Despite being just 15, Levi Stout has turned winning disc golf tournaments into a habit, but it didn’t start out that way.
Levi first started playing disc golf when his mother bought a couple of cheap frisbees for him and his brother from Mitre 10 so they could have a throw around at the course in Te Anau.
“When I first started I could barely throw 15m. It’s a bit embarrasing looking back now. I’ve got friends who come for a throw with me now and they are so much better than I was starting out. I’m lucky I’ve got a head start.”
If that sounds a bit humble, that’s because it is.
Levi has had a huge past eight months or so, including becoming the youngest ever winner of a nationally-recognised disc golf event.
He was the 2021-2022 New Zealand Disc Golf tour champion and also claimed family bragging rights when he took out the Southern Smash, a South Island championship event which was staged on his home course at Invercargill’s Queens Park.
“My older brother Ethan won that event last year, so there’s a bit of rivalry there and it was good to get that one back on him. When he won it last year that was the first event that either of us had won, so that was something that he liked to hold over my head.”
Levi has won tournaments in Timaru, Queenstown’s Tucker Beach, Twizel, Te Anau, Roxburgh and Dunedin over the past season and is sponsored by New Zealand’s disc golf manufacturer RPM and Small Planet Disc Sports in Queenstown.
You might think that disc golf is a reasonably niche pastime, but it’s a sport which has seen a significant increase in popularity over the past few years.
Courses have blossomed around the country, including Southland, and a tournament in the North Island recently attracted well over 100 competitors from around the country, despite many being unable to attend due to Covid.
The sport’s growth has been recognised locally with Martin Conway winning the BDO Administrator of the Year category at the 2018 ILT Southland Sports Awards. Levi has been selected as a member of the foundation year group in the SBS Bank Academy Southland.
He hopes to compete at this year’s world junior disc golf championships in Illinois, an event which is often a springboard for players hoping to join the professional disc golf circuit in the United States.
Levi puts the sport’s popularity down to the fact that it’s really affordable, there are lots of different courses around New Zealand and just about anybody can take part. Most days he trains with his grandmother’s husband Monty Westrupp. Monty is 82.
This disc golf community is also really inclusive, Levi said.
“I can’t think of a single person I’ve met who hasn’t been really friendly and supportive,” he said.
Source: Academy Southland, Republished by arrangement.