Our Story
Headquartered in the heart of Treaty 6 Territory and the Homeland of the Métis in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Grassland Discs is committed to crafting top-tier discs capable of withstanding diverse environmental conditions. Our focus on meticulous design and manufacturing standards guarantees consistency throughout our product line. We also aspire to play a part in supporting education on, and preservation of, the prairie landscape that is deeply ingrained in our company's roots and founders' heritage.
What is Grassland Discs? We are Steven Matschke and Thilina Bandara, two local players with an interest in growing and evolving the game of disc golf. Our vision is to provide a strong competitive local brand that will use cutting edge technology, be design and quality focused, draw on community collaboration, and aspire for an environmental and sustainability ethos to give back to our communities, parks, and grasslands.
Steve Matschke and Thilina Bandara were born and raised in the Canadian Prairies. As amateur disc golfers themselves they decided to build home-grown discs that thrive in the conditions they play in. Coming from an engineering and research background, they are working to produce discs that meet the needs of the disc golf community that keeps this sport strong, and growing.
Want to know our story?
My name is Steven Matschke and I’m a local disc golf enthusiast and engineering professional that has spent the last couple years designing and developing a disc. My love for this game has grown quietly over the last 10 years, however, during the pandemic, I found myself digging into the deep underpinnings of the game: technical resources, the physics of flying discs, plastics material science, how disc shapes define flight paths, engineering analysis on flight characteristics, and finite element analysis… essentially, the information required to design a disc. From this, I designed my first disc, focusing on a strong feel and a consistent flight; The prototype was born. Rather than just starting with a disc named after myself, I quickly realized I couldn't do this alone and decided to work with my friend and partner, Thilina, to create a brand name early: Grassland Discs… more on this later.
This disc started out as an idea while I was waiting on our newborn to be born. It was a side project during the early stages of his life during the spare hours and minutes that I wasn’t busy helping around the house. Having a newborn is a task of patience and love, but it also many times requires long periods of pacing, walks, and well… waiting, which is where many of the ideas for the disc began. I didn’t have the time to go out and play disc golf, so my spare time was spent during the evenings/weekends designing a disc and throwing it in my backyard and local parks. After months of analysis and iterations, it became clear that the disc was working! It felt great and it started feeling better than many of my standard putters. The Aviar, the Pig, the Luna, the Reko, the Berg, the Soft Magnet… all fell off as I started using the new disc design more and more, falling in love with the feel and the consistency. As the later months of summer went on, I had 2, 5, 10, 20+ games playing with several iterations of the disc until I got to the final version. Our initial prototype is shown in the images below, which was tested by our local players, adapted with several specific tweaks that became our first disc: The Chickadee.
As we’ve gotten started on this journey ideas seem to continuously emerge and we continue to get more and more excited. I think we’re just cracking the surface of what can be done with disc design and supporting this sport we love. We’re just getting started, and there will be much more to come. We can’t wait to share more soon…
Thanks in advance for those interested, thanks for those who spent the time reading, and thanks for being kind 
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