Locals with special needs try their hand at disc golf

A retired professional disc golfer is giving back his time, teaching the sport he loves to those with special needs.

"The goal is to introduce the best hobby in the world to not just special needs, to their families, so they can come out and enjoy, it's a free game to play. More importantly it's something the whole family can do together," Scott Stokely, a retired professional disc golfer explained.

For participant Chase Erickson, 21, he said, "I used to play disc golf at O'Leary, we used to play tournaments, at CSI, Buhl, Lake Walcott. I have been playing two or three years now."

"What are you hoping to learn today?"

- "To try and make it in the basket."

"What usually happens?"

- "I usually miss," Michael Hansen, 7, said.

Stokely explained, "I call it adaptive disc golf. Every player that comes out has a different cognitive ability or level. And so what I do is adapt the game of disc golf to specifically what they can."

"That was my lucky," chuckled Hansen.

Stokely's next stop is Coeur d'Alene in a few weeks, but he calls Colorado home.