Average Disc Golf For average players, by average players…
Submitted to us by Bogi Bjarnason
Disc Golf enjoys a fairly short history on the shores of Iceland, having only been introduced there in 1998, with the first permanent course rising in Gufunes, Reykjavík, as recently as 2002.
Said course featured 9 home made baskets and came hot on the heels of a course at Úlfljótsvatn sporting baskets fashioned out of old herring barrels. 2005 saw the founding of the Icelandic Disc Golf Association, or Íslenska Frisbígolfsambandið (ÍFS), in the Icelandic – Icelandic linguistic traditions not being hampered much historically by United States trademark legislature.
The following years saw a slow, but steady, growth in the number of players and courses country wide with a national championship being played annually and the number of tournaments increasing year after year. 
This era produced the majority of the current top flight of local players who formed a Team Iceland for the European Championships, while these, and a slew of lesser talents started testing their mettle on the odd national tour event in a variety of European countries. In 2014, a boom year for Disc Golf in Iceland, a squad of seven braved the cold North Atlantic to compete in the British Open at Croydon in southern London. This journey was to spark an enduring fascination with the Croydon course, culminating with a force of 14 from Reykjavík Disc Golf descending on the Croydon Cyclone in May of this year and returning with medals in three divisions, chief among them a gold in the Intermediate Amateurs division won with a comfortable 5 strokes by Friðrik Snær Sigurgeirsson. The boom year of 2014 saw the number of greater Reykjavik area courses explode to seven, with an additional two rising in 2015, bring the total to an eyebrow-raising nine; not bad for a city of 200.000 people. Meanwhile, during this wave of popularity, the number of courses country-wide now rests at 30, which in a nation of 330.000 means there is one permanent Disc Golf course available to play for every 11.000 inhabitants. A statistic eclipsed only by the Frisbee mad Finns!
With 60+ official tournaments slated for the current season the spirit of competition is at an all time high in Iceland, and the weekly Tuesday League attendance at Reykjavík’s Fossvogsvöllur hovers in the upper 30s, while the Fall League – contested on nine consecutive Saturdays on the city´s nine courses – sees an ever increasing number of diehards braving the fickle elements of a rock in the sea famous for very inconsiderate autumn weather.
For the visiting golfer there is much to see and do. The ever popular Golden Circle, with its Gullfoss, Geysir and Þingvellir. also offers Disc Golf at Úlfljótsvatn and Flúir, as well as Apavatn and Miðhúsaskógur. These, and other Southwest Iceland courses, provide panoramas like nowhere else on earth, with the added bonus of a midnight sun that allows for aroun the clock playing during the summer months.
Please inquire with [email protected] for trips, offers, and availability of tours.
