In the summertime, there are always a variety of events going on throughout Muskingum County. Everything from swim meets to festivals, car shows to dog shows, and all kinds of sports everywhere you look. One sporting event going on in Duncan Falls on Saturday, July 8th was a “Doubles” disc golf tournament being held to support Bethel Community Center in downtown Zanesville.
For those of you who are not familiar with the sport, disc golf is played a lot like regular golf but instead of clubs and balls, you use a disc much like a frisbee with some slight differences in shape, weight, and material depending on the flight pattern you want the disc to take. The sport was formalized in the 70s and just like golf you want to complete the hole with as few throws as possible to hit a pole with chains hanging from it made to collect the disc into a basket.
A lot of communities throughout the country are adding disc golf courses because it is a healthy, inexpensive, recreational activity that provides exercise and mental stimulation. Players of all levels of fitness can start slowly and increase their level of play as they practice more. That is one of the reasons Bethel Community Center saw the sport as a good opportunity to have a fun event to raise money for their center.
Bethel Community Center is a faith-based non-profit 501c3 organization that serves to support and empower youth and families in the Putnam Community. They promote job security, food security, school preparedness, health, and safety for members of the community struggling with poverty.
This is Bethel’s second year holding the tournament and all proceeds go toward their center and helping the impoverished Putnam Community.
The event sported beautiful weather with a bit of a breeze (which added an extra challenge). This year’s winners were Marcus and Jared Raber with a first-place finish. Bryce and Matthias Taber flew into second place, while Austin Montgomery and Isaac DiVincenzo got the third place spot.
“We were trying to find something that would be different from all of the other non-profits in our area because we didn’t want to compete with what they were doing. So when this became popular one of our employee’s father, Ron Cook runs this course for Cornerstone Church and we asked him if he would run a tournament for us and he does that for us, this is our second year. So we hope to make this tournament an annual event, the first Saturday after the fourth of July. Everything that we collect here goes to support Bethel Community Center in Zanesville on the corner of Ontario and Putnam. We do an afterschool program for children, a summer camp for children, we do a monthly food box for all of those who are in need, we also do all of the holiday dinners, we serve around 100 people each holiday with a home-cooked meal cooked by our board and employees and we have entertainment.” stated Angie Morosko of Bethel Community Center in Zanesville.
Cornerstone’s eighteen-hole disc golf course was established in 2020 and has cement tees that really help when trying to get the right leverage to launch a disc a good distance. There are veteran targets on the course that may take a little more practice for newcomers to the sport. Dogs are allowed on the course as well which stretches along the church grounds and up into the woods behind the church. The course is open to the public and is listed on udisc.com, a popular website, and app used by people to score their matches.
