With the way things are going for Moose Jaw’s Drew Biette in the sport of disc golf, it might be only a matter of time before he finds himself taking the course with the likes of Paul McBeth, James Conrad and Eagle McMahon in some of the top tournaments on the planet.
Biette, 15, continued his meteoric rise in the sport by finishing second in the Canadian National Disc Golf Championship mixed amateur division during the Aug. 4 weekend in Thunder Bay.
Then came the North American Disc Golf Tour National Championship in Denver three weeks later, where Biette would find himself hovering around the top 10 throughout before finishing ninth overall in the Mixed Junior 18-and-under division.
Not too shabby for a player who only joined the amateur tour last summer and had barely a half dozen ranked events under his belt heading into nationals.
“I think things are going pretty good, I’m definitely enjoying the sport and everything it’s brought and I’m exciting to keep going with these tournaments and see where it takes me,” Biette said shortly after a practice round on Thursday afternoon.
A multi-sport athlete with the Cornerstone Christian School Falcons and high school city champion in badminton, Biette picked up disc golf a couple of years ago and has been able to develop his game in quick fashion.
“My dad’s brother introduced us to the sport, then I started playing more and more and slowly buying more discs and from there it’s just taken off,” he explained. “We found a tournament to play in last year and have just kept playing more and more and things have been going really well.”
In Thunder Bay, Biette shot an opening round 58 at Birch Point Park to sit five shots off the lead and put together another 58 at the Bayview Course the following day to vault into second overall. Things got a touch more difficult at the Dragon Hills layout for the final 18 holes, and with scores jumping for the entire field, Biette would shoot 65 to finish second by a single stroke over Midland, Ont.’s John Parker.
The final round wasn’t without its share of drama, though. Biette sat at two-over through 12 holes and was in danger of dropping out of the top 10 when he put together a run for the ages -- recording birdies on holes 13 through 16 before eagling both the 290-foot 17th hole and 630-foot 18th hole to hold on to second.
So how did it all come together so spectacularly?
Sometimes you just have to have faith.
“On Hole 11 I ended up going OB twice and ended up with a double bogey. I base my entire game around God and I asked him ‘hey what’s going on here, I trust you’ kind of thing, and after that it just kind of skyrocketed,” Biette explained. “He helped me the entire rest of the round and everything just seemed to work out, everything was flying how I wanted it to fly and drop how I wanted to drop and I was able to make some long putts. So all the glory to Him.”
Huntsville, Ont.’s Spencer Young went 53-58-63 to win the national title by six strokes over Biette.
At the NADGT Nationals in Denver, the field played the first two rounds at the Lower Badlands course, where Biette would open 49-47 to sit tied for eighth in the Mixed Junior U18 division. Things moved to Adams Hollow for the final three rounds, where Biette would score 50 and 52 to remain tied for eighth heading into the final round. There, birdies on four of the final six holes would see Biette shoot 51 and land in ninth spot.
“There are some pretty talented players down there, for sure,” Biette said. “That was a fun one, there were a lot of new shots and distances for me to try out and it turned out pretty well.”
All the recent success has seen Biette’s player rating climb to 874, making him one of the top 30 players in his age group in the country. He’ll look to boost that rating even further when he takes to the course at the Tommy Douglas Open in Regina during the Aug. 26 weekend.
From there, it’ll be a matter of honing his game and ideally eventually joining the likes of McBeth, Conrad and McMahon on the PDGA Tour.
“It’s definitely a thought, but right now it’s just seeing where this might take me,” Biette said. “I’m hoping to be in a couple more big tournaments this year and I think we’ve gotten an invite to Worlds for next year, so we’ll see how that goes. But things have been going really well so far and we’ll just see what happens.”
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