Have you ever been walking or driving near a park and noticed these things that look like giant baskets sticking out of the ground? If you have, you're driving or walking past a disc golf course.

If you don't know what disc golf is, it's basically the exact same thing as traditional ball golf. The obvious and biggest difference is this sport is played with a disc, instead of a golf ball. Players try to throw discs into a basket in as little shots as possible and the person with the lowest score wins.

Disc Golf has seen a massive boom in popularity since its infancy stage and today, more than 4 million people worldwide play the sport regularly. According to UDisc, there are more than 16,000 courses worldwide and 3.4 courses were built per day in 2023.

You can find recreational leagues across the entire state of Iowa, you can find casual players at parks daily, and once in a while, the best players in the world appear in one place.

Something you might not be aware of is, yes, there are professional disc golfers and some of these players win massive amounts of money on the Disc Golf Pro Tour.

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This Independence weekend, the best players in the world will all be in Des Moines, participating in the 2024 TruBank Des Moines Challenge. The current world number 1 disc golfer and 2023 TruBank champion is a proud Iowa native.

The Prodigy from Cedar Rapids Iowa

Gannon Buhr, who is known in the disc golf world as "The Prodigy," has won 3 events on the Disc Golf Pro Tour this year, which is more than any other player.

In 2022, Buhr won the biggest tournament the sport offers and he became a United States Disc Golf Champion. In 2022, he became the youngest player ever to win the USDGC, and he was also the second youngest player to ever win a major disc golf tournament.

Burh looks to defend his TruBank Des Moines Championship title, and he couldn't be more excited to play in front of a home crowd. Gannon spoke to We Are Iowa about his 2023 TruBank win and he's looking to repeat his performance.

"To win at home was crazy. I had a fellow Iowan, my friend, Gavin Babcock, on the card as well, and so for us both to play awesome here was so cool last year. We're hoping to repeat that again. We have a couple of new holes this year as well, to add to the course, to make it a little more difficult. And so the scores are going to be a little bit worse this year, and that's going to be, I think, a little more exciting."

Gannon broke down some of the new holes being added to Pickard Park, home of the TruBank tournament. He shared with the Disc Golf Pro Tour YouTube page the unique hole that is number 17. This featured hole is shaped like Iowa!

In this video, Gannon says on hole 17, you have to aim for Des Moines and the basket location is near "Cedar Rapids." He also shares he's once lived in Cedar Rapids!

The 2024 TruBank Des Moines Challenge runs today (July 5) through Sunday (July 7) at Pickard Park in Indianola.

Will the current world number 1 player and proud Iowan repeat his win from last season? We'll find out this Independence weekend! Were you aware that one of the best disc golfers in the world is from Iowa?