I think the best way to grow the sport is to make courses. This is not to take away from all the tournament directors out there that go above and beyond.

But making courses, once you've had ten years or so to reflect on courses built, makes the most impact.

Big tournaments and hero-building has it's place, but let's consider how unsaturated the sport is in terms of courses and compared to regular golf, the great game we steal the fundamentals from.

Still, disc golf is different from every other sport. Disc golf is the perfect excuse to make an underused, rough patch of land (preferably more than 20 acres for 18 holes) into a beautiful park.
Recreation? THIS is recreation. Way better than horse shoes. You get to walk AND swear. Plus if you've got the frisbee gene and too old for interval training, disc golf was invented and, often, waiting for years just for you to discover it.

Not infrequently do newcomers, after their first round, come in all wide eyed to the pro shop, going, "This is THE GREATEST GAME!."

If I took my sweat of all the hours of disc golf course hard labor and bottled it there'd be a few cases and it'd be pretty gross, but perhaps the elixir of life, with an alcohol kicker.

Where were we?

I'm dreaming of a course in Worcester, Massachusetts. It's the honeymoon phase of just talk before anything but walking around happens. But, man, a course in Worcester Proper. It's the climb the rope in gym class tingle cause this is absolutely THE thing to do next.

You're very right Jason, and entertaining as always. Go get a bunch of fellow crazies and build it. You will have blessed many yet again.

Always entertaining and I'd have to agree on this one.

I'll give this post a big, "that depends".

I've been to many courses whose existence I believe hurts the sport more than it helps. For example, I attend the University of Central Florida. There was an old course that played a significant part in the historical development of Florida disc golf. Multiple world champions had competed there, many had positive things to say about it, and it was conveniently located for thousands of college students and fairly beginner-friendly.

Unfortunately, though, the course was damaged in the multiple hurricanes a few years back and never brought back into repair. It appears the University decided to let it die a slow death and the reason is now becoming apparent as they are developing the land for other purposes.

The powers that be decided that they wanted to keep the tradition of disc golf on campus by installing a new course on another part of campus. Unfortunately, the land they selected IS NOT suited for a disc golf course, particularly for the backpack and sandals demographic for which it was intended.

In summary, the course shares property with an area under the management of the UCF environmental center and is slated for a natural state revitalization. The "fairways" are nature trails. The ROUGH is dense, tall, saw-palmettos. Many of the holes have blind or semi-blind throws across "Lakes" of saw-palm with tiny clearings around the basket. There is a great likelihood of losing plastic (even for advanced players) and escaping a round without literally giving blood rarely happens. To add insult to injury, holes 16 & 17 have water on the left for the length of the hole and hole 18 has an excessively long carry over water for the intended user. So, if you haven't lost all your plastic in the jungle, you'll probably lose it in the water on one of the last three holes.

This all assumes that you've been able to navigate the course without adequate directional signs.

It's not just a matter of the course needing to be "beat in", as the environmental center has forbidden any future clearing.

When the course first opened last year, it received a bit of initial play. Now there are 18 brand-new discatchers that sit idle. If it were just a matter of lack of promotion, I'd happily assume that role. As it is, however, in all honestly I've got to recommend that no-one, except the hard-core gotta-play-'em-all types (Ben Calhoun, when you get down here I'll gladly walk the course with you and spot on all your throws, but I won't risk losing any of my discs!) bother with it.

Also, I did have the "pleasure" one day of looking for a disc and being surprised to have a guy in camo jump out of the bushes with a rifle pointed at me. Seems that ROTC uses the course for training exercises.

I'm sure this seems like a rant, but I want to emphasize the importance of quality site selection, design, installation and promotion necessary for new courses to contribute to making our sport better.

I'm a member of the course design group and have put forth the idea with the group that basket manufacturers should deny shipment of baskets for new courses until the design has been signed off by someone with some sort of design group credential that comes as the result of an apprentice program. (Obviously, some number of designers would have to be grandfathered in.) This idea has been met with resistance from the manufacturers and some prominent members of the design group. I still stand by it. I guess I'm just a maverick. ;) Goll diggity Denny there you go again.

