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John Houck's Contribution to Disc Golf
In the late '80s he created the Circular Skies Over Texas Tour, which was initially the biggest regional disc golf tour in the country and now he hosts Texas Teams every year. Texas Teams is the largest teams tournament in the world. In 2010, Texas Teams had a total of 456 players who participated in a two-day event held on three courses at Circle R Disc Golf Ranch. In 2013, Texas Teams was hosted on four courses in Mt. Vernon, Texas, the home of the best disc golf courses in the world. John is responsible for designing, starting, and running the PDGA National Doubles Championships in the early 1990s. He continues to host the PDGA Amateur Doubles World Championship and in 2012, they were held at Selah Ranch in Mt. Vernon, Texas. Players from all around the world are invited to compete for the title every year. In 2013 over 200 players had to be turned away and two brand new courses had to be designed to accommodate the more than 400 players expected to attend in April 2014. In 1991, he created World's Biggest Disc Golf Weekend, his international event to spread the love of disc golf. Today, this event has grown to include 15 countries and a 135 cities around the world. This event raises money for non-profit organizations while it introduces people to the sport. Disc Golfers around the world get-together to play and enjoy the sport while they raise money for their clubs or other local non-profits. The headquarters in Austin, Texas also donates money to non-profits from the wholesale of World's Biggest discs and T-shirts. John also co-founded Millennium Golf Discs with Harold Duvall in 1994. In 2006, he became President of Millennium Golf Discs, which is his custom brand of premium discs designed for accuracy and course management. Today, Millennium is owned & operated by DiscsUnlimited and Circular Productions, LLC continues to promote it and manages the primary retail account. Millennium Golf Discs is famous for the Original super soft (Omega Super Soft) putter and other quality discs. While John was Commissioner of the PDGA from 1994 to 1996 he also ran the Pro Worlds in '94 and '95 in Port Arthur, Texas. In those days he was emcee for many of the disc world's biggest events and he was doing the commentary for the video coverage PDGA Worlds. He made the first-ever instructional video for disc golf. He was inducted into the Disc Golf Hall of Fame in 1998. He opened his private courses at Circle R Ranch in Wimberley, Texas to the public in 1999, and in 2002 he opened Circle R2 Ranch for public play with three premium championship courses in San Saba, Texas.
These days John is President of the Disc Golf Foundation and Head of Design at the International Disc Golf Center in Augusta, Georgia. He continues to define the cutting edge of disc golf course design: included in the 90 or so courses he designed as a solo designer are a record 15+ courses for World and National Championships. His contribution to course design includes an additional 30+ consultations, and he is the premier disc golf course designer in the world, not by sheer volume alone, but mainly by the quality and the standard he sets in the industry. His course design articles are regularly published in the PDGA magazine, Disc Golfer. He continues to passionately design and consult regularly. He is President and Co-Founder of Circular Productions, LLC and he makes contributions to the disc golf world with his work through HouckDesign, Millennium Golf Discs, and World's Biggest Disc Golf Weekend. John's masterpieces are the two courses at Selah Ranch, Talco, Texas which are ranked #1 & #2 spot out of approximately 5,200 courses worldwide for 2012 and 2013. The 2013 Amateur World Doubles Championships was held at these courses and the 2014 player registration has doubled and John has designed two additional championship courses in Mt. Vernon to meet the demand for his events and courses.
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