‘Because of the fact our course is mostly poplars and some younger trees that aren’t fully mature, the course was basically run over by the ice storm,’ says official

The Sandy Hollow Open, Barrie’s disc golf tournament, is again par for the course this weekend.

Taking place Aug. 23-24 at the Ferndale Drive North facility, the tourney is one more survivor of Barrie’s late-March ice storm — four days of freezing rain, fallen trees and downed branches on hydro wires that paralyzed much of the city.

So the Professional Disc Golf Association Amateur C-Tier event, a qualifier for the provincials, was in jeopardy even for August.

Chris Thompson, Sandy Hollow Open tournament director and with the Barrie Disc Golf Club for about eight years, said the storm damage was bad.

“Because of the fact our course is mostly poplars and some younger trees that aren’t fully mature, the course was basically run over by the ice storm,” he said. “Probably about 25 to 30 per cent of the trees on the course came down.

“Most of the course was completely unplayable. You couldn’t walk down the fairways,” Thompson added. 

The city’s parks and forestry department did a survey of the property and deemed the course unsafe, like many other city trails, so it was closed to the public for a couple of weeks, Thompson said.

City foresters and a private contractor were used for the cleanup.

“All of the unsafe trees … and all the hanging trees that were ongoing to cause an actual, potential safety risk, were removed,” said Thompson. “The bigger debris was wood-chipped and left in piles that we’ve been spreading and using to make the course look as good as we can, spreading it under the baskets (which were not damaged in the ice storm) and in the fairways.”

Kevin Rankin, the city’s manager of parks and forestry operations, confirmed there was considerable tree damage at the disc-golf course from the ice storm.

“It took several weeks to complete cleanup across the entire course,” he said. “The course was closed completely for at least a month, with half of the course open and the wooded half taking until mid-June to clear.” 

Rankin said the course was fully opened for the public, with all safety hazards addressed, on June 17. General tidying up of the course and additional cleanup of fallen debris and branches took until Aug. 7, he added.

There are just more than 200 players, aged 12 to 75,  registered for the Sandy Hollow Open.

Disc golf has been around in Canada since the late 1970s, Thompson said, and it’s grown in popularity during the last decade, more specifically since the pandemic.

“The reason it’s so popular is it gets you outdoors, gets you active, but it’s a very inexpensive sport. Most disc golf courses are free to play,” he said, mentioning that a starter set of discs is $20 to $30.

“It’s very inexpensive, it’s very family-friendly,” said Thompson. “You can get fairly good to play casually, fairly quickly.”

Disc golf is played much like golf, but instead of a ball and clubs, players use a flying disc which is to be thrown into an elevated basket. Players with the fewest throws win each hole, or the game.

Barrie’s Sandy Hollow disc golf course on Ferndale Drive North is 20 holes spread across approximately 15 acres in the buffer zone between the city’s landfill and the surrounding community. It is among the most used courses in Canada

The Sandy Hollow Open takes place Saturday and Sunday from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. at 434 Ferndale Dr. N. in Barrie. 

For more on the tournament, visit dgscene.com/sho2025.