Todd Lion has been promoted to Deputy Director of the PDGA Event Support and Training team.

While the majority of the disc golf world was watching James Conrad’s shot flying toward the basket at the 2021 PDGA Professional Disc Golf World Championships in Utah, Todd Lion was looking back down the fairway.

That was the moment when Lion, then a member of the PDGA Events team, realized how he looked at disc golf.

“I realized how seriously I took my job when I was standing on the 18th green of the Fort when James threw in the Holy Shot,” Lion recalled. “My first and only thought after he made that throw was ‘oh no, these people are going to mob the fairway.’

“Of course, I was absolutely useless in preventing people from running onto the fairway, but instead of thinking about how awesome the shot was, I only thought about keeping the players and the course secure.”

Lion started playing disc golf in high school and played casually for a decade before joining the PDGA in 2008. He got involved in PDGA tournaments in 2014 in upstate South Carolina and marshaled at the 2018 PDGA Amateur World Championships in Charlotte.

In 2019, Lion, who previously worked as a heat transfer and aerodynamics engineer, officially joined the PDGA as an Events Assistant under Mike Downes and Shawn Sinclair.

His first official action as a PDGA staff member: driving a tent stake through a water pipe.

“The grounds crew said our location was good, so it wasn’t fully my fault, but it was some extra stress I wasn’t expecting that morning,” he clarified.

Lion, right, makes a call during the 2020 Women's National Championship.

In 2021, after disc golf and, in turn, the number of PDGA tournaments skyrocketed, Lion was the first member brought on board to the PDGA’s Event Support and Training team headed by Andrew Sweeton. Lion’s blend of rules expertise, communication skills, demeanor and technical ability made him an obvious choice.

“I was sad to leave the road life, but also happy to leave the road life,” he said.

Recently, Lion was promoted to the role of Deputy Director of Event Support under Sweeton as the EST continues to grow to service the thousands of PDGA tournaments held around the globe.

"Although Todd has been with the PDGA for less than five years, he has positively impacted the work of numerous committees, been a great resource to the staff in many PDGA departments and has been a very significant factor in the success of the Event Support & Training team and the customer service that we provide to our Tournament Directors,” Sweeton said. “Todd's promotion is well deserved, and our future is bright when we have staff of Todd's caliber who are committed to the PDGA and passionate about the sport of disc golf.”

Event staff keeps the spotlight where it should be: the players. Lion, center, before the 2021 playoff at USDGC.

While the spotlight is often on the biggest and brightest stars and stages of the sport, Lion’s focus, just like it was back in Utah, is on the tournament directors and players around the world.

“Leaving the Events and Operations team was a little sad, but the value of the EST is an important mission of the PDGA,” Lion said. “Elite Series and Majors are pretty cool and all, but every weekend there are a couple hundred other events that are pretty important as well.

“The top 100 players and 20 events get a lot of publicity, but we have 100,000 other members and 10,000 other events that are the lifeblood of the PDGA. Local event directors are the backbone of the sport. Our job is to help them so their players can have a good time.”

Lion’s current projects, along with the rest of the EST, include: Rules committee, Majors and Elite committee, ratings, Official Disc Golf World Rankings, Tour Standards, support for the PDGA World Championships, support for Disc Golf Scene and the Global Masters Series.