A FULL disc golf field at this month’s Golden City Classic will include a sprinkling of international competitors.
One of Victoria’s oldest and biggest ultimate sports tournaments, the Classic is a combined disc golf and ultimate frisbee event.
A sanctioned Professional Disc Golf Association (PDCA) event, disc golf will run over two days at Victoria Park and Mount Xavier on 17 and 18 January.
Ultimate frisbee will take centre stage two weeks later on 31 January.
Despite a clash with the 2026 Australasian Open Disc Golf Championship in Taupo, New Zealand, which has robbed the Ballarat event of some of Australia’s best players, tournament director Recce Surkitt said the Classic had still drawn a capacity field of 108.
“We’ve hit player cap and are developing a nice wait list, which is good,” he said.
“We brought numbers back a little bit this year to be a bit more realistic.
“Last year, we…didn’t reach our cap, although it was still a great event. We shot for the moon and you’ve got to do that sometimes; no damage done.
“One hundred and eight is a very good turnout.”
The Classic is one of two major tournaments run by Ballarat Disc Sports each year. The other, the Big Wet, is held in the middle of winter.
Disc golf is played much like traditional golf. Instead of a ball and clubs, players use a flying disc or frisbee.
The sport was formalised in the 1970s, and shares with traditional golf the object of completing each hole in the fewest number of strokes – or, in the case of disc golf, fewest number of throws.
A golf disc is thrown from a tee area to a target which is the hole.
As a player progresses down the fairway, he or she must make each consecutive shot from the spot where the previous throw landed.
In a case of the stars aligning, Surkitt said the Classic field would include at least two international competitors, one from Texas in the United States and the other from New Zealand, with the possibility of a third coming from Sweden.
“They are coming over for holidays during our summer and, coincidentally enough, there is a disc golf tournament happening at the same time,” he said.
“I wouldn’t claim they are coming over here purely for disc golf, but they are definitely grasping the opportunity.
“They’ll want to get the best experience out of it that they can.
“It will be interesting to see how they go. Because of the way the international ratings system works, the global ratings system is all relative to the people around you.
“Someone might be rated 1000, but 1000 in Australia and America are quite different despite statistically being the same.
“Where people travel a lot in the States and play against larger pools of people, 1000 is very consistent.
“But in a smaller playing pool in Australia and New Zealand, you can end up with some inflation and deflation.
“It will be nice to benchmark how good Australia’s best are against someone from the States.”
While the Australasian championship has taken a few of Australia’s best away, a handful of the nation’s top 10 disc golfers will still make the pilgrimage to Ballarat.
Currently boasting a 1004 rating, David Perry, from the ACT, claimed the honours in last year’s pro open in Ballarat, finishing at 16-under par.