BLOOMING PRAIRIE — A year ago, Tony Patino was just like any other rookie disc golfer looking to learn the game. Now, he’s helped bring an entire course to his town.

Patino, who lives in Blooming Prairie and graduated from BP High School in 2012, recently assisted the town of BP in brining a disc golf course to Victory Field, which is located near BPHS.

The nine-hole course has already drawn plenty of locals who are looking to play disc golf without driving.

Austin, Owatonna, Rochester and Albert Lea used to be the only options for courses for disc golfers in town, but now BP has its own course as well.

“It’s really awesome. It saves a lot of gas,” Patino said. “Now that we have one here, we don’t have to go anywhere else. A lot of people like it.”

Patino, 22, started disc golfing last spring, and he found himself putting more and more time into it. Pretty soon, he was writing a lengthy paper to the Blooming Prairie City Council on why the city should have a disc golf course. The city secured a grant to build the course. All of the baskets are up, and now Patino is looking for local businesses to sponsor tee pads for each hole.

Patino helped design the course and said it’s a great place to play disc golf. He’d like to see a tournament come to BP eventually.

“We’ve got Grade A baskets. We’ve got some of the best baskets you can get. It’s a great place to get some practice,” Patino said.

Patino learned the game from Austin’s Collin Bailey and Jordan Castro, who is a sponsored disc golfer.

“They push me to do better,” Patino said. “Jordan is one of my big role models, and he’s helped me get much better at the game. Those two guys are really great people. They’ve helped me a lot, and I look up to them.”

Once Patino started disc golfing, it almost immediately became one of his favorite past-times. He spent as much time as he could on the course, and it was only a matter of time before he realized that the sport was something he could bring to BP.

“I was just hooked,” Patino said. “I just fell in love with the sport, and I noticed that Blooming didn’t have anything.”

One advantage disc golf has is anyone can learn the sport and improve at it if they have some free time and the will to get better. Patino feels much more confident on the course now than he did just last year.

“I’m a really quick learner,” he said. “It’s really competitive, but it’s fun. It’s free to play; you just have to buy some discs, and it’s great exercise on a beautiful day.”

The sport of disc golf has shown some significant growth in Minnesota over the past few years. Austin has two courses — one at Todd Park and one at Driesner Park. The affordability of the sport and access to courses helps make it appealing.

Patino said he’d like disc golf to grow as much as possible.

“I want to see it get as big as it can,” he said. “It’s getting bigger and bigger. It started off small, but people are learning more and more about it.”