In April of 1977, Dave Feldberg was born in Washington D.C. He spent the first ten years of his life enjoying museums, monuments, and music in the company of his grandparents. At the age of ten, Dave and his family moved onto and beautiful Wall Lake in Delton, MI. These were the times of some of Dave's fondest memories. He spent his days fishing, water skiing and doing other water activities. This is also when he discovered soccer, and it soon became the love of his life. By the time he was a freshman in high school, he had made the Varsity team and had become fully committed to the sport. However, he never lost his love for other sports and continued to participate in track (shot-put, 2-mile), baseball and basketball. Dave even managed to find time to be a city bowling champion and play saxophone in the school band.
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During his junior year, Dave was in a terrible car accident where he flipped his vehicle three times with an initial impact of eighty-eight miles per hour. He was air lifted to the hospital but while in flight his heart stopped for a moment but was brought back to life. He would later prove to always be this lucky. He left with stitches and broken bones. The worst of which being his broken foot and ankle. It appeared as though the tire came through the wheel well, crushing his foot into tiny pieces during the accident. He was told he would never walk normally again and that he should say goodbye to his sporting career. Needing more opinions, his family sought out a specialist from the University of Michigan to take bones from Dave's hip and fuse them into his foot using metal plates and screws. Within a year, he was back on his feet and the starting forward of the Varsity soccer team and his dream of playing as a professional had not been crushed, like his foot.
During his college years, Dave continued to play on soccer teams. One of his assistant coaches had earlier complained that he was dragging his bad leg at the end of practices. But determined, Dave took the field regardless. This turned out to be a mistake. His previously injured ankle was re-injured during a slide tackle by another player. He received seven shiny new screws and two new plates. Soccer was officially over.
Lost, Dave wanted to finished college but struggled to find motivation. He transferred to a trade school to become a computer programmer. During this time he met a group of students from Western Michigan University and forged his "new family." They would meet daily after class to do activities and play sports. One afternoon, Dave surprised his friends with a visit and caught them on the way out.
"Where you guys headed?" Dave asked.
"Frolfing!" replied his excited friends.
Confused, Dave hopped in the car and joined his buddies on their curious outing. Within eight miles of campus they arrived at Coldbrook Disc Golf Park near the area Dave grew up. They decided to make a friendly wager on the round and Dave lost six dollars. Being a poor student, and having enjoyed the "frolfing" round, he was determined to earn his money back. His friend equipped him with an Innova Barracuda and he soon went and bought his first disc, an Upshot. With these two discs he was now ready to practice. After two weeks, he challenged his friends again and won two dollars off of them. His friends were excited by this and encouraged Dave that he was better than average and was improving oddly fast. Using this motivation he signed up for a weekly League event. He quickly became a contender in the league and was in third place after two months. The local golf pro Larry Labond gave him his first Innova Roc, and then Pat Hawks convinced him to go to the Amateur World Championships.
With so much support, Dave was sold and became PDGA member #12626. His first sanctioned event was the Am. Worlds in Grand Rapids, Michigan in 1997. Not quite understanding the caliber of the event, Dave showed up with his three discs and even played with the disc that came in his player's package (the infamous black putter he still uses today). He finished 182 out of over 200 players, but left with a lot of knowledge and admiration of disc flight after seeing the distance events. He took his crushed ego back to Kalamazoo and decided that this was a sport he could do despite his foot handicap. In 1999 he was invited back to the Am Worlds in Kansas City. He impressed his supporters by being in second place going into the finals, but then finished in seventh.
Earlier that year, Dave played in the Cracked Plastic Open in the snow. He was struck by a disc during practice receiving his first disc hitting experience. The thrower turned out to be one of the best pros in Michigan at the time, Todd Branch. This fluke event sparked a friendship that would later prove to be large part of Dave's success. Todd Branch, Al Shack and Darrin Harper quit their jobs to be the first guys to travel around the U.S. and play disc golf tournaments for a living. Darrin early in the tour decided to return home, which left an opening for someone like Dave to fill. Dave was eager and joined the tour and became a part of the "Winnicrew." He continued to play amateur while he learned all he could from the pros around him.
