John and Dee Houck making Austin disc golf capital of the world

July 20--

In 1982, a graduate of Wesleyan University in Middletown, Conn., visited Austin. The former baseball, basketball and tennis player arrived with Frisbees in tow to compete in the World Freestyle Championships.

Later that year, John Houck packed up his discs and moved to Austin.

He went on to win the Freestyle Championships in 1984 and '85; started his own company, Circular Productions; promoted tournaments, including the World's Biggest Disc Golf Weekend; sold a wholesale line of golf discs; designed more than 90 disc golf courses, including the one in Zilker Park; and consulted on dozens of others.

Now, with his wife, insurance agent and Westlake Chamber of Commerce leader Divya "Dee" Leekha Houck as a business partner, he elevates a pastime once associated with slackers into nothing less than a holistic lifestyle and business generator.

"Our argument now is economic impact," John Houck says. "Cities realize that if you have a great disc golf facility, you can host tournaments. People who love disc golf -- it's such an important part of their lives -- they travel, take vacations, decide where to take jobs, where to go to school, where to retire, all based on disc golf."

For instance, two resorts near tiny, rural Mount Vernon (population: 2,700) in East Texas have built four Houck-designed courses. People journey from across the continent to play on these top-rated courses.

Business-savvy Dee Houck takes care of negotiating with city leaders, chambers of commerce, economic development gurus and sports commissions.

"She's taking everything to a whole new level," John says, sitting at the dinner table in their unpretentious Toro Canyon house. "We would not be here today without what she's done."

For her part, Dee credits their current success to John's restless, curious mind.

"John is always innovating," she says. "He added green (tee) pads made out of recycled shopping bags to replace the concrete ones. I do the day-to-day operational side of the business; he's the creative designer. But we operate as a team. Our values are the same."

The business side

Dee Leekha Houck, 52, was born in Meerut, north of New Delhi, India. She grew up in Haridwar near the Himalayan foothills and immigrated to the U.S. with her family at age 9.

Her father worked for Westinghouse in Pittsburgh and retired from Dell in Austin. She came to Texas "kicking and screaming."

"People looked at me and spoke in Spanish," she says, laughing. "I learned as fast as I could. People assume I speak it, except when I'm in Hawaii, where they speak to me in Hawaiian. I fit in wherever I go!"

For 20 years, she was a single mom -- her son, Kabeer Leekha, is a musician -- working as an Allstate agent. The graduate of Lady Shri Ram College (part of the University of Delhi), who studied commerce, met John on May 19, 2005.

"Lucky for the disc golf world, you were good at commerce," John says.

"I didn't just fall in love with him," she says. "I fell in love with disc golf with him."

Dee played Ultimate Frisbee in her 20s. When she got involved with the World's Biggest Disc Golf Weekend, she helped incorporate a nonprofit element, making the festival into a fundraiser for the Council on At Risk Youth, or CARY.

"It's a worldwide event," Dee says. "It introduces the sport to people in 135 cities in 17 countries."

The couple, however, no longer hosts the Weekend. They turned it over to the Professional Disc Golf Association, which, they hope, can turn it into an even more global event.

Besides CARY and disc golf charities, Dee -- who once hoped, against her family's wishes, to become a psychologist -- is also vice-chairwoman of the Central Texas Chapter of the American Red Cross.

Dee: "I've always believed you should be allowed to do what you love."

The sports side

John Houck, 54, was born in Long Beach, Calif., but grew up in Buffalo, N.Y. After his move to Austin in 1982, one of his primary activities was to organize pentathlon tourneys that consisted of freestyle, distance, disc golf, maximum time aloft and double disc court.

"You'd do all five events," he says. "Then we'd crown a champion."

In the 1980s, he moved the Texas state championships to Austin, making it the biggest state contest in the country.

While running tourneys, John taught "anything to do with disc sports" in schools. In addition, he started a wholesale business for drivers, putters and mid-range discs, which are smaller, flatter and often heavier than regular Frisbees, with more mass on the rim.

"Rooster Andrews was one of my first customers," he says of the late Longhorn student manager and sporting goods purveyor. "At the time, you had to meet the local pro and buy them out of his trunk."

The world record for a disc golf toss is well over 800 feet.

"They are not recommended for playing catch," he says with a sigh. "Now you find people who have exclusively used golf discs and had never played catch with a traditional Frisbee."

After selling his equipment company, his focus turned to design. For each course, he maps the holes, designs the signs, and figures out the distances and pars. He works out safety concerns, especially when the courses are built in existing parks.

"You need balance, variety, challenge, fun," he says. "Making it to where, if you've played that course, you want to come back again, even if to just get revenge on a couple holes. Also, I try to make it a different experience every time you play it, with options off the tee, multiple routes to the basket, as well as more par 4 and 5 holes. Back in the day, everything was par 3. "

John also tries to capitalize on the natural beauty of the settings.

John: "I'm really big on every hole being unique, not just on the course, but in the world."

Thanks in part to the Houcks, Texas boasts the most disc golf courses of any state in the country. John's four spectacular courses near Mount Vernon grace two resorts, Selah Ranch and Trey Texas Ranch. They are ranked among the top in the country by user groups.

In Austin, besides Zilker, John designed courses at Mary Moore Searight Metropolitan Park, Slaughter Creek Metro Park, Austin Ridge Bible Church and at the Met Center, the first business park with its own disc course.

"Austin got on it good and early," he says. "It was the first city in the country to have five courses within the city limits. And Old Settler's Park in Round Rock is the first nationally known course to offer par 4 and par 5."

At the moment, the Houcks are most excited about a course for the Frost Valley YMCA in the Catskills, because 35,000 people, most of them schoolchildren, visit it annually.

"It's wonderful to see disc golf come so far," John says. "And see Austin become a hub for this sport."

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Michael Barnes writes about Austin's people, places, culture and history.

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