The players of the Boothie Battle Dewey Mountain disc golf tournament stand for a picture prior to the start of play on Saturday, July 22. Though not all are pictured, all the signups included: Tyler Goodrow, Stephen Kwiecinski, Thomas Bell, David Noble, Jonathon Wright, David Jones, David Gualtieri, Benjiman Amos, Patrick Kelly, Paul Giroux, Scott Schulz, Trent White, Adam Longstreet, Mitchell Krah, Eric Moreira, Andrew Cassidy, Arthur Maiorella and James Marino. The eventual winner of the advanced division was David Gualtieri shooting 22 strokes under par; Tom Bell carried the intermediate division 8 under par; and David Noble took the recreational division three shots over. (News photo — Arthur Maiorella)

LAKE PLACID — Summer is in full swing. Long days and hot nights, ice cream, hiking, the great outdoors and all the people who flock to the Tri-Lakes to enjoy what the area has to offer. One of these offerings is newer to the region but steadily gaining traction here and nationwide: disc golf.

Disc golf plays much like its namesake, sharing a lot of its gameplay with regular golf. Players try to get from a tee box to a “hole” — a basket in disc golf — in as few strokes as possible, throwing discs much like Frisbees instead of swinging a golf club. However, unlike golf, courses are usually free and mixed-use with other recreation.

Also like regular golf, the Tri-Lakes region offers a few courses, the most prominent being at Dewey Mountain Recreation Center, Whiteface Mountain, and near the Paul Smith’s College Visitor Interpretive Center. They form a loose circuit in the area.

The state Olympic Regional Development Authority operates the Whiteface Mountain Ski Center, located at 5021 state Route 86 in Wilmington. It is an exception to disc golf’s generally nonexistent price tag. The $7 admission includes three rental discs, and players can weave up and down the Olympic mountain playing nine holes.

The Dewey Mountain Recreation Center is located at 238 George LaPan Memorial Highway (state Route 3) in Saranac Lake, and the disc golf course features 18 holes. The land is also home to mountain biking, hiking, cross-country ski and snowshoe trails that snake through the woods.

Playing at the disc golf course at the Whiteface Mountain Ski Center in Wilmington (News photo — Arthur Maiorella)

The BarkEater Disc Golf Course on Osgood Pond is located on state Route 30 in Paul Smiths, about .6 miles north of the junction of Routes 30 and 86 on the right. It is a four-season course that features 18 holes in a forested area, challenging players to hit tight gaps through trees and command their discs over long, narrow fairways. The course includes players’ Facebook and Discord pages, a tournament in August and a volunteer group that does all the course maintenance and upkeep.

“BarkEater is the ninth-ranked course in the state, 367th in the country,” course designer Eric Moreira said. “Thousands of players will come over the course of a season.”

Moreira designed both the BarkEater and the Dewey Mountain courses.

The course attracts players from the Tri-Lakes region and beyond. Moreira said groups from as far as Albany and Rochester make the pilgrimage to play through the BarkEater woods.

This pushes disc golf from just a curiosity for many locals to a draw for tourists. People traveling 150 miles from Albany or 190 miles from Rochester need gas stations, food or even a hotel room. Disc golf is a vehicle of sports tourism in the area.

A hole at the BarkEater Disc Golf Course in Paul Smiths (News photo — Arthur Maiorella)

“Sports tourism has been a number one point in this region going back to the early 1900s,” said Jim McKenna, CEO of the Regional Office of Sustainable Tourism, based in Lake Placid.

McKenna said the Ironman Lake Placid triathlon, two-week-long Lake Placid Horse Shows, and the Lake Placid Summit Classic lacrosse tournament are major examples of sports tourism in region. There’s also international World Cup competition for ski jumping, luge and bobsled/skeleton, the Can-Am Rugby Tournament, the Lake Placid Marathon and Half/10K, Lake Placid Classic Half Marathon and 10K, canoe races, cross-country and downhill skiing, Tinman Triathlon in Tupper Lake, etc. McKenna points to how all these sports events bring in thousands of visitors that swell the communities’ hospitality resources and bring money to local business owners. He also mentions how, outside of events, tourists come just to play the many regular golf courses in the area.

“Sports tourism is always going to be (an economic) key to this region,” McKenna said.

