In the early 90s, Mark Moore (BDGC #1) noticed an object course that Steve Madsen (BDGC #5) had listed in the PDGA Course Directory.  That object course, across from 17th Street from the IU stadium, would prove pivotal to their friendship and to the formation of the Bloomington Disc Golf Club several years later.

In 1998, Mark Moore officially brought disc golf to Bloomington when he successfully petitioned the County Parks to install a course at Karst Farm Park, one of the first, if not the first, disc golf course south of I-70 in Indiana.  For the first tournament in Bloomington, Karst was an object course (18 4×4 poles marking the targets); Mark had minis printed with a “no basket” logo for the tournament. 

Mark was soliciting sponsors and raising money to pay for disc golf baskets at Karst when he and Chris Golden (BDGC #2) were picked to be on the same team in a Bloomington recreational Ultimate league in 1998.  Mark joined the league primarily to recruit disc golfers.  He was selling Innova golf discs out of his trunk.  Chris was immediately hooked, played disc golf every day for an entire year, and started organizing leagues in April 1999.  As this group grew, they started the Bloomington Disc Golf Club to promote the sport and to support the local disc golf community by organizing weekly leagues and monthly tournaments. 

The club founders were Mark Moore, Chris Golden, James Stogdill (BDGC #3), Tony Hoel (BDGC #4), and Steve Madsen. 

James and Tony were instrumental in running the club in the early years, helping with leagues and tournaments and organizing disc golf trips to courses around the state. James was the Club President for the first year. Tony was the tournament director for the first PDGA-sanctioned tournament in Bloomington, the 2002 City Grille Limestone Open.

Soon after the BDGC’s formation, Steve Madsen identified Crestmont Park as a potential location for a new disc golf course. Mark Moore worked with the City Parks Department to design and install an 18-hole course at Crestmont in 2002. In the mid-2000s, Karst Farm Park was redesigned, largely by club member Jason Nawrot (BDGC #56), to be a longer and more challenging course. A land dispute between the County Parks and the County Fair Board a few years later resulted in the course being cut back to 9 holes, before it was again expanded to 18 holes in 2016.

They made several attempts at electing officers and committees for the first decade of the club, but in reality, a core handful of people were running the club business with or without the official titles. Mark was in charge of course improvements and maintenance, did most of the heavy lifting himself, and always kept good relationships with the City and County Parks. Chris started and ran the club singles, doubles, and Tag rounds (then twice/week), managed the club’s funds and merchandise stock, and developed and maintained the club’s web presence, club logos, Tag scoring system, and membership database. He ran, or helped run, every Bloomington tournament (~6 events/year) for ~12 years (always with help from club members) until a new guard started arriving around 2012. In 2012, Dan Ott (BDGC #141) was elected President and ran the club by committee (e.g. Treasury committee, Competition committee, Course Maintenance Committee) with varying success until the latest push to establish officers and elections began again ~2014.