At least one area now has a good purpose: flying saucers, or rather, flying discs.

The Sawyer Disc Golf Course recently opened to the public at 101 Tarzon St., with players allowed to throw discs into baskets — instead of putting golf balls into holes — free of charge.

Spearheading the effort is Jamie Vincent, who manages Gwinn Bait & Tackle.

Mixed in with the store’s inventory are golf discs, and there’s a good reason for that.

Kevin Loosa of Rock and a member of Club (906) putts on basket number four at the new Sawyer Disc Golf Course. The course has nine holes, with additional courses possible. (Photo courtesy of Jamie Vincent)

Vincent, who started playing disc golf while he attended Ferris State University about 10 years ago, has been active in the sport’s community, including Club (906) Disc, which hosts and runs Professional Disc Golf Association-sanctioned events in the region.

“I’ve been living in Sawyer now for a few years, seen all the area available there by Little Trout Lake and that old trailer court,” Vincent said. “It worked out perfect because it already had all the big cement slabs out there from when it was a trailer court.”

Nine holes with three sets of tee pads are in place at the new course.

“There’s a set of tees for everybody,” Vincent said. “They’re all exactly the same. Whether you’re playing from the blues, the reds or the orange, they all have cement tee pads.”

All the pads, he said, have the hole distances noted, so it doesn’t matter if a player is a beginner or an expert.

In fact, he defined players ideal for the orange tees this way: “Anybody who wants to just go out there, have fun, play a short round but get the same feel as from the red tees, which is more of a mid-level, and the blue tees, which is an advanced level.”

The Marquette County Board of Commissioners on Aug. 8 authorized Club (906) to add the disc golf course at Little Trout Lake Park, along with giving the OK for the Gwinn Lions to construct a parking lot, pit toilet and playground at the park.

In an Aug. 3 memorandum from Steven Schenden, director of operations at Sawyer International Airport, to Marquette County Administrator Scott Erbisch, Schenden wrote: “The projects would require minimal maintenance from the County, improve the property and would be easy and inexpensive to remove if they were abandoned. All agree this is a good plan and a good thing for K.I. Sawyer and surrounding communities.”

Progress might not stop with what’s already there, with Vincent saying the goal is to have multiple courses.

“The whole idea, goal, grand scheme of things would be to have a championship-level 18-hole course, a mid-level 18-hole course and then that beginning nine-hole course,” Vincent said.

As with regular golf, a little tweaking of pin placement is necessary.

So in the spring, the current course’s holes will be made longer with different pin positions, he said.

“It’ll still only be nine holes but some of the holes will be different, so that will add a little bit more to the area,” Vincent said.

As with many community projects, funding is the big thing.

Course organizers now are waiting to see what kind of grant money the Gwinn Lions — the sponsor of the first hole — would receive through an Americans With Disabilities Act grant for a putting area, and how the project can continue, he said.

Still, fun already can be had at the course, with a few challenges in the mix.

“I’ve played it a few rounds,” Vincent said. “The nice thing about the course is it’s something the area was missing because all the other courses currently are heavily wooded, 18 holes.

“This is a wider open course. Wind constantly is going to be there, because Sawyer, that’s all we have here is wind.”

Vincent said the Sawyer course also is unique in that it’s the only Upper Peninsula disc golf course with heavy-duty championship-level baskets called prodigy baskets.

Potential players lacking equipment can buy special Sawyer Disc Golf Course discs at Gwinn Bait & Tackle, located at 56 Billings St. just off M-35.

“They can come into here, talk to me, get their disc golf needs,” said Vincent, who will provide more information on the course itself to people who ask.

The disc golf course community already is active in the region, with several courses already set up, including the Powder Mill Disc Golf Course in Marquette, the Silver Creek Disc Golf Course in Harvey, Old Town Disc Golf Course in Negaunee, the Ishpeming Al Quaal Recreation Area Disc Golf Course and the course at Marquette Alternative High School.

However, more help is needed to move the Sawyer Disc Golf Course project forward. Vincent said anybody who wants to become involved in disc golf or help out at Sawyer can call him at his store at 906-346-3330 or visit Club (906) Disc’s Facebook page.