In the thick silence of a Michigan forest on a sweltering September afternoon, a crack pierces the air, echoing off the trees, forcing a flock of birds to flee. Ezra Aderhold, a professional disc golfer from Aberdeen, South Dakota tossed a putt from 20 feet out, scraping the chains of the basket and dropping to the ground. Aderhold turned around, slamming an extra disc into his bag and looked up. A small tree in front of him met the palm of his hand, violently.
“The last two or three months have been pretty hard for me,” Aderhold said. “It’s difficult to have fun when I’m playing bad.”
Disc golf is a mental sport above all else, the walk between each tee pad under blinding sunlight is a time for the players to reflect on the mistakes they made. Every moment creates a narrative that follows them throughout the round. Aderhold is used to this mental game.
Sweat covered my hands when I arrived hours before Aderhold’s group teed off. Anxiety washed over me as I sent a text to him. While waiting for a response I took the chance to explore the venue. A large booth with a disc selection caught my eye. The booth was drastically emptier than the other booths. I picked up a dark purple disc before realizing why the booth was seemingly empty.
“Hey! You must wait in line buddy,” said an event employee.
My head spun around to the sight of hundreds of people forming a line weaving through the maple trees, the beginning of which started merely a dozen feet from the entrance of the booth. I quickly exited and walked over to the line. A man with over a dozen discs in his hand and dozens more in his backpack locked eyes with me.
“Better get in line, a special edition disc just got released,” the man said.
At the same time my phone buzzed in my pocket, “I just got to the course,” read a text message from Aderhold. My anxiety flushed away as I hurried over to the first hole tee pad. It was 1:50 p.m. when Aderhold sent that text, his scheduled tee time was 2 p.m. I found an open patch of grass next to the tee pad and took a seat, after getting my camera out I looked up at the players getting ready to tee off. Aderhold was walking down the hill with a backpack full of discs slung around his shoulder.
“He looks like a fitness model,” said the score keeper following Aderhold with me.
Aderhold has the build of a line-backer, 6’ 2” and 200 pounds isn’t the average size of a professional disc golfer. His biceps are the same diameter as the discs he throws, his physique appears as if he was chisled out of granite by non-other than Michalengelo himself.
“I also had confidence that I was already good, even though, you know, back than I was pretty trash,” Aderhold said. “But that false confidence I think did help.”
While in school, professional disc golf was nowhere on his radar. Instead, he spent most of his time competing in high school golf.
“I kind of stumbled on it,” Aderhold said. “When I first started playing disc golf it was just super recreational. I was doing high school golf and that was my main focus.”
After graduating high school, Aderhold and his brother purchased four houses to flip, both having dreams of becoming real estate moguls. Working day and night the summer after he graduated in the prairie heat of eastern South Dakota proved to be too stressful for the young man.
“We got decent money and stuff, but I’m young now,” Aderhold said. “I can have more fun doing disc golf, so I might as well try that now.”
Aderhold was in his prime years as an athlete and knew professional disc golf wasn’t something he could pursue in his later years. 2017 was the year he shifted his focus to disc golf and hit the road, literally.
Aderhold drove tournament to tournament in his Prius while squeezing everything he needed to survive in with. The confines of his modified car were now his home allowing him to set up camp under the moonlight in the parking lot of each new course.
“Some of the downsides as far as like sleeping in my car and not knowing a bunch of people on tour and kind of being alone for that time,” Aderhold said. “I didn’t really see those negatives as that big of an issue since I was so focused on just, you know, making it happen.”
Aderhold spent hours every day in the interminable fields of the Dakota grasslands, honing his throws by recording and comparing to the top pros at the time. He focused mainly on distance, knowing he could build his game around that.
The years of practice and dedication paid off in early 2021 when Aderhold received a call from Discraft, a major disc golf manufacturing company, and secured a two-year contract. Being sponsored is the moment that converts most athletes from amateurs to professionals, not Ezra.
“As far as my moment goes, this might sound kind of bad but like, I expected it,” Aderhold said. “When I decided to make the jump and try to be a professional disc golfer I expected to be at that point.”
Three years later, the same confidence radiated from him as he walked up to tee off on hole one in Michigan.
“Up next from Aberdeen, South Dakota, Ezra Aderhold!” Said the announcer introducing Aderhold to the crowd around the tee.
The crowd erupted with cheers, which quickly morphed into dead silence. A bird tweeted behind my head while Aderhold takes a few steps, his shoe scraped against the turf followed by the disc being flung halfway to the basket before I could blink. The air turbulence could be heard pushing off the disc, bending to the right and landing only a couple meters from the basket.
Repeating throws thousands of times, day after day wasn’t for nothing. Aderhold can launch a disk over 650 feet, creating opportunities for memorable moments throughout career.
“My mind went to the 1099 weighted round I had back in Vegas,” Aderhold said. “I was leading by three strokes going into the third day, that round felt incredible after I tapped in my last putt.”
After every round in a professional tournament the players are given a rating, the highest rated round of all time is a 1132 by Paul McBeth, putting Aderhold less than 100 points behind. Multiple top finishes trace his career while he still yearns for that top spot.
“In order to be at the top of the world standings and be one of the actual best players, you got to be consistent and consistent at the top,” Aderhold said.
Every season there is always a handful of athletes in contention to win each tournament. While training Aderhold dreamed of becoming one of these athletes. Unable to meet that goal yet has spawned a new, simpler goal.
“I want to win a tournament,” Aderhold said. “I want to put myself in a position where I’m in contention week in and week out, always vying for a spot and always having a chance to win.”
The small town of Aberdeen presented challenges to Aderhold when pursuing a career in disc golf. He had no one to learn from other than himself and the internet.
“Pretty much everything I learned about becoming a pro I learned on YouTube,” Aderhold said. “The internet is kind of a great was to bring people together, I didn’t have the one-on-one personal connections.”
Being unable to compare himself to other professionals allowed him to gain the confidence to play in his first event and get humbled by the abilities of the other pros on tour. However, being alone gave him the desire to take that first step into the pro scene without a second thought.
During the season Aderhold is competing in a tournament every Thursday-Sunday, sometimes across the country or even internationally leaving minimal personal time. Nonstop travel and competition has put a strain on personal relationships.
“It sucks to be away from them for so long, I’m on tour nine months out of the year,” Aderhold said. “Thankfully I’ve been able to stay somewhat close with like phone calls and Facetime.”
The three months he is not on tour it stays too cold back home to practice, only giving him a few weeks out of the year to spend with family.
“Disc golf has given me so much, I’ve got, you know, something to look forward to every week,” Aderhold said. “It’s given me a bit of a life and the sense of something to work towards, I don’t know how long it’s going to last.”
Sports in general are fickle. The years that athletes can compete are limited with most professional athletes retiring before 30. Aderhold takes care of his body and hopes to stay in shape to continue competing for years to come.
Every missed putt and shanked drive sticks with the player, slamming discs back into their bag, profanity being spewed, and outbursts of frustration are common occurrences that quickly vanish with the sound of chains being struck and cheers filling the air.
“In professional golf some play until their 45, I think Phil Mickelson won when he was like 50,” Aderhold said. “You know, I think I’m in better shape than him.”
