(Story by Aaron Young • City of Indianola Communications Manager)
INDIANOLA, IA – Pickard Park was alive and buzzing with summer energy on this sunbaked morning Saturday, June 21, where cheers echoed from a nearby baseball game, laughter carried in the breeze and the unmistakable sounds of a busy weekend filled the air.
In the southeast corner of the complex nestled in the woods, far from the crowds, concessions and sunscreen-slicked bleachers, another kind of effort was quietly pulsing under the 95-degree heat. There, roughly three dozen volunteers moved with purpose at the Pickard Park Disc Golf Course, putting the final touches and preparations on one of the country’s premier disc golf destinations.
With the Discmania Challenge, presented by Trubank, a few days away on June 27-29, they transformed Pickard Park into a championship venue worthy of the world’s top competitors and the thousands of spectators to flock and follow.
“I want us to feel that relentless desire to be the best event,” said Ty Tannatt, tournament director for the Discmania Challenge. “That doesn’t mean the hardest course or the best-looking course. It means that we want to create the best atmosphere and experience for everybody – the players, spectators, our staff, volunteers, media, all of our partners and sponsors. We want to create that fun and engagement and excitement.”
Every detail mattered, because for the people who live here, this course isn’t just a place to play.
It’s a reflection of who they are.
Pickard Park, the largest park for the City of Indianola’s system, acquired from the Clarence Pickard family in 1976, has always been a point of pride for the community. Offering multiple features and boasting 160 acres of natural beauty – situated among rolling hills, wildlife and charming countryside views – the disc golf course becomes something extraordinary every time it takes the national stage.
“The (Des Moines) metro area is one of the best areas in the country for disc golf,” said Doug Bylund, the City’s chief of culture and recreation. “Pickard has long, big shots. It has tight shots with timber. A little creek that runs through it – you might see a fish swimming by as you’re picking up your disc. This is what Iowa is all about.”
Carved out of old farmland, the 18-hole, 8,700-square-foot course, designed in 1999 by former Indianola resident, five-time PDGA world champ and Disc Golf Hall of Fame inductee, Juliana Korver, is widely praised by players and is ranked among the country’s best.
“There was no course in town,” Korver said in a 2024 interview with the Disc Golf Pro Tour. “A local church group wanted to build something for their youth. Somehow, I got connected with that group and we convinced them – and then we went to the City and convinced the City – that we should put a disc golf course in here.”
Today, Pickard is the standard that many other courses and organizers strive to replicate.
“This is why you do what you do, and you don’t know,” Bylund said. “Why would you limit yourself on what it becomes? There’s always an impact – every day, 365 days a year.”
2023 Video: Pickard Park Disc Golf Named Among World's Best Courses
Disc golfers of all levels describe Pickard as scenic and championship-grade. Its blend of elevation, prairie, woods and water hazards has led to a 4.7 course rating with more than 2,700 reviews on UDisc.com. Last year, it was named the second-best Iowa course and is 75th in the world.
Yet despite its national profile, the course remains deeply local. The same hands that play its fairways are often the ones trimming them. Volunteers gather and work countless hours year-round to clear and improve conditions, primarily focused on beautification and maintenance. They’ve replaced tee pads, planted trees and have even built and widened bridges.
“We’re lucky enough to have a community here that will come out, use their resources and give back to the greater good,” Tannatt said.
One perfect scenario of that sentiment was evident Saturday, when Chad Darrah of Indianola paused from weed whacking. Darrah wiped a hand across his sunburned brow and walked along the edges of Hole 7. He scanned the area from side to side to spot any possible imperfections. Midway through his examination, Darrah noticed a small piece of white paper buried in the reddish-brown mulch.
“See, this right here – we can’t have that,” Darrah said, stooping down to pick up the scrap and tuck it away in his pocket.
It was the one blemish on an otherwise pristine stretch of disc golf paradise.
But the gesture spoke clearly: Not on this course, not during this week.
“Everything we do out here, it’s very rewarding and fulfilling obviously for that week or those three to five days of the event,” Tannatt said. “Thinking back to that first year when we did this, as soon as that last putt dropped, looking at those people that spent hundreds of hours, having such joy in what we did was incredible.”
This year’s Discmania Challenge marks its fifth year on the Disc Golf Pro Tour circuit. Indianola and central Iowa own a strong history with the sport dating back to 2004, Tannatt explained, when Des Moines served as the host site for the Professional Disc Golf Association’s world championships – the marquee event in disc golf.
