New York, NY

[morgan]

I'm going to get things started in the Albany/Schenectedy/Troy/Saratoga area over the winter. This is the last gaping hole in the map of NY state in terms of Disc Golf. Nobody, but nobody, around here knows about Disc Golf. Downstate has Warwick and Mt Kisco, and going west you have two courses in Syracuse and a dozen in Buffalo/Rochester, but there is nothing in the Capital District.

I will use this topic on the message board for discussions between people I introduce to the sport, and we will all be able to monitor the growth in this area as I promote it. I have portable Mach II's I can bring around to various places to show people the sport.

Keep in mind I'm not very good at this sport yet myself so I'm hoping some skilled hands will come upstate for a fw rounds once I get things going. Don't expect any permanent courses at first, but I can set up a course anywhere with portable pole holes!!

First event, Spa Park in Saratoga!!

hey dont forget about the new kid in town FDR PARK IN YORKTOWN HEIGHTS NY (Northern Westchester county ) 9 discatchers are in the ground and the course is lookin pretty darn good!! the ICE BOWL on FEB 3rd 2001 will be the first event!!

[morgan]

Well that makes 3 courses downstate but still none up here.

I'm gonna put an ad in the paper, working on trying to get some people together. Maybe I'll start a DG club, call them the Capital Discers or something. Capital Disc Trickers. What clubs are there downstate?

Morgan and I spoke on the phone last night, I told him I'd help him start the club off. I live in Oneonta now but am moving to Troy soon. I've been a disc golfer for many years but have never joined the PDGA for one reason or another. We decided that membership in the Capital District club will require membership in the PDGA so I plan to join now.

He told me that membership in the capital disc club will be 20.00 to start off and when we get enough people together we will decided things as a group, as well as the name and stuff like that.

Anybody who reads this and wants to help start the first club in the Albany NY area, just post here and INCLUDE your email address so we can get in touch!

Not really my business but I think it a BIG mistake to make membership in your club contingent on belonging to PDGA. DOn't get me wrong. I am all for belonging to PDGA but many of the local players who would get involved with a club will not think so. I live in a place where there is an incredible groundswell of new players, many of whom are wiling to become actively locally but have no interest yet in belonging as they do not compete or travel. Why limit your local support?

Just a thought

[discette]

I must agree with disgflnpool. I just recently moved to an area where there are many disc golfers, but none of them are PDGA members. It costs $35.00 to join the PDGA. If it costs $20.00 to join your club, folks would be shelling out $55.00. I thought disc golf was basically free. Perhaps you should just charge $5.00 to become a member of the club during this first year. Then, when you get a real life Board of Directors, and a non-profit status, the board could vote on next year's fee. By not charging so much to join your club, you will get more members, which means more names to give the park people when they want to know about numbers.

If you are charging $20.00 dues to raise money, try having a weekly league date instead. Everyone pays $3.00 to play. You put $1.00 in the club, and pay out the rest to the winners. If 10 people show up every week for 52 weeks, you would raise $520.00 in the first year. I realize you don't even have a course yet, but please don't charge so much to belong to an unestablished club/league.

I tend to agree with discette about the fee. Try $10.00. It seemed to work with our club. It gives us a lot flexiability with our club. We have raised some money with handicap tournies and other events. Remember some events will profitable while others won't be. Just remember to have a good working relationship with your club members as well as the local government offical you are working with.

[morgan]

I wanted PDGA membership to be required so they get the package that come with membership, like the rule book and magazine, and general info from them, instead of asking me every dumb question, because I don't know anything. Also, I want the sport to be more uniform with the rest of the country, I don't want to see a bunch of ultimate players making their own rules about disc golf because they'll probably start saying things like rollers are illegal or making their own rules. And it looks more official to have a real worldwide organization like the PDGA with a standard set of rules.

Ultimate has the UPA with thousands of members, and ultimate players are used to worldwide organizations like that. Most of my friends are super-duper frisbee players with very high levels of skill with a disc, don't keep making it look like ultimate players are a bunch of yahoos who have never thrown a frisbee before who will be scared away by membership fees. Some of these guys are professional ultimate players.

