Gateway

I love David McCormack, and not only because he invented the Wizard.

David founded Gateway Disc Sports, and soon thereafter, in 1998, began submitting Gateway frisbee golf discs to the PDGA Technical Standards Committee. In 2000 the Wizard was born. Interestingly, its dimensions differ from today’s Wizard (revised in 2016), whose larger diameter and heavier legal max weight might be due in part to changes in Gateway’s molding process over the years.

Anyway, the Wizard is not just my favorite putter, but my favorite disc of all time. It comes in varying degrees of firmness grades, a multitude of plastic mixtures, practically every color, a weight range spanning 100 grams to 300 grams for the Training Wizard — an overweight Wizard conceptualized as a strength training tool — and any stamp you choose or provide.

Gateway’s other pure putters, the Voodoo, Warlock and Magic all have distinctive shapes and reliable flights.

David McCormack has built or contributed to the design and creation of over 60 courses, most of them in the St Louis area. After touring from disc golf tournament to disc golf tournament in the 1980s, David settled down into his role as the “everything disc golf” man in his home state of Missouri, running tournaments, building courses, manufacturing discs, and expanding his company’s line of discs and accessories onto the national stage.