Eighth-grader Chloe Orona is traveling to compete at the 2022 Professional Disc Golf Association Junior World Championships in Peoria, Illinois.
Disc golf is played like golf with a substitution of a disc for a golfball and a big, elevated chain bucket as a hole.
Chloe goes to school at Berrendo Middle School and is a member of the Roswell Spicy Road Runners Disc Golf Club.
Chloe’s mother, Yolanda Orona, said Chloe was introduced to the sport at a young age by her father, Henry Orona, and has been competing in tournaments since the age of nine. The PDGA tournament event starts July 12 and ends July 16.
“She has always competed with grown adults in tournaments,” Yolanda said. Not a lot of youths in New Mexico are involved in disc golf, she said.
The PDGA Junior Disc Golf World Championship is Chloe’s first tournament with only kids her age involved.
“I would like to thank you to everyone that helped with fundraising for tournaments,” Yolanda said. “Some of the physicians from Eastern New Mexico Medical Center sponsored her also.”
Sports reporter Blynn Juliano Beltran can be reached at 575-622-7710, ext. 304, or sports@rdrnews.com.
