07/03/2024
Good morning everyone. We at FlyRite Disc Golf are heartbroken to announce we will be closing our doors July 21st. My Mom, Ms. Emmaline, and I have been grateful to serve the disc golf community and first and foremost, thankful to God that He let us explore this wonderful opportunity these past couple of years. With much enjoyment, we celebrate all the heartfelt friendships we have made with so many of you and we joyfully anticipate the opportunity to run into you elsewhere in our future pursuits. We will still be putting on the Circuit vs Trilogy Challenge (7/10) and Greg Anderson Memorial Disc Golf Tournament (8/17), but we will be taking a break from tournaments afterwards for a while. In honor of my late cousin Daniel, who somehow convinced the entire family to fall in love with a game where you unintentionally throw a piece of plastic at trees while aiming at steel drapes, and who was originally supposed to have a heavy hand in the venture, we will be running our last tournament under the FlyRite Disc Golf moniker in December for the 3rd Annual Daniel Katterjohn Memorial Tournament (12/14). Having met so many happy faces while running tournaments, I do hope to run future disc golf events under my name; but, as I have said, we want to take a break from events.
I want to go ahead and thank my family (including Allie) so much for your constant encouragement, care, and generosity through this entire venture. So many of you have watched the store for me, invested time and money (a LOT of money) into the store, helped with the build-out of the store, and making it feel like home. Special thanks to my Mom, who cares so much about me she was more than willing to handle all of our financials and a ton of our marketing campaigns; she truly cared about everyone who came in the store and helped them have a great store experience. I’m extremely thankful for her coming day in and day out, when she had so many better things to do, and spending time with me; I will always have those incredible memories with you Mom, thank you for jumping in at the start of the venture, I couldn’t have imagined spending a second less with you. My Mom also loved pushing the ladies to go out and play and have fun, join tournaments, and truly just love the sport and I hope all you ladies get out and play more. Disc golf can be a significantly relaxing and peaceful sport if you let it. Paul, I couldn’t be happier to have had you be on our Board of Advisors. You have, beyond a reasonable doubt, been a precious part of this team and I have loved getting to run tournaments, play tournaments, get our first PDGA wins in FlyRite Tournaments, throw in the field, travel, just play disc golf, hang out, goof off, and enjoy life with you bro; you not only have become an exceptional talent in disc golf, but you have transformed into a phenomenal advocate of the sport and an incredible young man. Thank you for your fun dyed discs and ability to let loose and always remember to have fun while playing disc golf even after putting endless hours, days, and weeks into perfecting your game.
Thank you to all of my friends and sponsored players. I have made everlasting friendships with so many of you and have been blessed to get to spend time with a lot of you outside of the store. I urge all of you to keep in touch when you can! To my sponsored players, I truly couldn’t have had a more supportive team who represented FlyRite Disc Golf to the best of their abilities. I want everyone to know Jonathan Rollins, Matt White, Lindsey Meuesen, and Aaron Vanhook are marvelous people on and off the disc golf course and I couldn’t be happier you guys signed with us. I appreciate running tournaments with you, filming with you (and with our incredible Friends of FlyRite), cleaning up the course with you (and again with some incredible Friends of FlyRite), and doing disc golf demonstrations at School, Churches, and Boy Scouts with you.
Thank you to all of you who have supported the store at one point or another, whether you were an individual, a disc golf manufacturer that lives in Georgia, a disc golf company that doesn’t live in Georgia, a church, a nonprofit organization, a parks and recreation department, a corps of engineers, or one of many other things. We see your kindness and wish you the best.
Lastly, thank you Sam Barfield for your mentorship. Ever since I met you when I was still doing market research, you have extended your wisdom on both tournaments and business on too many occasions for me to count. It has been a pleasure to befriend you and your incredible family and I wish you all nothing but the best.
