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30 Years in the Making
The story behind the Oak Country Club Open and Oak Country Disc Golf Course
Some dreams start with a grand vision. Others start with a guy playing cheap golf with a friend and thinking, “You know what would be cool?”
Mine was definitely the second one.
In 1996, at 17 years old, I discovered traditional golf while working at Painted Hills Golf Course in Kansas City, Kansas. I fell in love with the game, but after that job ended, I discovered a small problem. Golf was expensive, and I wasn't exactly swimming in money.
Fortunately, I discovered disc golf shortly afterward. It offered much of what I loved about traditional golf: strategy, competition, and the satisfaction of watching a good shot do exactly what you intended. It also came with a price tag that was considerably friendlier to my bank account.
A few years later, while bartending at Old Chicago, I met a customer named Gary who loved golf and occasionally treated his favorite bartender to a round. We played courses all over Kansas City, eventually finding our way to a little place in De Soto, Kansas, called Oak Country Golf Course.
Gary wasn't particularly impressed with all the trees. I, on the other hand, couldn't stop looking at the property and imagining what it would be like to throw discs there.
Around 2008, I met Oak Country's owner, Tom Anderson, through a local pool league. Naturally, I started suggesting that he let me host a disc golf tournament on his course.
And by suggesting, I mean bringing it up repeatedly for years.
Tom was a good sport about it, but there was one fairly significant obstacle. I didn't have the equipment or resources to make it happen.
Then, in 2020, a conversation about disc golf on traditional golf courses in Kansas City got things moving. With Tom's friendship and support, along with the generosity and hard work of some incredible people, the inaugural Oak Country Club Open finally happened in 2021.
Of course, getting permission to hold a tournament and actually having everything needed to run one are two very different things.
For the first few years, putting together 18 playable holes meant borrowing baskets, coordinating equipment, and piecing together whatever we could find. Cooper Arnold, Fred Smith, and Jack Lowe were instrumental during those early years, generously contributing baskets and their time to help make the tournament possible.
There were plenty of other volunteers who helped along the way, but finding enough baskets was always one of our biggest challenges. Without those three stepping up, I'm not sure how we would have pulled it off.
In 2024, Nexus Disc Golf stepped in with something that had previously seemed like a luxury: 18 matching baskets we could use for the tournament. After years of piecing together borrowed equipment, having a complete set was a game changer. Nexus eventually became our title sponsor, helping OCCO continue to grow while taking one of our biggest logistical challenges off the table.
What began as a one-time opportunity became an annual October tradition. Players returned, the tournament grew into something special, and every year I found myself making another suggestion to Tom.
“You know, you should just let me put this course in permanently.”
For a long time, that was mostly a joke. Eventually, it became a serious conversation.
In 2026, as we prepared for the sixth annual Oak Country Club Open, we announced that the dream was becoming reality. Oak Country would become home to a permanent 18-hole disc golf course, giving players the opportunity to experience this property beyond one tournament weekend each October.
Looking back, it's pretty remarkable how many seemingly unrelated moments led here. A teenage job at a golf course, a generous customer, a friendship formed over pool, and a casual conversation about disc golf all helped set this in motion.
But none of it would have happened without Tom, the people at Oak Country, and the many friends, businesses, and supporters throughout the Kansas City disc golf community who helped bring this idea to life.
I'm incredibly grateful to everyone who believed in it.
I suppose the lesson is to follow your dreams. Or maybe it's that if you annoy the right people long enough, eventually they'll let you build a disc golf course.
Probably a little of both.