Dave turned professional in 2000. With the addition of Sue Stephens, the Winnicrew was now complete. They traveled the states in their 1973 motor home for forty-eight weeks a year for the next two years. Dave began learning from the people around him and slowly became changing his techniques. He watched players like the Lissmans, Climo, Russell and Rico and became inspired to get better. He had a good season and became runner-up as rookie of the year in 2000. 2002 turned out to be his breakthrough year where he defeated Ken Climo in a heads-up match at a Supertour event. Dave also placed in his first finals at the Pro Worlds in Houston, Texas finishing in fourth place. Dave places some of the accomplishment on practice in the off-season. Or was it another twist of fate that contributed to Dave's early success? After Al and Sue left the R.V. to gain some space, there became room in the Winnebago for another aspiring disc golfer. With an upgraded motor home, they considered who their next recruit would be. A player that proved to be talented and got along well with Dave was Avery Jenkins. After the "okay" from Todd, Avery became the newest member of this new Winnicrew.
Two full seasons went by and great friendships and memories were made. Dave and Avery were still only in their early twenties at this time but had reached a rut in their touring experience. Unsure that they were making the right choice playing disc golf for a living, they decided to finish college. They settled on getting their bachelor's degrees together at the University of Oregon. After being off the tour (but not off the map) for four years while attending school, they obtained their degrees. Dave earned his B.A. in E. Asian Arts and Languages with a minor in Business at the top of his class graduating with honors. Avery earned his B.S. in Sports Medicine, also with a minor in Business.
During school, Dave continued to participate in tournaments and rose in the rankings winning National Tour events, Majors, claimed a U.S. Championship title and European Open title. By his graduation he was ranked third in the world. Now that college was completed, Dave and Avery could return to the tour. Dave was determined to meet his new goal of becoming the number one ranked player in the world. With yet another new motor home, they set out to find tournaments to win. They picked up a few traveling partners along the way such as Nate Doss and Val Jenkins, with Matt Orum and Chris Sprague at times.
In 2008, Dave captured the Japan Open title, propelling him into his goal of being ranked number one. He proved it to be no fluke by winning his first singles World Championship in his hometown of Kalamazoo by fifteen strokes, shooting -100 under par! At the end of a great year he also earned the NT Series title and his first Player of the Year award. This made for a very accomplished 2008 year.
Using his new titles, Dave took his popularity and traveled the world to give back to the sport, teaching clinics. He continues to do so while remaining to capture more titles, winning and teaching in nine countries. Adding to his list of duties, he is also a member of the PDGA Board of Directors.
In 2009, Dave let his teaching duties take his focus and his #1 world ranking slipped to #3, but Dave didn't let himself stay unfocused for too long. He has rallied himself back together and started off with a great 2010 season. He conquered two out of three of the first NT events, and regained his #1 ranking.
Now with his traveling partner Melody King, Dave continues to strive to take the sport and his game to the next level. While being on the Pro tour, Dave has continued to teach many clinics and demonstrations to promote the sport. In 2007, upon his graduation, the U of Oregon offered Dave to opportunity to teach disc golf classes for credit. Even though the commitment would wear on his schedule, he jumped at the opportunity. Dave created his own curriculum that is now used in several universities. Dave still teaches four classes at the university including two flag football classes. He recently added more to his schedule, teaching classes at the Lane County Community College. He will soon add Portland State University to his resume in the fall. The small amount of time he has left he devotes to coaching the U of O Ducks Disc Golf Team. The team took the techniques of their seasoned coach and placed second at the Nationals this year. Dave also crowned the NCAA singles champion Chris Becker at his first trip to the event.
Between playing, teaching, coaching, demo's, and his PDGA board duties Dave has a very busy schedule. He loves to promote the game and is always willing to help anyone, anywhere, anytime. Dave has many people to thank in this game and without them he would not be where he is today. The word ambassador is powerful and is thrown around our sport quite often, but Dave has done his best to take the sport he loves to the next level with more than just talk, Action!
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