04/05/2026
Welcome to week 45!
This week’s feature is one that will stick with ya. Just an all around great human being with a huge heart. He loved disc golf and its people so he created a place to welcome them. I will let you all chime in on how greatly missed he is.
Ladies and Gentlemen, Get To Know, Kent Roberson, PDGA # 10806 and he and his family’s course, Farm Life.
A huge thank you to Jodie and Debbie for writing and allowing us to share Kent’s story.
In Memory of Kent Roberson (PDGA #10806): The Heart of Farm Life Disc Golf
The disc golf community lost a true original in 2021, and here in Eastern North Carolina, the fairways feel a little quieter without him. This tribute is for Kent Roberson, a man whose love for his land was only matched by his love for the people who walked it.
Kent's story is inseparable from the land he called home.
For over 120 years—since 1898—his family has farmed, hunted, and lived on the same piece of ground in Farm Life, near Williamston, NC. It's a special place, anchored by an old-growth hardwood forest where red and white oaks, beech, cypress, and pines have stood sentinel for over 150 years.
It was here, on the Roberson Farm, that Sweetwater Stables and Farm Life Disc Golf (FLDG) came to be.
Kent was a man of many trades - an electrician, a telephone repairman, an animal control officer - but his heart was always at home. As he said in March 2019, "Some years ago I realized I wanted to be able to be on my own land and make a living." So, he fenced the fields, began boarding horses, and then had an idea that would create a legacy: he opened his land to disc golf.
It all began in January 1996. Kent and his lifelong friend, Perry Hardison (PDGA #3464), took a simple paper map of the farm and started dreaming. Designing the course themselves, they penciled in a layout that wound through the ancient hardwood forest.
Remarkably, that original design remains in place today - a testament to their intuitive understanding of the land and the game of Disc Golf. When Farm Life Disc Golf opened, it brought a new kind of life to the property, hosting PDGA B and C tier events from 1998 through 2004.
For Kent, disc golf wasn't just about the sport; it was about the gathering. He cherished the Ice Bowl tournaments, where he would warm the hearts of frozen players with a pot of "chicken mull," a rich, traditional stew from Martin County that became as much a part of the FLDG experience as the course was.
His love for the game was personal. Kent personally designed FLDG's disc stamps, featuring a mule, a farmer with a plow, and a whimsical mule holding a disc in its mouth. His son, Eric, designed the original print for a third stamp when he was just a sophomore in high school, making it a true family affair.
But perhaps the most telling stat of all: Kent still holds the course record for the best score at Farm Life. He knew every root, every tree line, and every angle.
Yet, if you asked Kent what the best part of disc golf was, he wouldn't talk about scores. He'd talk about the people. He called them "family." Kent had an enormous heart and a gift for making everyone feel like they belonged. He listened intently and responded with a quick wit that could lighten any mood and a genuine warmth that made people feel validated and important. Having his "disc golf family" roaming his land, enjoying the beauty of the old forest he loved, was, as the family puts it, "the ace in the hole."
Kent Roberson gave disc golf a beautiful place to play. But his greatest gift to us was the example he set: that a life lived on your own land, surrounded by family and friends, sharing what you love with a generous heart, is a life well played.
He is deeply missed.
~ Written by his family