“That spanned 11 courses over nine days, which is crazy to think about,” he said.
In 2020, Tannatt pitched Pickard to the Des Moines Metro Disc Golf Club as a solid location for a major event. He had organized a temporary tournament at both Ewing Park in Des Moines and Pickard Park and placed advertising signage at specific holes, leading to email exchanges between Tannatt and Bylund to explore logistics and plan for the future.
“A lot of the things that people don’t think about are all these additional amenities you need – bathrooms, power, parking – the flow and openness of the course so that people can come out here and watch,” Tannatt said. “I feel that Pickard is a really good example of what a public park can be for a professional disc golf event.”
Tour leaders at the time suggested to Tannatt that Pickard should start small and gradually build status and momentum, he said. As the world navigated the COVID-19 pandemic, however, a scheduled pro tournament overseas was sidelined due to travel restrictions. Indianola was pegged as the backup for the elite-level tournament, with just two months to prepare.
Buckle up.
“It was the week after the Fourth of July, and we had an incredible amount of effort from the community both locally in Indianola and Des Moines,” Tannatt said. “We had the buy-in from Doug and the Parks department to help us and figure out what it was that we could do. It’s grown immensely since then. It’s been fruitful and a lot of fun.”
That’s what sticks out in Bylund’s mind, too: “All of the hard work and commitment that so many people have gone through.”
“There are so many volunteers out there, hundreds of them, and this would not have happened without them,” he said. “Ty is a perfect example – he wasn’t going to give up. He knew the vision. He knew this was going to happen.”
The other memory, Bylund recalled, is when he witnessed the thrill from a child who wanted to watch their favorite female professional disc golfer. Tannatt arranged for extra VIP badges and only a few remained. Bylund grabbed one of the final passes and handed it to the young fan.
“His eyes lit up,” Bylund said. “You don’t know the impact that we’re having on every single person. “These are the biggest names in the world of disc golf. There are a lot of people from Iowa that are going to be playing – and they’re very good at it.
“I see the spectators, but I also see the impact that it has on the volunteers and how proud they are,” he continued. “This is going to be broadcast around the world by a professionally done organization.”
Soon, all eyes will once again be on Indianola and Iowa.
“We take joy in people from outside of Iowa and the United States having their eyeballs on what we have to offer,” Tannatt said. “We’ve done such a good job because we have such a good team. We have such a good Parks director and his team that will support us and allow us to come through and deliver what we said we would.”
As the Discmania Challenge draws closer, anticipation continues to pick up speed across Indianola and beyond. Tannatt estimates as many as 1,500 fans will attend each day of the tournament.
For a complete daily schedule of this year’s festivities, please visit: desmoineschallenge.wordpress.com/info
“We want this to be a stadium for excitement for both the players and the fans,” Tannatt said. “Hopefully, someday, we can get PGA-styled grandstands and really create a theater for disc golf. Our goal is to host the world championships out here, and when you talk worlds, you’re talking about 7,500 to 10,000 people. We want to get as many people out here as possible because we definitely do think that once people come out and experience it, they’re going to come back.”
It’s not only the pros or the spectators who bring that energy. Every person who walks the course grounds during tournament week does so with enthusiasm and pride. Pickard Park is a living postcard that locals show to visitors when they want to explain what makes Indianola so special.
“This place is something that connects generations,” Bylund said. “That’s exactly what we want when we’re talking about a park in general – to provide opportunities for people and forget about the stress of life.”
The course may host one of the sport’s top professional events, but its heart belongs to the people who tend it all year long. Their commitment fuels not only this tournament, but the vision for what’s still to come.
“Don’t look for us stopping anytime soon,” Tannatt said. “We want to make this bigger and better every year.”
Because at its core, when a community rallies around a shared purpose, it takes the shape of something bigger than themselves. Pickard Park isn’t just ready for the world. It’s ready because of the world that Indianola and central Iowa built around it, forged in hard work, fueled by local passion and rooted in the belief that what they’ve created here matters.
And it does. Now and for the years to come.
Podcast: Full Interview with Doug Bylund & Ty Tannatt
DID YOU ENJOY THIS STORY? DISCOVER MORE RESOURCES!
Credits:
Event photos used with permission by Disc Golf Pro Tour