RALEIGH - There are very few people in the world who can throw a plastic disc better than Justin Jernigan. As of this morning, to be exact, there are 78, according to the Professional Disc Golf Association, two of whom live in North Carolina.

And as a student at Johnston Community College who also works as an accountant for Lowe's Foods, he hasn't played a single practice round this week to prepare for the Raleigh Disc Golf Championship presented by Health Space.

Instead, as the co-tournament directors, Jernigan, who lives in Clayton, and Robert Leonard, who lives in Raleigh, spent Friday driving around the Triangle, marking off out-of-bounds and hanging flyers at four different courses.

For the uninitiated, disc golf is an adaptation of the more popular game known to some as "ball golf." The idea is to toss the disc -- heavier and flatter than a Frisbee -- at a metal basket with chains hanging above it to catch the disc.

After playing in a poorly run tournament six months ago, Leonard and Jernigan figured they could do better. Their plan was ambitious: a two-day tournament held on four different Triangle courses.

It wouldn't be Raleigh's biggest tournament -- the Dogwood Crosstown Classic, a top-tier PDGA event in March, holds that honor -- but it would be a start. It also wouldn't be easy.

Leonard, 24, works for the State Employees Credit Union and has spent at least two hours a day for the last month trying to nail down the details, finding sponsors and printing T-shirts.

Jernigan, 22, hasn't played much lately as he prepares to transfer to N.C. State. He nearly fell into a creek at Kentwood Park in west Raleigh on Friday before taking a nasty chunk out of his right -- throwing -- index finger with a metal stake.

Then again, if you think hosting a disc golf tournament is a labor of love, try playing the sport professionally. If all goes well for Jernigan this weekend -- he holds the course record on two of the four courses in use -- he could make $800.

Four years ago in Des Moines, Iowa, Jernigan won the PGDA World Amateur Championship by a record 19 strokes. Since turning pro, he's won a grand total of $19,710.

The world's No. 1-ranked player, David Feldberg of Springfield, Ore., has made $18,269 in 2008, although the big-money tournaments start next month.

With the exception of a handful of elite players with lucrative sponsorships, the "professional" in professional disc golf is a misnomer. The pursuit is always more of a goal than the prize.

This is a sport for the budget-minded -- equipment is cheap and there's rarely a fee to play.

Visiting tournament players frequently crash with locals, as they will this weekend, and that camaraderie draws many to the sport.

"There's a lot of generosity in the disc golf community," Jernigan says.

North Carolina had the fourth-most PDGA members of any state in 2007, with five players in the world top 100, and there are seven public disc courses in the Triangle, along with a handful of private, "homegrown" courses.

As Leonard and Jernigan go through their tournament preparations, a dozen players meander past on the Kentwood course, bags of discs slung over their shoulders.

A major PDGA event outside Boston drew most of the sport's professionals this weekend with a $40,000 purse, but even with a purse of about $6,000 there's still a waiting list for the 90 spots in Raleigh, with players coming from Georgia, Alabama and Colorado.

Four of North Carolina's top-100 players -- Brian Schweberger of Tarboro (27th), Michael Johansen of Denver (28th), Mike Hofmann of Raleigh (80th) and Jernigan -- chose to stay in the state this weekend. So did Larry Leonard, another Raleigh resident who was once the No. 2-ranked player in the world.

As Jernigan tosses disc after disc from 40 feet away into a basket at Kentwood, Leonard admires his form -- and laments his predicament.

"He's a world-class player, and he couldn't make a living doing this," Leonard says.

Still, as the discs brush against the chains and nestle into the basket, and another group of players trots by, it's pretty clear that isn't the point.