Since its world-renowned Crater Lakes course came within metres of going up in flames in January, the Mount Gambier Disc Golf community has rallied together to achieve some special things.

A local junior has been crowned as a national champion, while the sport has managed to continue playing at makeshift locations before making a celebrated return home last weekend.

In the twilight days of February, seven players represented Mount Gambier at the Australian Disc Golf Championships in Inverleigh, Victoria, which attracted 183 of the best players in the country.

Players completed three rounds of the 18-hole gold standard 2.8km course, which proved a challenging proposition due to its tight fairways filled with trees.

The contingent still managed to put in many strong performances and was led by one of the youngest members of the group Jessica Holman.

Young gun Holman has been honing her craft for a couple of years and took the huge event by storm.

After a tight battle with Anita Weber, Holman broke free with a huge final round of 105 to win the FJ15 by 15 shots.

It was the first national title won by a Mount Gambier player since 2017 when Michelle Schulz won the women’s Novice division in Perth.

Mount Gambier Disc Golf vice president Ryan Nicholson said Holman had been a stand-out member of the club in recent years and it was a joy to see her and many others perform on the biggest stage.

“Young Jessica had a tight tussle throughout the whole weekend, but ran away with it on the final day,” he said.

“It is only her second or third year playing disc golf and she has only just started dipping her toes into the sanctioned tournament scene over the last 18 months.

“She has shown a lot of improvement in that time and taken her game to a new level by working hard on her technique.

“You can see it is definitely starting to show and everyone at the club is very proud with how far she has come.

“Her brother Austin Holman finished fifth in the junior boys against some extremely high-quality opponents who are looking to move into the professional scene by the end of the year, so it was an awesome effort.

“Hayden McPherson played in the Men’s Advanced division and scored a really solid third place.

“Kate Eldridge did the same in the women’s Intermediate division, managing to score a sneaky little third place finish as well.

“It was just nice to get the experience of playing at the top level in an extremely social and enjoyable atmosphere.”

Schulz, Nicholson, Damien Holman and Austin Holman also gave it their best shot recording a series of personal bests and impressive rounds.

These results are particularly impressive given the fact the Mount Gambier Disc Golf players have been locked away from their own course for the best part of two months.

In the early hours of Tuesday, January 25 a fire descended on the cliff face of Mount Gambier and crept the edge of the famous Crater Lakes Disc Golf course.

Nicholson was keeping a close eye on the progress of the fire as it burnt down the cliff face.

“I happened to have the day off work by chance and had my children with me, so we spent a fair bit of time up at Keegan Drive watching it all unfold,” he said.

“You could see it inching closer and closer as it went further within the crater and it was a very apprehensive few hours.

“But credit to the defensive volunteers and everyone involved who got on top of it because it could have been a lot worse for the whole lakes precinct.

“We have not really been able to get in there, but from what we have seen from photos and conversations with the City Council has been completely spared by the great efforts of the volunteers, so we are very fortunate.”

Despite being unable to return to the full course given the continual risk of falling trees, Mount Gambier Disc Golf has continued to thrive by being creative.

Random format and league days have been held at new makeshift courses that have popped up at places like R.L. Clements Reserve.

Nicholson said it was an unexpected, but welcomed challenge for the committee to adapt to the challenge of finding a new place to play.

“As far as being able to keep playing we have been fortunate enough to have a very proactive committee and strong volunteer base lending their time and equipment to find alternative venues and layouts,” he said.

“If it was not for them there would be no disc golf happening in Mount Gambier.

“One of the positives from it has been playing in a different area and be exposed to different techniques and types of play because they are very different set ups to what we have at the lakes.

“It has also given us more exposure because when we were at Clements Reserve a lot of people who were walking around the lake stopped to see what was going on.”

The wait was over last week when the Mount Gambier Disc Golf fraternity made a celebrated return to a modified course at the Valley Lakes.

With the majority of the course still inaccessible, the few baskets available hugging the Valley Lake were used to create a nine-hole course where Justin Clarke and Alex Costales thrived collecting the honours in the Ambrose doubles competition.

“We are very fortunate there are a few permanent holes that are mostly used for larger tournaments, so with a bit of redesign we had some space to run the event,” Nicholson said.

“It was just great to be back in the area.

“We are still in talks with council trying to get ongoing communication with updates regarding the assessment of the Valley Lakes area, while we are also looking at different options for pop up events.”