Creating a Disc Golf Course

[ERicJ]

There's been some significant talk on this forum lately about quality of courses and getting new ones built. There was a highly relevant article that came out from Marshall Street just recently that I got permission to repost here. I'll post Part 2 when it's published as well.


Marshall Street's Altering the State
The Three Stages of Creating a Disc Golf Course, Part 1

Let’s not confuse building a disc golf course with creating one. Building the course is the final stage, the one involving long walks through the woods, organizing workdays, sharpening chainsaws, and borrowing equipment. Building a course involves sweat and blood and multiple bee stings and heated debates with fellow disc golfers – and often the powers that be -- about where the holes and tees should go. Building the course, and hence designing it, is the fun part. Getting to this final stage of planning and carving out your brainchild can be a frustrating, lengthy process that nearly always involves winning over non-disc golfers who apply unreasonable restrictions based on unfathomable apprehensions and who nevertheless hold the keys to the kingdom of your dreams.

There are 1000 different roads, many of them circuitous, that lead to this final stage, and all of them cross the same two hurdles.

Step One: Finding a Suitable Piece of Land
Walking through woods with Sunny Cade

Most of us born with the frisbee gene never get past this first stage. We drive by woods and fields and “see” magnificent disc golf holes. We envision disc golf holes in parks, in the woods, behind industrial buildings, on college campuses. We judge the beauty of every property by imagining it cleared and pruned and dotted with tees and baskets. Many of us know pieces of land that would make wonderful disc golf courses, if it weren’t for pedestrians, or playgrounds, or picnickers, or parking lots, or buildings with windows, or the fact that the stewards of the land don’t want a disc golf course, usually because they don’t know what disc golf is.

A suitable piece of land is, ideally, near your home, big enough for 18 holes, can be dedicated solely to disc golf, offers hills and woods and fields and water and, in general, possesses a natural beauty and a variety of terrain that could, eventually, accommodate a broad range of disc golf shots.

So in 1988 I meet my 3rd cousin and fellow frisbee fanatic Sunny Cade. Sunny has his own little disc golf course behind his house in Princeton, MA. I soon become one of Sunny’s disciples and workday companion at his home course, which morphed into the still existing Goodnow Park. When Sunny finally sees my parents’ 20 acres in Leicester, MA, and walks the land with me, it doesn’t take him long to declare, with typical wild-eyed Sunny Cade enthusiasm, “You should make a frisbee golf course right here!”

Step Two: Getting Permission to Use It
Finding the person in charge

Creating this first course, which we named Pyramids, offered the same challenges that crop up with every parcel of land that has the potential to become a disc golf course. You can “know” somebody on the parks commission, or you might have other connections with the town, the city, the state or the federal government, but until you gain an audience with the person or people in charge, you’re still just “thinking about maybe” building a disc golf course. Privately owned land is another viable route, and many of us have relatives or neighbors with more land than they know what to do with.

Still, despite our best intentions, for every course that actually gets built, hundreds are talked about that, for one reason or another, never get planted. Players often contact Marshall Street because they know a piece of land that would be perfect. But their plans are vague, their connections tenuous, and they’re hoping we’ll form their plans for them or – even better – build the course ourselves.

Our advice is to first answer two key questions. One, who’s really in charge? And two, what kind of restrictions are we looking at?

With Pyramids, Dad liked the idea right away, but he knew if disc golf in our backyard was ever going to fly, it would need the approval of a higher authority: “Let’s see what your Mom says,” he advised.

Mom was certainly skeptical, but after no small amount of begging, she finally relented, because she loved her son and could tell there was nothing more exciting to me than building a disc golf course. She did add one small caveat: “As long as you don’t kill any ferns.”

Overcoming Impossible Restrictions

Thirteen years later, 2001. Weed-whacking the Pyramids fairways is a springtime ritual; the ban on killing ferns has been lifted long ago. Central Massachusetts now has two big courses on Army Corp flood control projects, Buffumville Lake, and the just completed Barre Falls Dam. Our core group of disc golf enthusiasts knows the drill for establishing disc golf courses. We know how to work with the Army Corp. The dams are majestic, federally owned properties with big water and breath-taking elevation, plus a nice mix of woods and fields. In addition, one of the Army Corps’ mandates is to provide free recreation to the general public. The Army Corp of Engineers also has an enormous budget, and can find a few thousand dollars to fund some or all of the baskets, tee pads and tee signs.

We approach the project manager at West Thompson Dam, another nearby Army Corp property, this one just over the border into Connecticut, and she’s intrigued by our proposal. She does have one very important restriction, however, which she declares with immovable conviction: “As long as you understand that you can’t cut down ANYTHING.”

