We have a new 9-hole course nearing installation in a city park. A question has come up about adequate parking at the park to handle the disc golf traffic. Are there any estimates available for the number of players a course can be expected to generate per hour/day/week? This will be a 1,900-ft. 9-hole course in a (currently) low-use park.

Is there a local club in the area? You might try asking there if they have a website. I think it really comes down to where the park is. In my area there is just one course on the east side of town and several around 15-20 miles away on the west side. The east side course is almost always fairly crowded at peak times and the west side courses, which are a bit more rural, usually aren't too busy and it's not unusual to have the course to yourself out there once in a while.

Obviously that won't help you gauge accurate numbers but if it's near a busy street or there is a decent size population in close proximity and other courses are a good distance away then I'd guess that the course might be fairly popular.

The concern is parking, so number of visitors per day or per week doesn't really matter. What matters is how many people will be there at any one time.

A 9-hole course can only hold so many people. If 5 people are playing each hole, that's only 45 people. Actually, a course would never get that crowded, unless a tournament is going on. The delays on a course that full will tend to drive a lot of players away.

For comparison, 6 picnic tables could also attract 45 people at a time.

It's been my observation that disc golfers tend to show up with more than one person per car. But, you can say that at the extreme, you would never need room for more than 45 cars, even if someone runs a tournament and everyone drives themselves.

That will sound a lot less frightening than saying there will be 100 or 1,000 players per week, or whatever number you come up with

Point out that many players will be kids who are not old enough to drive, so they won't be parking. People will approve anything if it's "for the children".

Is there any kind of public transit available? Would players use it? Are there bike trails that people would use? These will reduce the need for parking.

Go find a good place for cars to park, and make sure you locate hole 1 there. Then, figure out where the overflow would park. Sometimes the difference between a course being allowed or pulled is which side of the park the cars are parked.

Frankly, if you can't find a good place for a bunch of cars to park, reconsider installing the course until a solution can be found. One of the most fundamental rules of any kind of development is to make sure there is enough parking. It's the developer's (city's) responsibility to find or create parking. Building a parking lot might just be part of the cost of installing the course.

But, as was pointed out, popularity mostly depends on where the course is. Where is it?

The course is in San Marcos, CA, north San Diego County. It will be a short 9-holer, the first course in town. the only other courses within 30 miles are Morley Field in San Diego (30 miles), Emerald Isle (Fly18, 12 miles away) and Sun Valley (also ball golf) in La Mesa (30+ miles away). Neeedless to say,there's not much of a local player base.

The park is off the beaten path. It is a small neighborhood park (6-7 acres) built on a power line easement. The only other facilities on the site are a dog park, 1/2 court basketball court, and three picnic tables. There are about 40 parking spaces.

I agree with about all of your points, Steve. I described usage in people/hour, as parking is the big issue here. I estimated 10-12 per hour on weekday afternoons and 20-25 on weekends, 35-40 maximum (because of limited number of holes).

I put the location into my popularity formula. Based on the size and location of all the courses within 150 miles, and the population and location of the nearest 3600 census tracts, I'd estimate 1,439 players per week. This is about twice your estimate, I think.

However, my estimate is based on the popularity of disc golf around Minneapolis, which has the highest concentration of disc golf courses in the universe. Since, as you said, there aren't a lot of courses around San Marcos, it's likely there aren't as many players per 1000 of population.

So, my calculations roughly support your estimate.

If there were any data about number of players for any of the courses around there, I could refine my estimate.

Well I don't know what the actual numbers are, but I've heard that Morley Field is the most heavily played course in the world.

Its to the point where, to use a Yogi Berraism: "Nobody goes there anymore, its too crowded..."

Saturdays and Sundays the course is full with 3-4 groups waiting on the first tee...

Wow.. that's crazy, a round there must take like 3 hours. On the flip side, the course does look nice but a crowd like that would definitely make me think twice about playing a round there.

My formulas tell me that San Marcos will get about one-fourth as many players as Morley Field.

Of those players, about 10% will be drawn away from Morley Field.

This will reduce the crowds at Morley Field by 2.5%.

Wow.. that's crazy, a round there must take like 3 hours. On the flip side, the course does look nice but a crowd like that would definitely make me think twice about playing a round there.



More like 2 1/2 hours on the weekend afternoons.

Just play it weekdays or pretty early on the weekend when a monthly isn't happening.

Well I'm across the country so I probably won't be playing anytime soon. 2.5 hours on weekday afternoons.. wow, that place does draw a crowd. It makes the local crowdy course here sound practically empty :)

On any given weekend a round at Morley takes longer than 3 hours. It take about 30 mins to tee off on the first hole and the course has 19 holes. I would say that it can take close to 4 hours to play a round.

In Orangevale Ca a round takes over 3.5 hours on the weekends.

That is bordering on ball golf round times. I guess there are a lot of patient people in CA :)