association, which was organized in 2015.

“It was a board of people who drew up the bylaws,” Gaddess said. “It was very casual and it’s just like how every non-profit gets started, you’re banking on people volunteering for a common cause, but no one was really getting anything out of it.”

The next step of the foundation was forming reliable and consistent bylaws.

“That was a very difficult task,” Gaddess said. “We assembled as many sets of bylaws from other local nonprofits as we could for a reference. It took a good while before we found something that we could all settle on.”

Once the bylaws were written, it was time for Gaddess and vice president Mike Givens to form a reliable board of people who could take the nonprofit to the next level.

“We recruited a lot of dedicated and determined individuals,” Gaddess said. “They're all intelligent and passionate about disc golf.”

The board at Great Northern Disc Golf continuously works together to make sure maintenance at the Baldfoot Disc Golf Course is taken care of.

“Above everything else, we want to preserve the course,” Givens said. “That’s the biggest part of our mission statement.”

The city and organization have a good working relationship, according to Gaddess, but the fate of the course is almost always in the balance.

“There’s no evil force on the other side that we’re going up against,” Gaddess said. “We look at it like we’re preserving the course and saving what’s here.”

Gaddess labeled Baldfoot a regional staple not only for disc golf but for outdoor enthusiasts.

While knowing the course is such a favorite amongst the locals of Sandpoint, it might come as a surprise that the park is seemingly hanging in the balance.

Well, according to Gaddess, it’s because it’s the city’s property but it’s not a city park. The property was bought for the sewer district.

“The city has a responsibility to manage that in a beneficial way,” Gaddess said. “There are legal obligations that the city has and they can’t just sweep it onto the park system. We’re working with the city to convince them to preserve this area as a public place.”

The possibility of the course shutting down is still feasible, but it’s not near as likely as it was three years ago according to Gaddess.

“With COVID-19 and the increase in population, the city council has had some more important things on their agenda,” he said. “So this has been on the fringe lately, but it’s starting to get a little more scrutiny because of the sewer rate analysis that is almost complete.”

Following an appraisal by the city, it was determined that the area of the course is valued at over $1,000,000.

“The city would have to come up with that,'' Gaddess said. “That’s a lot of money when you have pot holes and missing sidewalks and other things.”

From the mission statement, it’s obvious that Great Northern Disc Golf wants everyone to enjoy the game, but most importantly, have a clean and reliable course to play on.

“As of now, that’s where a lot of the funds go,” Gaddess said. “We spent almost $1,000 dollars on the parking lot just to put in gravel. We could do that three times over in that parking lot and it’d start to look like a real parking lot.”

The Baldfoot Disc Golf Course is exclusively tended to by members of the group. They gather “work parties” and according to Givens, they have nearly 10 people show up religiously to help maintain the course.

“We come out here and we’ll go clean up the course or the kids' course,” Givens said. “It’s a dedicated group of about 10-20 individuals that will show up and help.”

This effort from the group and those who support the goal of the organization perfectly exemplifies what the disc golf community is all about.

“We wanted to start with maintaining (Baldfoot) but now we’re focused on growing the sport as well,” Givens said. “I started disc golfing in 2014 when my buddies took me out to a church parking lot and told me to throw the disc. I was terrible at first, but slowly but surely I got better and was almost addicted to coming out here. That’s what we want for the future.”

Some of the major fundraising efforts the nonprofit has put together includes a youth-disc golf clinic.

This was a huge success for not only the youth, but for the overall future of the sport.

“We’re getting outreach on Facebook from people saying they want their kids involved in the sport,” Gaddess said. “We’ve had different schools reach out to see how they could put it into their curriculum. We're really trying to help out the community.”

The group also had its first event of the 2022 calendar year with its “Lost in the Fir Trees” tournament.

This tournament took place on Saturday, May 21, during the famous local attraction “Lost in the 50s” hence the name of the event. It still drew 72 players.

“We had to cap it because of the length of the tournament,” Givens said. “Disc golf is its own draw. That's why we named it after the car show. It speaks to the popularity of disc golf.”

The group raised $1,700 after the tournament; the money raised through these events goes directly towards improving the course.

“At the moment it's going to us to keep this place maintained and looking good,” Givens said. “There’s nobody that gets paid to take this spot; it's just us.”

Great Northern Disc Golf Inc. hosts league events on Tuesdays and Fridays at 5:30 p.m. with singles taking place on Tuesday and doubles on Friday. It will also have its next event “Double Trouble Baldfoot Bash” on Aug. 13.

“It’ll be a two-round 18-hole event,” Givens said. “We’re hoping to get around 108 players so we can get four players per card.”

Both the kids course and the pro-course will be open for the tournament. The group anticipates the number of participants for this event will be even larger than the “Lost in the Fir Trees” event.

“We’ll have nine extra holes and we’ll play the best shot on the adult course and the worst shot on the kids' course,” Givens said. “The kids' course is a par-3, but it’s fun because if you shoot it by the basket and your partner shoots it in the trees, that’s where you have to shoot from.”

Registration for the event will begin on July 9.

With the commitment of the group, loyal patrons and its teamwork with the city, the organization is confident in its future.

“It’s our hope that the city council and the population will support the notion of using general funding dollars to purchase the property and move it to the park system,” Gaddess said. “We’re working hard with city staff to try and formulate a good concept for potential steps to preserve the course. That’s our primary focus right now and staying involved with the community.”