We were close to walking away right then and there, but luckily we stuck it out, wound up building a nice big course, and eventually were allowed to cut down a few dozen small trees. Sometimes the ban on cutting trees (or killing ferns) are real, and it’s best to move on to a more suitable location. Often, however, the stewards of the land will impose unreasonable restrictions on a disc golf course because they have no idea what disc golf entails, how it preserves land from much more drastic forms of development, and that you and your frisbee cohorts have no ulterior motives. Once these facts become established in their minds, the powers that be will begin to see you as the hardworking volunteers you are, and the game itself as an ideal form of recreation with minimal impact on the environment.

Once you gain their trust, many of these initial restrictions disappear like a white disc in deep snow.

Magic Words and the Question of Money

Last summer we built a course on a 40-acre section of largely neglected city land called Newton Hill. It’s behind a high school in the middle of Worcester, 2nd largest city in the state -- the perfect location to introduce the sport to a lot of people. In preparation for our next course, we had constructed 18 tire baskets to be used as starter targets on the next piece of land that became available. We knew how fundraising for the necessary hardware can stall or even stifle the creation of a new public course. And once you get permission to build a course, the whole process will move along faster if you can put some sort of baskets in the ground right away.

We followed the steps required for presenting our proposal to the Worcester Parks & Recreation Commission, where we gave a typical, awkward 20-minute presentation, including a Powerpoint slideshow, espousing the virtues of disc golf to the dozen or so people who comprised that decision-making body. We mentioned the tire baskets.

“Let me get this straight,” one of the Commission members begins, “You already have some temporary targets, you’re going to do all the work yourselves, and you’ll fund it, too?”

Yes, we told them. We’ll build it and we’ll raise the money to pay for it.

He looked at his fellow commission members and said, “Sounds like a no-brainer.”

We had just one little step to go.

Step Three: Building the Course
Finally the fun part

See next issue...

[ChrisMacG]

One of the most important things to do is to let the parks folks in your area know what type of land you would like for a disc golf course.

I recently spoke with a parks director for a small city on the south side of Houston about disc golf in their city and he was surprised to find out that disc golfers want to play in the woods. He'd always thought disc golf needed a big open area with a few trees. Now that he is thinking wooded areas I hope we'll be able to find some land for a nice technical course on the southeast side.

[tarazarr]

There are some very good points in the story..... One is the fundraising aspect, I think we could be/should be using our minis, leagues and memberships to fundraise for a new course. Especially in these economic times, I don't see anything happening the way we use to see things happen in the past.

What I've come to disagree with in the story is the "getting baskets in the ground as soon as possible." (while in his situation it may have helped with fundraising) The next one I do will not see any baskets until 100% of the ground work is completed. Putting them in too soon makes it a lot harder for everyone to put yours/mine/theirs bags down and work to see it through. Also with DGCR.com it's too easy for someone to come onto the course before it's completed and give it a bad rating (which IMO is just a slap in the face to the dedicated individuals building a course for the "reviewer" to play in the first place.) Some don't bother coming back and reviewing it again, so why not just wait till it's done. Like the old saying...."There is no wine, before its time"

[ERicJ]

Originally Posted by tarazarr

Also with DGCR.com it's too easy for someone to come onto the course before it's completed and give it a bad rating (which IMO is just a slap in the face to the dedicated individuals building a course for the "reviewer" to play in the first place.) Some don't bother coming back and reviewing it again, so why not just wait till it's done. Like the old saying...."There is no wine, before its time"

E-mail Tim (site owner) and tell him to remove the listing until you (course owner) want it to be listed.

[ChrisMacG]

Originally Posted by ERicJ

E-mail Tim (site owner) and tell him to remove the listing until you (course owner) want it to be listed.

Seriously? That doesn't seem very above the board. I can understand if the course has been renovated/not finished but otherwise I think that the reviews on DGCR shouldn't be pulled just because someone wishes.

[duffyskin]

Originally Posted by ChrisMacG

Seriously? That doesn't seem very above the board. I can understand if the course has been renovated/not finished but otherwise I think that the reviews on DGCR shouldn't be pulled just because someone wishes.

if your/were talking about ww then yes it does need to be removed. who the hell in their right mind would rate a course thats not done? that makes no sence at all. 0.

[tarazarr]

I personally wasn't speaking of WW.. Just a lesson I learned from WW

I was saying I didnt agree with getting baskets in the ground as soon as possible.

1. Work stops, play begins..... the biggest issue, it's hard to stop playing...I know

As far as the early reviewers...it's unfortunate ..A food critic doesn't write a review while the restaraunt is still pouring the foundation. But it does happen with DG courses.

[ERicJ]

Originally Posted by ChrisMacG

Seriously? That doesn't seem very above the board. I can understand if the course has been renovated/not finished but otherwise I think that the reviews on DGCR shouldn't be pulled just because someone wishes.

I was speaking to Scott's point that I quoted about courses being listed before they're completed.

If you own the course on your own private property then you have the right to unlist your course on DGCR. Tim supports that.

If you were to abuse that by asking Tim to pull a [completed] course just to wipe the ratings slate clean then reinstate it a month later... you would probably just incur more wrath of ratings.