Sam Ferrans: 40 Years as Disc Golf’s Youngest World Champion

The Boy Champ

At just 16 years old, Sam Ferrans needed a note, from his parents to the airlines, to travel to the 1984 PDGA Pro World Championship. This was one of his first disc golf tournaments outside of Southern California and he had received his PDGA number just one month before the event.

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Tough Losses Teach Lessons

Though Sam was young and didn’t have a huge amount of tournament experience leading up to the 1984 PDGA Pro World Championship, he had two painful losses at overall events that stuck with him. He lost the Junior Worlds by 4/10 of a point in 1983. Then just one month before the 1984 Pro Worlds, he lost the US Open by a single stroke, missing a 15-foot putt on the final hole. Those two experiences were devastating at the time, but little did Sam know they would be the fuel he needed to become the youngest PDGA Pro World Champion in history. From his loss at the US Open until the start of Worlds, Sam practiced at La Mirada from sun up until the street lights came on, everyday.

The Youngest World Champion in PDGA History

The 1984 PDGA Pro World Championship was played at Ellison Park in Rochester, New York. The venue featured a permanent course and a temporary course created for the tournament. Luckily for Sam, the permanent course at Ellison was long and favored power players like himself.

Armed with an Aero, XD, two Aviars, and a towel, Sam faced off against the best players in the World. After round one, he was already down 8 strokes to the leader, but Worlds is a marathon, not a sprint. Sam shot the course record at -8 in round two and backed that up with another -8 in the third round. By the final 18 holes, the “California Kid” (as he was teasingly known) had built up a 6-stroke lead.

Early on in that final round, Sam was understandably nervous. In the first three holes, he shed 3 strokes to a deep field chasing him down. Remembering his recent close losses, Sam said, “this is not going to happen again.” He leaned on his practice sessions in La Mirada and focused up.

I was very competitive and I remembered the loss by one stroke the month before and I remembered the 4/10s of a point the year before.
– Sam Ferrans

On hole 6, named the Top of the World, Sam took out his trusty Aero, took a breath, and tapped the pole over 600 feet away, downhill. The crowd erupted and Sam settled into his round, confident this was his week. In the end, Sam won the tournament by 5 strokes.

Bringing Home the Trophy

Sam Ferrans returned to Southern California, where Innova Champion Discs had recently formed, beyond proud to share the news of his win with Dave Dunipace, Harold Duvall, Charlie Duvall, Tim Selinske, and the rest of the growing SoCal disc golf scene. Sam remembers this as the launching point for his relationship with Dave Dunipace, who took Sam under his wing and trained him to break the distance world record. There was no official team back then, but in many ways Sam Ferrans was one of the first athletes on Team Innova. He set the stage for decades to come with Innova as the Choice of Champions.

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The Next Boy Champ

40 years later, disc golf has grown to heights no one could have imagined in 1984. With huge fields of athletes devoting their lives to the sport, the top events in disc golf are more competitive than ever (even winning a C-tier in MPO is super hard!) So will anyone ever break Sam Ferrans record? It seems unlikely, but it’s not impossible. In 2022, at the age of 17, Gannon Buhr won the United States Disc Golf Championship, the only comparable event to Worlds in terms of prestige.

As more money enters the sport and as children at younger ages see the top disc golfers as role models, there is a chance for another Boy Champ to emerge. They may already be out there, amassing their own tough losses and grinding practice sessions, hungry to overthrow today’s top players.