Anyway, to offset the fee for PDGA membership, there should be no membership fee in the local club. That makes sense. But I'm stuck on PDGA membership.

George, your email at Hartwick doesn't work. Typo?

[discette]

You can buy PDGA rule books for only $2.00 each. This way you can hand one out with every membership. You can also get mini marker discs real cheap, too. The Five Seasons Flying Disc League in Cedar Rapids, IA has over 90 weekly players and probably only 30 are PDGA members, but everyone knows the Rules Of Play.

Morgan, there is a Central New York Disc Golf Club. There is a site for this club too and I think it is available off of discgolf.com but I'm not sure.

There is a small club of players around Warwick (Skylands Plastic Fondlers) and there is of course NEFA (nefa.com) and MADC (madisc.org) which are the large clubs in the north east.

I recommend asking the pDGA for an info package to help you approach parks departments.

Good luck and keep us posted. I think your initiative at this point in your disc golf addiction, er, um, career, yeah, that's what I meant, is commendable. Keep it up.

-Scott (not Stokely) Wolfe

PS There is also a contigency of players from the
Poughkeepsie area too.

[morgan]

Today I gave an eye exam to a gym teacher who says he's played "frisbee golf" before and loved it. He didn't know about "disc golf" but he told me he's seen the pole hole disc catcher chains in catalogues for gym teachers. But he'd never seen an actual golf disc so I went to the car and got all the stuff to show him. I gave him an XL to practice on and the pdga.com web site. It's up to him to teach the kids disc golf. He seemed excited!!

I aim to recruit locals in the above manner. Poughkeepsie is 100 miles away, Warwick is 150, and the Central NY Disc Golf folks are 200 miles away. I actually joined their club, but it's really too far away.

Morgan I think you should know there are disc golf courses in state parks all over NY already that just aren't listed in the PDGA course directory. They are mostly old courses of the old-fashioned pre-discatcher type so they don't qualify for the PDGA list, but they are still usable and fun to play on. No chains!! They were built decades ago for frisbee players before chain pole-holes were used. There's one in Ithaca that gets used quite a bit by Cornell students, there's one in Hamilton, one somewhere around Rome or Utica, and one down here in Oneonta. Maybe you can check this one out. It's in Gilbert Lake State Park, just take rt 205 north about 10 miles from Oneonta and look for the village of Laurens. Go through Laurens and follow the signs to the park. Go about a mile in the park and look for the sign that says "Disc Golf Course" and park your car on the road there. It's a 9 hole course and the targets are telephone poles painted white, about 8 feet tall, with red cutouts on top for the discs to land in. The tees are marked and the whole course is on just a few acres like a miniature golf course. Not much practice if you want chains, but the park is beautiful and remote and the deer outnumber the people. It isn't much but at least it's something.

Well. maybe not.

[morgan]

How long are the holes?

CNYDGA - http://home.twcny.rr.com/cnydga/cnydgaorg.html

-Scott

Mostly between 180 to 340 feet.

[morgan]

I might check out that "pole" course in Oneonta but I'd rather stay with chains. Is there any way to convince the park to get rid of those white telephone poles and replace them with chains? That would be a lot easier than convincing them to make a whole course from nothing. Does anybody use that course? Do they use frisbees or golf discs?

[morgan]

Okay I found out about the disc golf course in Oneonta at this web site:

http://nysparks.state.ny.us/cgi-bin/cgiwrap/nysparks/parks.cgi?p 17,http://nysparks.state.ny.us/cgi-bin/...ks/parks.cgi?p 17

They call it a frisbee golf course. I guess it's pretty old, I know the "frisbee golf" course at Green Lakes in Syracuse was built in 1974 and had telephone poles until recently they installed baskets, maybe this one is the same vintage.

Let's chain the place!

