How many courses in the world have legitimate, permanent water hazards - where losing your disc in the water is a real risk year-round? Or, since that is probably hard to determine, can you make an educated guess as to what % of courses have water hazards? Not including courses with small/shallow water hazards where you can get your disc back easily.

I'm hoping some of you who have played 100+ courses can chime in with an educated guess.

As a side question, do you think water hazards are a good thing in disc golf?

Thanks!!!

843

In South Carolina, I can think of 6 of the 52 courses. Perhaps there's another one or two that I'm missing. Though Trophy Lakes should count double. I'd guess, around here, about 15% of courses.

Disc-loseable water hazards are a good thing---on the right courses. You wouldn't necessarily want them on courses designed for or catering to beginners, but they add an extra element on courses geared toward better players.

Nice Bill !! But due to global warming, I'm thinking that 2 of those 843 have just dried up so you'll have to reassess.

Hard to say (in answering the original question) for the following reasons:
1. What is 'perminent' to one is not so 'perminent' to another.
2. 'getting your disc back' is a relative state; how much effort do you want to expend?
3. 'year-round'...does that exclude ice that can be walked on for part of the year?

In general, I'd say somewhere around 15%-20% of courses I've played have such (have played about 150 courses).

Karl

In Minnesota, we go from maybe 15 courses (out of 150) to 0 this time of year...

That's funny. Here it's the opposite. In August I could retrieve discs in swimmable ponds up to about 8' deep. Now, anything more than 6 inches is a bit too cold.

Boy, we're killing this poor guys thread .

Taking it 1 step further, a few years ago Greenwood Lake (Buzzy's Creek dgc) was drained 6 - 8 feet. From what I've been told, a local dg'er went there to "see what discs are now visible" and lo and behold he saw a red disc (that WAS his - he had thrown it in earlier in the year) 1/3rd exposed and 2/3rds buried in the mud. Except it wasn't "mud" any more, it was concrete (dried out former mud). He was NOT able to get his disc out of it!!

Karl

Ya mean EVERYONE doesn't carry a jackhammer in the trunk of their car?

All three of the courses I play regularly here in So Cal have water hazards. That is just a coincidence though. The most exciting holes at both Yucaipa and Prado, where I play, are water holes. Some of the discs can be retrieved at Yucaipa, practically none at Prado. Both are popular courses.

Five out of six courses have some water in the Corpus Christi area. All retrievable to some extent. Waist deep murky water.

It depends on the region of the country. In the Mid-Atlantic and northeast U.S., I've found there are fewer courses with water hazards. And more often that not, the water hazards are narrow creeks running besides or across holes. These creeks are almost always slow flowing and shallow unless there's been a recent rain storm or snow melt; it's usually clear water and quite easy and safe to retrieve a disc - there are no dangerous creatures and it just depends on how wet you want to get!

Also, I've been getting involved with course design more lately, and the parks departments in charge in Pennsylvania seem to be very reluctant to have holes which throw over ponds. However, I travel to Kansas often for work and it always impresses me how just about every course I've played there with ponds have holes which throw across them.

When I've traveled for work to the south (Houston Texas and Baton Rouge Louisiana) the water hazards are much more foreboding. While the water hazards are usually not significantly bigger, the water is almost ALWAYS extremely murky, and I'm always concerned about poisonous cottonmouth water moccasins, snapping turtles (such as the alligator snapping turtle found in that area of the country), and other dangerous creatures which I'm not as familiar with lying in there. I've left an old disc in a 6-inch deep 2-foot wide water hazard because I wasn't about to stick my hand in there to grope around for it.

75% or more of the course I have played in Texas and Louisiana (upwards of 50 courses)have some form of water, be it lake, pond, stream, drainage, swamp, etc. Most of the time, the disc is retrievable, although you may not want to go in after it, for the reasons mentioned above. Playing in these parts, you come to expect water on a disc golf course.

The original post was to irretrievable water hazards. In South Carolina, the percentage with some kind of water hazard would push to perhaps 80%.

It's about 15% with ponds and lakes, but add in swamps and it jumps a bit. There are a few courses where you throw near or over swamps that are like water hazards, only worse. In a lake, you know your disc is lost. In the swamp, you think you just might find it, and are foolish enough to try.

Then there's Chuck's design at the IDGC, which had a few cool water hazards until the lake retreated a few hundred feet in the drought. You'd make a bad throw and think, "That would be a goner if there was a lake here". Perhaps the shore has returned with the rains of December.

I've heard the water has come back almost all of the way. But I think Jason will go out and get your discs in there (hope he's not reading this :))

Thanks for the info and opinions everyone! So, there are maybe 300-400 courses in the world with water hazards (as I tried to define a water hazard above)?

I scanned through my list of courses played and find about 21 out of 106 with such hazards---lakes, ponds, or deep dirty canals where you're likely to lose a disc, and forced to throw over or fairly near. A few more where really really bad throws can wander into water. For whatever that's worth.

Florida sort of pumped up the total a bit. Florida has lots of water, and the courses I've played aren't shy about using it.

Here are some word counts from the descriptions in the directory (as of 05/2009):

Water: 390
Water Tower: 8
Water Hazard: 114
Pond, Creek, Stream, Canal or Brook: 421
Lake: 216
Over: 210
Throw Over: 7

So, yeah, maybe 400.