Lansing - Grand Woods Park was once nothing more than open fields and telephone poles, but now it is home to a disc golf course that brings an average of 300-400 people every day when fall semester starts.

Located in Lansing off of Interstate 496 to the Waverly exit and west on Willow Street, the course brings new players and seasoned veterans together.

Darrell "D.J." Jones and friend Greg Walker built the course in 1983, when there were only a handful of disc golf courses in the state. Now, there are more than 50 courses scattered throughout the upper and lower peninsulas.

"There was no one here for the first 10 years," Walker said. "At first, we had to mail-order our discs from California because no one sold them around here."

The pair has seen disc golf grow tremendously since their interest in the sport began.

"(The sport) originally started to catch on in the early '80s, and we said, 'Wow this is going to be huge,'" Walker said.

The two then decided to build the course, and they now enjoy watching the new generation pick up the disc golf sport.

"I think we have done a fairly good job of promoting the sport," Walker said.

Many people know very little if anything about disc golfing, but every year the attendance at Grand Woods increases.

Disc golf is played much like regular golf. The players do not use Frisbees, which is a common misconception, but rather, they use hardened and weighted plastic discs. These discs represent clubs in a golf bag, with drivers, putters, approaches and mid-ranges.

Players toss their discs from the tee box towards metal baskets with chains that dangle inside to catch the discs. Every hole is different and combines the beauty of nature with the fun of sport.

Disc golf holes usually range from 200-500 feet long and are generally guarded by trees and other natural obstacles.

The novice disc golf player can simply use a driver to play the entire course, but the experienced players sometimes carry as many as 15 to 20 different discs at a time.

Discs can be found at places such as In Flight Sports. The store has carried discs since its opening in 1988.

Now, between the two locations of 507 Grand River Ave. and another store in Ann Arbor, the shops carry more than 2,000 discs that range from $8 to $20.

"We carry virtually every disc you can get," Owner Scott Pridgeon said.

In Flight has also tried to promote the sport itself, including sponsoring various tournaments in the area at Grand Ledge's Fitzgerald and Lansing's Grand Woods parks.

Pridgeon, much like Jones and Walker, has seen the sport grow enormously in the past few years.

"Down in the Metroparks around Detroit, because of the draw of the sport, disc golf has really revitalized some of the parks," Pridgeon said.

Many disc golf courses have small entrance fees, usually to get into the park, but Grand Woods disc golf course is entirely free and taken care of by volunteers.

The course has a few sponsors such as the Capitol City Renegades, a Lansing-based disc golf club, but much of the course has been built with donations and money-raising events.

The World's Biggest Disc Golf Weekend is a worldwide event that takes place every summer.

The weekend is less about competition and more about participation. Because of the participation of Grand Woods disc golf course in the event, in 1994 the course received four-and-a-half new baskets from the sponsors of the event.

Jones and Walker both encourage students from MSU to come out and play at Grand Woods.

Walker and Jones hope the sport will only continue to grow among the entire population as well as the MSU community.

"We've gotten pretty attached to the sport, it is a way of life," Walker said.