It was a big first year for the Fountain Hills Disc Golf Club, raising membership to nearly 100 players and managing to tackle multiple course improvements throughout 2014.

Now one of only two disc golf clubs in Arizona to qualify as a Professional Disc Golf Association affiliate club, the local group’s impact on the Fountain Park course has been tremendous this past year.

With the annual PDGA tournament held in early 2014, the club was able to collaborate with the organizer to acquire 19 donated Mach X baskets, some of the newest disc golf equipment available.

The club also hosted a FUNdraiser Tournament in May, which helped raise funds to purchase new tee signs for each hole, complete with bag holders and new, weatherproof hole maps.

Working in tangent with the Greening of Downtown initiative, new trees, bushes and landscaping have also benefited the local course.

There’s also the introduction of a new hole, making Fountain Park a 19-hole run, as well as alternate layouts on many of the holes to make them beginner friendly.

Finally, the club was able to install a revitalized kiosk near the first hole, displaying a new full course layout and commemorating supporters like the Disc Golf Association, the Town of Fountain Hills, Spinners on the Green and the Boy Scouts for their efforts to make the club and the local course a continued success.

Club board members David Taylor Jr. and Joe Bill said that they’ve been shocked by the amount of activity they’ve seen within the club throughout 2014, including a handful of tournaments and weekly play sessions for its members.

“Everything has surpassed our expectations,” Bill said.

“We’ve been very pleased with how the club has grown.”

As for all of those achievements, Taylor said he was shocked at what the club was able to pull off.

“We expected to accomplish all of this maybe in five years, but certainly not in one,” he said.

Taylor and Bill said none of the club’s success would have been possible without all of the supporting outside organizations and players coming to take part in their event, making the FHDGC a real community effort.

“The course had suffered, I would say, several years of neglect,” Taylor added.

“There was nobody really there to maintain it, yet there were so many people playing it. So we had this desire to make the course better than it already was.”

Once things started to roll, Taylor said people and organizations started showing interested in jumping in, creating a snowball effect of improvements.

The reaction, according to the guys, has been very positive.

“Everybody who talks to me has nothing but praise for it,” Taylor said.

“I travel a lot to play, and I can’t tell you how many people come up to me and say, hey, you guys are doing a great job out there.”

Bill agreed.

“With everybody coming together here, we’ve moved the needle for the course from great to fantastic,” he added.

“If you add up all of the things that were done this year, you could easily say that 2014 saw about $30,000 of improvements to the course. And a lot of the credit needs to go to the effort and dedication of the club’s board and the people who have gotten involved.”

As for the local tournaments, the duo said they were happy to make the events open and friendly to everyone.

Players young and old, of all skill levels, took part and were able to play side by side with top tier players from around the state.

Padding the time between the big events were weekly random draw doubles events, which will continue in 2015 on Sundays at 10 a.m.

Those interested are encouraged to meet at the first hole. Plans are also in motion for creating disc golf classes hosted by the club and the town.

For anyone interested in learning more about the club or getting involved, visit the website at discgolf.club.