When you first hear the name, you might think members of the Pittsburgh Flying Disc Society sit in open fields at night and watch for extraterrestrials.

But it's the name of the local club that promotes and plays the growing sport of disc golf.

The group hosted the 17th annual Pittsburgh Flying Disc Open last weekend, on courses at Moraine State Park in Butler County and at Knob Hill Community Park in Marshall.

Gary Dropcho, co-director of the tournament, finished second in the masters' division of players 40 years old and older.

Dropcho, of Marshall, said 43 professional disc golf players from as far away as California, Alabama and Canada competed for cash prizes totaling more than $6,000.

In addition to the excitement of playing for the money, Dropcho said, the players were thrilled to try out the relatively new course at Moraine as well as play on the Marshall course, rated one of the best in the nation.

Heather Jerry, Marshall's parks and recreation director, said the 18-hole course was established in 1994 and has an average hole length of 265 feet.

She said the course is one of the most popular attractions in Marshall and is used year-round.

The Moraine course was a joint venture of the Moraine State Park maintenance staff and the Pittsburgh Flying Disc Society, said Obie Derr, park manager.

Derr said the course was officially completed this summer but the first rounds were played there on Dec. 11. Like the one in Marshall, it is also an 18-hole course. It is located in the Lakeview Day-Use area on the North Shore of Lake Arthur.

Derr said the players praised the course all weekend.

"All of the players raved about it," Derr said. "People called it world-class and said it looked like it has been in for five years." The first-place men's winner was Matt Orum, of Mobile, Ala., besting two-time world champion Barry Schultz, of Stevens Point, Wis., by three strokes.

The 2002 women's world champion Des Reading from San Marcos, Texas, won by a stoke over Californian Carrie Berloger in the women's division. Maryland's Dean Pfeiffer won the men's masters title by a stroke over Dropcho, and Hanover resident Jay Gobrecht won the grandmasters division. Cranberry's Keith Clark finished second.

Clark, 54, has been involved with disc golf since its inception in the early 1970s and is a charter member of the Pittsburgh Flying Disc Society. He serves as course promoter for the Knob Hill Community Park course.

"When I first moved here, there were no disc golf courses in the Pittsburgh area," Clark said. So in 1989 he worked with Pittsburgh Citiparks to build the area's first disc golf course in Schenley Park.

"I just enjoy it for the general exercise and being able to get outdoors," Clark said. "I just got interested in it and stuck with it."

And Clark is not alone.

According to the Professional Disc Golf Association, the national governing body for local flying disc clubs, membership growth has ranged between 8 and 12 percent annually. In 1996, the association had 3,904 members compared with 8,575 in 2004.

The association says that disc golf provides upper and lower body conditioning, aerobic exercise, and promotes a combination of physical and mental abilities that allow very little risk of physical injury.

Disc golfers use flying discs or Frisbees to complete holes in as few "throws" as possible. Play starts with golfers standing in a traditional tee box and continues until the golfers get the disc in an elevated basket some distance away.

The sport is relatively inexpensive to play, Clark said, as most courses don't charge a greens fee. Beginners can start with one disc that costs about $12.

Clark said that's could be one reason that the sport has taken off.

The association estimates 7 million to 10 million people have at least played disc golf once and more than 500,000 play the sport regularly.

The number of disc golf courses in the United States has also increased from one in 1975 to 1,722 in 2004, with Texas leading the way with 113 courses.

Dropcho said in 1994 the Pittsburgh Flying Disc Society was able to raise funds for the construction of the Knob Hill Community Park course. It has a length of 4,780 feet with 13 of the holes less than 300 feet long, while five of the holes are between 300 and 400 feet.

Last year the society was able to raise enough money to establish the course at Moraine. The course is about 7,300 feet, with a par of 66, Dropcho said.