To see my course reviews, check out this link. Courses in the 0-1 rating category do more harm to the sport than good. IMO.

http://www.dgcoursereview.com/profile.php?mode=upd

Denny,

Your actual profile URL is: http://www.dgcoursereview.com/profile.php?id=799

The one you posted is just the link for people to update their own profiles :)

Denny, you are spot on about the historical significance of the UCF course. When it first went in, the road out front was a two lane country road. Now it is a urban 4 lane.
I have heard about the terrible location in the back of campus.
Suggest you try to contact Marshall Scribner. He may still be on the UCF Staff. He and Steve Slasor are good friends. Maybe talk to the SGA about relocating the course.
As far as trying to hold back sales until the location has been approved ???? There are lot's of private courses out there that most players never see. There are lot's of other reasons that would not stop a sale. If you have been in "Sales", you would understand.
Regardless of all that, your heart is in the right place. That course should be re located on a more player friendly part of campus, or donated to a local park with a proper setting.
The U. of Alabama actually paid for 9 holes to go in a public park in town, not on campus, so students would have a course nearby. Good Luck.

I remember the old UCF course when it was first installed with those "fantastic" plastic-chained baskets. It was a fun play and was significant in that it was probably the first permanent basket course on a college campus in Florida. Sorry to hear that it went into disrepair.

Belvedere is right, you'll never stop salesman from making a sale if they can. Bad design can frustrate you if you see the potential for something better, but I disagree that it's better to not have baskets at all. At least the baskets are there - maybe you or someone else (Marshall Scribner was integral to the initial installation) can convince the campus to make some simple changes to the design. Sometimes a few small changes are all that is necessary.

Not all courses will be championship-caliber. But as long as they are playable and have tee signs, baskets in repair and someone who gives them some TLC they are worthwhile for recreation and introducing new players to the game.

And please, don't bring Jason down from his high - we need all the enthusiasm (and interesting posts) that we can get.

University of Central Florida? Strange that this comes up on this thread, and it seemed strange to me that I knew and had played the course, since when I lived in Florida � having spent my freshman, sophmore and senior years at Rollins College in fashionable Winter Park near Orlando � I played Ultimate and Freestyle and disc golf with the usual Wham-O array of 165, 141 and 119. Graduated in 1982.

Didn�t see a real golf disc till 1983, though the numbered moonlighter heavy lids that passed for frisbee golf discs were around for the earliest disc golfing fools.

And then I remember making a trip down south to an Ultimate tournament on some polo grounds, and making a point of playing disc golf.

We played the boring UCF course in the early 1990s on one flat, mono-tonal piece of land populated by palms, many of which had just blown down to make the course even more boring? Lot of holes out of deuce range at 360-something, a couple longer, a couple shorter. And of course a few birdie holes. But nothing special.

As for a bad course is worse than no course I disagree, though I am entirely aggravated at any course that�s stoopid, even if it�s just stoopid in places.

You gotta get that myopic expert thing going. And when the design or improvement team reaches an impasse as far as being one happy family about where the pin or where the tee should go, it helps to be there and holding a chainsaw, one that idles slowly with that buhbuhbuh so you can rev it � zrinngngngngng � periodically, as if you�re just interested in keeping it running.

If you DO decide to wave it around at emotional moments like the ending of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre during the design debate, you at least have to cover with some feeble excuse, �Does this saw sound to YOU like it�s sputtering? Hey, who mixed this gas?�

Ah the nuances of course creation. Man I gotta get back to that most special of places; all this real work is killing me.

The whole reason I started this thread was to mention that the PDGA should find a way to fund a work crew that goes to places to create courses or to go to places, like Louisiana, for example, to fix ravaged courses.

Would anyone like to once again see my list of what an elite disc golf work crew needs in terms of equipment and personnel?

We already have the chainsaws and the splitter, but made a bad mistake years ago and purchased a wimpy DR chipper. You can't call yourself an elite disc golf work crew without a powerful chipper.

See, Massachusetts is sorta near Maine, which for all practical purposes and maybe literally has only pay-to-play courses, a whole bunch of them, many of them emanating directly from Dave, and, more prolifically, Brother Bob Enman, who has his critics but has probably been the most influential and productive disc golf promoter in all of New England the past decade. Big claims, and surely this is all just one person's opinion.

With Bob, however, he manages, amazingly, to retain a high ratio of people who hate his guts to courses he, of all people, is most responsible for creating.

Dave is the guy who MADE the courses, with a chainsaw and a team of studs dragging and splitting and chipping it all back into the fairway. Grass low and branches high to keep the ticks from multiplying, plus you can find your disc, and a spongy cushion of woodchips around tees and pins and on fairways.

For the perfect Maine model, play one or both or all three courses at Sabattus, Maine. Pretty much the best tee pads in Maine, and I attribute part of that to our constant biching over 10 years. Dave Enman helped design and create, with Peter Ruby, the owner, both the Hawk and the Eagle, and Kelley and I played both in one day.

