After dabbling in several careers, from repairing Volkswagens to installing dry wall to owning his own comic and gaming store, Bob Enman finally found his calling.
The owner of two disc golf courses in Maine and the manager of a new course in Scarborough, Enman has become the state’s go-to guru for the rapidly growing sport.
“I look and see the players out here, and I love that sight,” he said from the clubhouse of the former Pleasant Hill Golf Course.
Enman, 49, first stumbled upon disc golf when searching through sporting equipment to provide for teenagers he mentored as part of Big Brothers, Big Sisters. He picked up a Frisbee and discovered rules for a game he had never heard of before – Frisbee golf.
Enman and his brother, Dave Enman, began setting up makeshift courses, using trees and rocks as targets to throw the Frisbee at.
“We found out it was a real sport with real rules,” he said.
After a visit to a disc golf course at Beaver Brook Campground in North Monmouth – built in the 1970s, it is the third oldest disc golf course in the world, Enman said – he and his brother decided to build their own in Brunswick.
“We had no idea what to expect,” he said. “It was basically just a hobby.”
Though Enman continued to drive school buses for five years as he ran his first course in the late ’90s, eventually, he decided he would give everything he had to the game of disc golf.
Five years after building Enman Field in his hometown of Brunswick, he and his brother constructed Dragan Field in Auburn, named after Enman’s grandson. Since then, he has served as a consultant and designer for disc golf courses throughout Maine. The state now has more than 20.
Two years ago, Enman bought out his brother to become the sole owner of the courses in Brunswick and Auburn. Currently, he is the Maine representative for both the New England Flying Disc Association and the Professional Disc Golfers Association. He said he had always wanted to have a field in southern Maine, and the Scarborough location is just what he was looking for. But he’s not planning on stopping there.
“I’m always looking,” he said.
Though Enman said he has already seen tremendous growth in the sport, he believes it will only continue to rise in popularity.
“I’ve invested the last 13 years of my life into it,” he said. “I love the sport.”
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