CROWN POINT | Brian Cummings doesn't just believe in flying saucers, he's obsessed with them.
"You know that scene in 'Close Encounters of the Third Kind' where (the Richard Dreyfuss character) builds that Devil's Tower in his front room and his family thought he was crazy?" Cummings said. "I kind of got that way with disc golf."
Such insanity came out of the blue for Cummings, a burly man who wrestled and played football in high school.
"Frisbee was something you did at the beach while checking out the girls -- nothing more," Cummings said. "Then one of my friends who was going to Northwestern came across a disc golf course in Wilmette. He told me I ought to check it out."
That was 1976. The course has long since been razed. But the sport itself has continued to soar, thanks in part to the efforts of Cummings, who has won approximately 150 disc golf tournaments over the past 34 years and placed sixth at the Pro Disc Golf Association World Championships in 1991.
This year's PDGA World Championships will take place for the first time at Lemon Lake County Park from Tuesday until July 31. Cummings, 54, of Munster, is the tournament director. He helped design and build the Lemon Lake course, which consists of 72 holes (baskets).
The World Championships will utilize the park's Gold Course, which "can be a good four-hour round," Cummings said. "The par for that is 67, which is close to standard golf.
"If you jackknife it (pull or slice your drive) on several key holes, you can find yourself in some deep trouble."
Among the expected 300 competitors include the brother-and-sister duo of Avery and Valarie Jenkins, the respective defending men's and women's open champions; 2009 PDGA Player of the Year Nikko Locastro; 2008 Player of the Year David Feldberg; and 12-time world champion Ken Climo.
Local players who qualified for the World Championships include Bart Zandstra of Merrillville and Dave Shaw of Hammond.
Cummings himself won't be playing, but he will be honored during the tournament banquet on Thursday at Avalon Manor in Hobart where he will be inducted into the Disc Golf Hall of Fame.
"When I found out about it, it caused me to look back about how long I've been actually doing this," Cummings said. "You don't really think about it when you're going (from) tournament to tournament, and when you're trying to promote the sport."
Being inducted with Cummings are northern California resident Charlie Callahan and Tomas Ekstrom from Sweden.
"Disc golf is big in Sweden," Cummings said. "It's also big in Japan ... the Japan Open is a major tournament."
"It's big in a lot of places, and it's getting bigger."
