Mellow (7223 Manchester Road, Maplewood; mellowdiscgolf.com), a new disc golf shop in Maplewood, opened its doors to the public Tuesday morning after a month of renovations.
Whether you're a beginner, professional or simply looking for a family-friendly activity, Mellow aims to encourage everyone to stay active and introduce them to a sport they may potentially fall in love with, co-owner Roger Martin explains.
“We wanted open space for not just retailing and selling the product but to be able to play inside,” he says. “We'll have half turf, and the other half is epoxy river flooring. So it looks like you're outside, but you're inside.”
Mellow offers players the opportunity to train inside during inclement weather, and it’s good for those who have a harder time completing 18 holes, such as individuals with disabilities, the older crowd or those who just don’t want to.
“We're trying to cover all the bases for the sport, even if you can't do the whole game, because it's not just a game,” he says. “It was a savior for me, like I didn't need to play all 18, I just needed to see [my disc] fly. So I'm hoping to give everybody the same sense of enjoyment that I get.”
Disc golf started as a pandemic coping mechanism for Martin and his wife Katie Martin but quickly turned into a business dream. “During COVID is when things really took off for me personally,” Martin explains. “It mentally saved me, and I feel like I met a lot of people that were out there doing the same thing. Though I did play the game before, I feel like the passion grew a lot more when I played during COVID.”
Once the pandemic restrictions were lifted and Martin headed back to work as a Union carpenter, he quickly realized it wasn’t what he wanted to do anymore.
“I fell in love with the game so much that, even at work, I didn't stop thinking about it,” he adds. “I was thinking about all of the opportunities there were with disc golf and the ceiling for growth. I was just trying to find a way to grow the sport more, and at the same time, involve myself in a way that I feel like I'm doing the community justice.”
So he and Katie saved their money and started looking for a space to create the ultimate disc golf stop.
To that end, Mellow offers not only its training space but also a wide variety of discs and a disc golf simulator powered by TechDiscs. “With this you can really up-level your game,” Katie says. “It's almost the size of a quarter on the back of a disc and that little piece of technology shows you the speed you're throwing at, the spin that's on that disc, the tilt, the hyzer, all those details. So you'll be able to figure out what you need to work on.”
Katie and Martin’s goal is to see their guests win on and off the course, and they believe that begins with a mellow mindset, hence the businesses’ name.
“We are firm believers that with a mellow mindset you can achieve anything,” Martin says. “That mellow mindset will give you positive thinking, and that positive thinking will give you those negative scores, so we're trying to really push that, that's why our name is what it is.”
Mellow will be open 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Wednesday through Sunday.
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