The Ground Floor: Disc golf store aims high

Owners: Adam Olsen, Kevin Stibal and Matt Geers

Company: Titan Disc Golf

Address: 710 J. Ave. NE, Cedar Rapids

Phone: (319) 899-1546

Website: www.facebook.com/pages/Titan-Disc-Golf-Shaver-Park/166096006779289

Email: titandiscgolf

Advice for other entrepreneurs? “It's trial and error. Just dive in and do it,” Olsen said.

Favorite part of your job? “Meeting all the people and being able to provide something unique and share the knowledge that we have learned over the years,” Olsen said.

CEDAR RAPIDS - There are no gates, no rules, no dress codes and no wait staff at Titan Disc Golf in Cedar Rapids, which sits just steps from Shaver Park and its disc golf course.

And it certainly doesn't take an exclusive membership to visit the locally owned specialty shop that sells everything disc golf - from equipment and clothing to snacks for famished players.

“But we are a little like a country club,” said Adam Olsen, who opened Titan Disc Golf about a year ago with three of his buddies who consider themselves local aficionados of the sport.

“People are coming in all the time and saying they had no idea we were 50 feet off the disc golf course.”

Olsen said there are four disc golf courses in the Cedar Rapids area, plus three in Iowa City and one in Urbana that has gained national recognition by earning a spot in the country's top 50 courses. Since Titan Disc Golf opened and its owners began asking to make upgrades to the neighboring course at Shaver Park, Oslen said, city officials have been extremely supportive.

He recalled a city-approved event earlier this year that allowed the Titan Disc Golf team to add retaining walls to the course at Shaver Park with the help of as many volunteers as they could round up.

“About 30 people showed up,” Olsen said. “I think this is something very new to Cedar Rapids and (it's) exciting.”

But for Olsen and his co-founders - Kevin Stibal, Matt Geers and Nate Hamilton - disc golf is old hat. For more than a decade, the friends have been honing their skills in the sport, which is set up like traditional golf except you toss disks, like Frisbees, into baskets instead of hitting balls into holes.

Olsen said he's been competing professionally since 2005, and he earned $15,000 in winnings in 2010, placing seventh in the world championships that year. The combined expertise of the Titan Disc Golf owners is part of the draw for novices wanting to give the sport a try.

“People can just come in and get knowledge,” he said, adding that all discs have different characteristics that keep them flying farther or hooking left, for example. “We make it consumer friendly so they can understand what they're getting.”

Know a Corridor business open for less than a year that should be considered for “The Ground Floor”? Contact Vanessa Miller at vanessa.miller@sourcemedia.net.