Disc golfers are the same as ball golfers and other tourists. They come from outside the North Country into the region and spend money at restaurants, bars and hotels — money that stays in the local economy.

Compared to ROOST’s estimation that the Ironman could account for over $12 million in economic impact to the region, the tourist money that the current disc golf offerings bring to the region is paltry.

To boost this impact, Lake Placid would need to monetize disc golf more effectively. Whiteface does this naturally. ORDA is a government authority that charges for admission, primarily to tourists, in order to help offset the costs associated with the course, including employee salaries. In contrast to this model, both Dewey Mountain and BarkEater are community assets built and maintained by volunteers — there’s no admission fee. Dewey Mountain is owned by the town of Harrietstown and leased to Adirondack Lakes & Trails Outfitters to operate the venue year-round.

Efforts could be made to help the region’s economy with disc golf, not by charging an admission fee at Dewey or BarkEater that keeps locals away but by directing players who come here for these courses to stay at local hotels, shop and enjoy the bars and restaurants.

Another route for boosting the economy could come in the form of transforming Lake Placid into something already familiar to many ball golfers — a disc golf resort, home to destination courses.

While there currently isn’t a public effort to build Lake Placid or the Adirondack North Country region into a disc golf tourist destination, it is possible, based on what other regions in the United States are doing.

Much like how a group of casual ball golfers take a weekend trip to play the Pebble Beach Golf Course in California or tee off at Shadow Creek in Las Vegas, disc golf players are also willing to visit destination courses.

Vermont, for example, is home to one such destination. Many know Smugglers Notch as a ski resort, not unlike Whiteface Mountain. However, compared to Whiteface’s nine-hole course, Smugglers Notch boosts its summer tourism by hosting several 18-hole disc golf courses. Two of these courses, Brewster Ridge and Fox Run, are ranked as fourth and seventh best in the world by the disc golf app UDisc.

To monetize this lineup, Smugglers Notch charges an entry fee to play — offering a season pass that allows those local to the area a more cost-effective route. The resort also generates revenue through a disc golf pro shop where players can buy discs and gear.

The Tri-Lakes region already has much of the hospitality infrastructure needed to follow this model. However, to attract players, the region would have to complement its arsenal of existing courses with new and better offerings.

Building more courses also promises more people will spend more time playing and be more amenable to staying overnight in hotels instead of day-tripping the region.

While maintaining a course without the help of a volunteer players association — as BarkEater and Dewey have — can be difficult, course building is cost-effective. It only costs $5,000 to $8,000 in materials for a course, according to Moreira. This includes baskets and cement, rubber tee pads and course signage.

The North Country may also be uniquely positioned to build challenging courses, such as those to rival Smugglers Notch. This is mainly due to the terrain of the Adirondack Mountains.

In addition to designing and building the Dewey and BarkEater courses, Moreira estimates he’s played “thousands of courses” nationwide, yet this region’s terrain could “absolutely be amazing” for more disc golf courses.

Moreira said the real issue isn’t finding a suitable spot for a course; almost anywhere would work. The main problem, he said, would be finding someone willing to give up their land. He believes to build a nice course, there needs to be about 20 acres of land. Any less and the course could turn into a hazard.

“One in a million shots do happen. You can’t have someone getting hit,” Moreira said.

The Professional Disc Golf Association, the sport’s international governing body, repeats this sentiment. The smallest courses for amateur players may be built safely on only six acres, while a larger, championship-caliber course, like those that attract players, may demand almost 40 acres of land to run safely, according to the course design resources on the PDGA website.

Sustainability is key, according to PDGA Director of Marketing Danny Voss, who said the organization stresses that the conservation of land is a core component of building a winning course.

“We can’t be putting a disc golf course in a beautiful place and then wrecking that place because our course isn’t designed sustainably,” he said.

In addition to passively attracting groups of disc golfers to the area, another strategy for monetization could be trying to attract major disc golf events and tournaments to Lake Placid, an undertaking that promises both additional rewards and struggles.

Whether disc golf can make money for the region or not, it already has a following.

“Once you’ve got the bug, it’s over,” Eric Moreira said, “Once you get hooked, you’re stuck, you just can’t stop playing it. … It’s just a blast.”