[morgan]

http://nysparks.state.ny.us/cgi-bin/...parks.cgi?p 17

[morgan]

I don't know why that link doesn't work from here, but if you copy and paste it into your browser it will work.

http://nysparks.state.ny.us/cgi-bin/...parks.cgi?p 17

[morgan]

George,

I checked out the Oneonta course today. It's worth checking it out but it needs chains (after playing with chains these poles look old fashioned). The holes are shorter than most PDGA with some over 300 feet but some under 200 and one is only 140 feet! All the holes are marked for distance and par. This quaint old course looks well maintained, but it was muddy because of the rain but I did all 9 holes, finished with 1 under par according to the signs posted they are all par 3, 4 or 5. I think I'll go back some time when it's not raining. It's a gorgeous park and it looks like somebody put some effort into this course, but it sure ain't no PDGA course!! I think it was designed with campers in mind, for the kids. I get the feeling that anybody who plays it probably uses frisbees.

[morgan]

Somebody told me there was another disc golf coure in Bainsbridge. Where is that?

George? You know anything?

Bainbridge (no s) is near Binghamton, don't know if there's a course there.

I'm in Troy now, just got the phone line today. Anybody want to meet for some disc sometime, Morgan do you still have your portables? Dan Rice are you around? I'd like to check out your course in Glens Falls.

I'm going to be in Saratoga after Thanksgiving, if anybody wants to meet for disc golf, I'd like to arrange a meeting here. On Sunday at 2 PM anybody who wants to play meet me in the park at the icket boothe for SPAC. It's the ticket booth in the big parking lot on the route 50 entrance where everybody parks for SPAC. I'm not familiar enough with the park for anything else. Morgan has given me the word that he will be there with chains.

Sunday at 2, ticket booth in the big parking lot. Bring golf discs and we'll know you're in our posse!!

[morgan]

I don't know how it can be 28 degrees and raining. Let's wait until spring for any formal meetings.

What's up George? Anybody going? I'm not.

Well, here's my 2 cents. My pals and I have routed an 18 hole course through Crandall Park in Glens Falls, NY. We're throwing at barbecues and trees. We haven't marked the course for fear of reprisal from the parks dept. I'm thinking about marking it with ribbons or something.

I too have been speaking with Morgan. Reading this message board, I must agree with most of the others that $55 is a very restrictive membership fee. The people I play with would be hard pressed to part with even $5. The rulebook can be photocopied. If it's sheer force of the membership roster that will get the attention of the parks dept, then the club must be as inclusive as possible, at least until the club is established e.g. having an actual course.

I can play during the week at 10am, if anyone wants to brave the weather, I'll show you Crandall.

[morgan]

Friday at 10, I'll be there, Crandal Park in the parking lot. You'll know me by my chains. Look for the chains and I'll look for your golf discs.

[morgan]

For anybody who reads this message and lives in the Quad Cities of New York (Albany- Schenectedy -Troy- Glens Falls), there is a fantastic course laid out in Crandal Park in Glens Falls. Lots of open fairways, good greens, tricky tree shots, doglegs, everything. Most holes are between 300 and 500 feet. It has everything you need for a world class disc golf course except the official stuff like chains, tee boxes, signs, etc. Dan, Mike, Cindy and I played it today with my portable chains, it's a great park and a teriffic, challanging course, equal to any I've seen so far, even Warwick, NY.

Dan, I went back after you guys all left and measured with my wheel, the hole in question was 420 feet and my side arm roller went 330 feet.

What I can do is get a map of Crandal Park from the city and draw out the holes on it for people who aren't familiar with the park (me), I can measure the holes with my wheel, document everything. I see no reason why we can't make that the regular course for this new club that I'm trying to start. What do you say?

I was thinking about Spa Park in Saratoga but it's too crowded with rich tourists types, especially in the summer.

I live in Pittstown, how can I hook up with you guys for a disc golf league in the area? Where do you guys usually play. When do you meet. I'd like a regular thing someplace, like weekly. Where can I buy golf discs?

[morgan]

YOu have to buy discs on the internet, no stores carry them around here. Try www.cheapfrisbees.com or many others. No weekly meetings until spring.

[morgan]

I went to Green Lakes State Park today in Syracuse to check out the course. When I went into the park office to get a map, the guy working there was a NY Park Ranger answering questions. I told him I knew of the other state park disc golf course in Oneonta and asked him if he knew of any others in the State Park system. He said he didn't know of any others but said the State was considering putting one in Saratoga!!!!!!!!!!!!

I said Spa Park and he said yes!!!!!!!!!!