As Christmas approaches quickly I’d like to take a moment to reflect on 2021. It’s been another turbulent year, but I’m a positive guy and I like to give thanks. Last year I made a Facebook post from my personal account of some good things that happened to me in 2020, and I think I’d like to do the same for Sabattus Disc Golf in 2021. We can always use more good vibes in the world.
In no particular order these are some of the highlights of the year at Sabattus Disc Golf.
1. Disc golf at night is going to be LIT.
After a long year of working on lots of projects, one of the biggest ones is finally complete. We’ve lit up the Owl, our 9 hole course for night play. The goal with this is to provide people something to do after 5 pm on winter weekend nights. We’re working on the details and will release a schedule soon. You won’t need glow discs to play and we’re hopeful that night golf catches on here.
2. UDisc rating the Lewiston Auburn Area #1 in the USA for disc golf.
This isn’t necessarily a Sabattus thing, it’s really a tribute to all of Maine and the incredible courses we have. There are so many great local courses and course owners nearby who we’re proud to share the sport with. Devil's Grove (Alex Olsen), Dragan Field (Josh Connell), Pineland Farms, Acker’s Acres (Barb Acker), SMV (Tim), Pleasant Hill (Kristi Stanley), and dozens of others. This is something that Maine courses celebrate, work hard for, and it shows. I will always recommend that people come play and check out each of these special courses and see what makes Maine worth the visit.
Our 3 courses made the top 100 in the world list again, and they all jumped up spots.
3. Bringing in MVP, Axiom, Streamline, and ThoughtSpace Athletics.
We’ve always been happy to supply Innova, Discmania, and Discraft to our players. And in 2021 we’ve brought in 4 new disc companies to offer an even better selection! We have a gigantic pro shop but still limited space and these are companies that we look forward to working with in the future. I’m pleased because this gives more options to players, and more options means better discs for you.
4. Record number of beginner lessons.
The sport has grown significantly in the last 2 years. It’s a safe, social distance activity during a pandemic, and with that there’s more new players than ever. While the number of lessons overall that I’ve given went up, the number of new player lessons was much higher than before. I loved sharing those moments and seeing families bond, friends laugh at one another, and watching them walk around the shop afterwards marveling at the different kinds of discs.
My favorite beginner lesson moment this year was with a family who had never thrown before. On hole 1 the father hit a 75 foot uphill shot into dead center chains for a birdie. He didn’t celebrate, he thought that it would be a common thing for people to do.
5. Attentiveness to ladies' needs.
At SDG we made two changes to the bathroom this year. First we added a hook to the door so ladies have somewhere to hang their purse other than putting it on the counter or floor. And we’ve added feminine hygiene products free of charge. We take pride in our courses and shop, and definitely the bathroom. We always want SDG to be a great experience for everyone. If you have any suggestions please let us know and we’ll look into it.
6. Upping our support of touring pros through disc sales.
We took on more tour series discs than ever before in 2021. We also increased our sponsorship level with the Ledgestone Open. These fundraising discs help support touring pros and we’re happy to do that. A major way that pros earn a living in disc golf is selling their signature discs. There’s only so much room in their tour vans, so pro shops carrying their discs is a way to help out. If you’re interested in checking out the 2021 Tour Series we have them on sale here.
7. Increasing our giveaways on social media.
We had a big year on social media. Our Instagram hit the 10k follower mark, our Twitter hit 1k followers, and we hit 1k in followers on YouTube. We also instituted a video contest for a $250 gift card. We’ll be continuing to do a video contest in the future, so stay tuned for more about that. We appreciate the likes, comments, follows, and even people coming in to tell me that my blogs are a little too frivolous.
Definitely stay tuned to what we have in store for 2022, I promise you it’s going to be quite the exciting year to follow SDG.
8. Our 5th course developments.
The weather didn’t cooperate in 2021. We had an incredibly muddy spring and early summer so there wasn’t as much progress made as we wanted. But Peter was still out there crunching the little trees, getting new teepads made, and leveling out areas for holes. We’re optimistic that in 2022 with significant progress we could see a front or back 9 available for play. It’s not across the street, that’s going to be a house.
9. Practice Baskets are back open.
We followed the State of Maine guidelines on people congregating in 2021. They said that putting greens were to be closed until May 24th. So we had removed the basket chains and players headed straight to the teepad instead of warming up their putting strokes.
It was eerily quiet 50 feet from me with the chains gone. But I’m glad to hear people banging chains from 9:00 to dark again.
10. Simon Vlogmas.
If you haven’t watched it yet we were happy to see Simon Lizotte come back and play the Hawk course. Shout out to Miles Sayer #91543. By the way, I’ve met him a few times and he’s fun, and will shred you politely on the course. He’s already 930 rated so watch out for him in the future in tournaments.
Being in the corner of the US we don’t get many touring pros visiting. It’s always special when they make a trip to see us.
There are many things to be thankful for in 2021, but these are some of our highlights. Thank you so much for reading this blog, and I wish you and your family a healthy, happy, and wonderful holiday.
May your discs miss all the trees,
Andrew Streeter #70397