So my list of equipment and personnel needed to create a fairly ideal disc golf course? All the stuff Dave Enman showed Kelley and me at Sabattus about three years ago.

This is boring I'll just do it the PDGA will never do it. Big huge baby steps. Like duh. Why would you build courses if you want to promote the -- incredibly unsaturated -- sport?

So who wants to fight? That's the question and who's big enough to step up with an answer? Bring it bring it bring it.

which DR chipper model? i was thinking of getting one of them, the 5 1/2 incher

The whole reason I started this thread was to mention that the PDGA should find a way to fund a work crew that goes to places to create courses or to go to places, like Louisiana, for example, to fix ravaged courses.



Sounds like a cable show called "This Old Course" in the making!

Who'd play the host? My vote is for Burl

We've got the one that supposedly takes branches up to four-inches in diameter Pat. After about a year, that's about three inches.

And Dave Enman said straight-up don't put big hardwood into a chipper, and he's got an 8 or 10 incher.

Wait!

Anyway, I got a book to write about wood chippers.

As for "This Old Course," I'm this stoopid Denny. I didn't get that until just a little while ago. But in this age of instant video and audio access, that would be one way to fund the elite crew, with a webcam paid for by sponsors/subscribers, who follow the videography. Just keep the video running, and have a play-back feature to see who cut down the tree everyone was arguing about.

You should see if the DR company will sponsor the crew and cleanup efforts.

Congrats Jason Southwick and Rick Miller

http://www.telegram.com/article/20090601/NEWS/906010344/1101

Non current member still growing the sport.

The pDGA will take credit for this, no doubt.

steve timm

Was that last sentence really necessary to your post?

I'd expect nothing less from him.

Was that last sentence really necessary to your post?

Bill, should I just give you my password?
You can then edit my posts to your liking.
Wait, is proposing such a rules-breaking
idea enough to get probed?

I have actually seen a thread where
Chuck Kennedy gives the pDGA credit
for every course installed over the years.

Mike, wouldn't want to disappoint your
low expectations of me.

We must all drink the cool aid and
say nice things or the $pon$or$, $pectator$
and network TV coverage will never materialize.

s timm

Considering that Steady Ed invented the basket and created the PDGA which produces the rules, competition guidelines, technical standards, publicity, etc., it's not a stretch that all new disc golf activity owes a portion of its success to the existence of the PDGA.

I think the best way to grow the sport is to make courses. This is not to take away from all the tournament directors out there that go above and beyond.

But making courses, once you've had ten years or so to reflect on courses built, makes the most impact.I think the best way to grow the sport is to introduce the sport to dozens of kids by doing demonstrations and learn-to-play events for Cub Scouts, Girl Scouts, and similar organizations, and by providing public schools with baskets and discs. I think building courses is a close second. Third would be selling discs at little or no profit so the one-disc casual players will have a second disc for a friend to use.

Running tournaments is not about building the sport in my view. Running tournaments is about enjoying [or profiting from] the part of the sport that is already built.

I've done all that stuff. Probably the equipment I've sold at cost to public schools and donated to church camps has had the most sport-building impact.

But I'm all for building courses, public or private, good or not-so-good. A dumb little course like Baycourt or Willow Stream introduces disc golf to hundreds of new players every year, and when they are ready they discover more challenging courses. A stupid little course like Squirrel (Auburn Hills) gives me a place to practice on nine baskets I don't have to share.

Bill, should I just give you my password?
You can then edit my posts to your liking.
Wait, is proposing such a rules-breaking
idea enough to get probed?

I have actually seen a thread where
Chuck Kennedy gives the pDGA credit
for every course installed over the years.

Mike, wouldn't want to disappoint your
low expectations of me.

We must all drink the cool aid and
say nice things or the $pon$or$, $pectator$
and network TV coverage will never materialize.

s timm

Have you had some negative experiences with the PDGA?


Get in line.


Get over it.


Get back on board.

I think the best way to grow the sport is to introduce the sport to dozens of kids by doing demonstrations and learn-to-play events for Cub Scouts, Girl Scouts, and similar organizations, and by providing public schools with baskets and discs.

Is it okay to chug beer and smoke pot in such a setting?

I agree that introducing children to the sport is the key to real growth, but you can't ignore the heritage of disc golf that actively keeps children away from our disc golf courses.

There's a big picture with lots of elements that combine to thwart our growth. Heritage activity and club in-fighting have to also be addressed in order to move forward, but they are rarely talked about in an adult manner with an eye towards improving things. Usually just fightin' words about those topics until we shift to complaining about "the PDGA".