Building the Future of Disc Golf Online — A Development Update

It has been a big day in the Disc Golf Buzz ecosystem. What started as a simple chat feature request turned into a full platform buildout spanning three sites, two servers, and more moving pieces than we can count. Here is where things stand and what is coming next.

What We Built Today

Live Chat on Disc Golf Buzz

The chat drawer is now live at discgolf.buzz. It sits as a floating tab on the right side of every page and gives visitors two ways to connect:

Public Hangout — powered by a custom WebSocket server running on our infrastructure. No account required. Visitors pick a display name and jump straight into a real-time conversation with whoever else is on the site at that moment. Think Twitch sidebar, but for disc golf. With 20,000 YouTube videos on the site, there is always something to talk about.

Community Channels — powered by Discourse running at chat.discgolf.buzz. Five channels cover the conversations that matter most to disc golfers: General, Course Talk, Tournament Discussion, Buy Sell Trade, and Clubs. These channels are gated behind a discgolf.buzz login, giving registered members a richer, more organized space to connect.

The two-tab approach was a deliberate choice. The public hangout keeps the energy alive for anyone browsing the site. The community channels reward members who take the extra step to create an account.

Single Sign-On Across the Ecosystem

Every user who logs into discgolf.buzz is now automatically linked to Discourse without any extra steps. The DiscourseConnect SSO flow happens silently in the background at login and registration. New members are ready to post in community channels the moment they sign up — no separate Discourse account needed, no "your account isn't linked" error messages.

MyDiscGolf.buzz — Multi-Tenant Platform

This is the big one. MyDiscGolf.buzz is now a functioning SaaS platform for disc golf clubs, courses, tournament organizers, and pro players.

The registration flow works like this: a visitor comes to discgolf.buzz to create an account. If they represent a club, course, tournament organization, or are a sponsored pro player, they check a box during registration. A second step appears asking for their community name and subdomain. They type in something like ridgeline and instantly see whether ridgeline.mydiscgolf.buzz is available. If it is, they complete registration and their subdomain is provisioned automatically — no manual setup required on our end.

Each new tenant gets:

• Their own subdomain on mydiscgolf.buzz
• A branded landing page
• A Payload CMS admin panel to manage their content
• Status set to pending until billing is confirmed

Tenants in pending status see a clean holding page letting visitors know the community is being set up. Active tenants serve their full branded experience.

Subdomain Protection

Valuable disc golf subdomains are now protected from squatters. A reserved slug list blocks registration of names like dgpt, innova, discraft, paul-mcbeth, and dozens of others. These are held for outreach to the organizations and players they represent. A claimed status in the admin lets us pre-reserve subdomains before announcing the platform publicly.

The Architecture

Three sites. Two servers. One auth system.

discgolf.buzz runs on a Hetzner VPS using Next.js 15 and Payload 3. It is the identity layer for the entire ecosystem — every user account lives here.

chat.discgolf.buzz runs Discourse with DiscourseConnect SSO pointed at discgolf.buzz. Users log in once and are authenticated everywhere.

mydiscgolf.buzz runs on a separate server using Next.js 16 and Payload 3 with the official multi-tenant plugin. It is a completely independent Payload instance that trusts identity from discgolf.buzz via a signed provisioning handshake.

The WebSocket server for public chat runs as a separate Node.js process managed by PM2, serving all three properties from a single process with room-based routing.

What Is Coming Next

Stripe Integration

The provisioning flow is ready and waiting for billing. The next step is wiring up Stripe with a setup fee and monthly subscription. When a new tenant completes checkout, a webhook fires and automatically flips their status from pending to active. Their subdomain goes live without any manual intervention.

Pricing tiers are still being finalized but the infrastructure to support multiple plans is already in place.

Tenant Onboarding Flow

Right now a new tenant gets a blank page. The next step is a guided onboarding experience that walks the tenant owner through uploading a logo, setting brand colors, writing a description, and adding their first content. This happens inside their subdomain admin and connects directly to their Payload CMS panel.

Outreach to Reserved Subdomains

The reserved slug list is a roadmap for outreach. Organizations like the DGPT, Innova, Discraft, and top tour pros all have subdomains held for them. The pitch writes itself — here is your branded space on the fastest-growing disc golf platform on the internet, already set up and waiting for you.

The Bigger Picture

Disc Golf Buzz started as a content site with 20,000 YouTube videos. It is becoming something larger — a platform that connects every part of the disc golf community under one identity layer.

Individual players have profiles. Clubs have their own branded subdomains. Courses are listed and managed. Tournament organizers have a home. Pro players have a place to build their brand.

The foundation is solid. The infrastructure scales. The next few months are about bringing the right organizations onto the platform and letting the community grow around them.

More updates coming soon.