Representing your nation is an honor.
August 8, 2025 by Kingsley Flett in News
If you’ve heard of the World Team Disc Golf Championship (WTDGC) at all, you could be forgiven for thinking of it as a barely relevant sideshow. You also might need to think again.
The World Games began today in Chengdu, China, with disc golf back on the program for the first time since 2001. Its team-based, alternating shot doubles format is uncommon — but not at the WTDGC.
I’ve been lucky enough to witness first hand the rise of the biennial event. I was there representing Australia at the inaugural event in Vancouver, Canada, in 2016, which felt more like a club event with six teams and just a few dozen players. I was there again as part of the media pack in November 2024, in Mundaring, near my home city of Perth, Western Australia, when over 200 players representing 23 nations competed over six days to see Estonia take out the title.
The difference in the pageantry surrounding the inaugural event in Canada with the 2024 version in Mundaring was astounding: there was a parade of nations prior to competition which took over the downtown of Mundaring, speeches from dignitaries, and an indigenous welcome to country from the local Noongar people. It all combined to create a sense of gravitas and dignity yet was simultaneously joyous, with a sense of fellowship I’ve never felt as a disc golf tournament. I’ve been to three world championships and the USDGC; this was different.
Following that gathering in Canada in 2016, the event steadily grew: from 10 nations and 80 players in Colchester, UK, in 2017, to 17 nations and 142 players in Alutaguse, Estonia, in 2019, to a peak of 25 nations and 254 players in Varaždin, Croatia, in 2022.
The Mundaring event was the big test. Convincing disc golf playing nations to travel to the most isolated capital city in the world for an event outside the umbrella of the PDGA seemed like a tall order. The various national bodies of Europe, Asia, North America and Oceania voted emphatically with their feet, though, showing that national representation matters to many disc golfers and their governing bodies.
As far as the legitimacy of the WTDGC goes, though, none of the above convinced me more than a simple sound. On the second to last evening of competition in Mundaring last year, we heard a roar from the gallery the likes of which I’ve never heard. Granted, I wasn’t in Utah in 2021 for the Holy Shot, or in Nokia this year when the largest gallery yet seen in disc golf were cheering on their local favorites in Niklas Anttila and Iida Lehtomäki. Nevertheless, when Australia’s Luke Bayne sank a circle’s edge putt to knock Canada out of a semifinal and book a date with Estonia in the final, folks nearly a mile away, over at the far side of the 100 acre Mundaring Sports Complex, heard the few hundred strong local gallery like they were yards away. It was a sound that I never expected to hear on a disc golf course – a deep throated roar that carried national pride — and it convinced me in an instant that this event carries a lot of meaning in the hearts of everyone who gets involved.
The 2016 event in Canada was run as a joint effort between the PDGA and the World Flying Disc Federation (WFDF). The two governing bodies went their separate ways after then, though, and all subsequent events have been controlled by WFDF, led by long time servant of the game Charlie Mead of Great Britain as then-chair of the WFDF Disc Golf Committee.
In a year that he received the 2024 PDGA Europe Volunteer of the Year Award, Mead saw the continued establishment of the WTDGC, leading to the inclusion of disc golf in the World Games that is underway in Chengdu. In a Facebook post acknowledging the honor, Mead wrote about the work that went into getting disc golf into the Games. “…I engaged with all the main disc golf organizations, manufacturers, broadcasters, and sponsors in persuading them that disc golf at an international level was, and should be, as important as competing as an individual,” he wrote. “Playing for your country is an honor as rewarding as this trophy.”
Mead Handed over the reins to a new chair this year in Canada’s Craig Sheather. Sheather’s immediate focus is the sixth running of the WTDGC in Vilnius, Lithuania, in August 2026. Beyond that, he has big plans. “It will evolve to include half the 117 member countries of World Flying Disc Federation in the Team Disc Golf competition either at a continental or international level,” Sheather said. “It will be WFDF’s pinnacle international celebration of disc golf as a flying disc discipline, bring together disc golf communities from all corners of the globe, and be the flagship for the promotion of disc golf into the Olympics.”
“As far as the role this event plays in the sport overall,” Sheather added. “It encourages the national organization of disc golf and allow recognition by government that can include funding; it establishes a history of international competition for the sport that is essential for acceptance into the Olympic program and it can serve as a catalyst for the growth of disc golf in new countries.”
We’ve already seen the interest that the world’s top pros have started to show towards national representation by the list of names competing in Chengdu this week, with the two world #1s in Gannon Buhr and Kristin Lätt topping that list. Ideally, we should expect to see more pros signing up for Lithuania in 2026. However, currently the Team World Championship is scheduled the week prior to the PDGA Pro Worlds in Michigan on a timeline that will likely discourage the top pros who want to practice the Milford Courses.
Despite these challenges, I get the sense that the Team World Championship will grow in influence and significance regardless of whether more synergy with the PDGA can be gained or not. From that little event in Canada in 2016, a juggernaut is growing, being pushed by something quite distinct from the commercial drives that have grown the PDGA and the Disc Golf Pro Tour.
