Surviving the 'Chuckers' Stereotype

[Danger]

^I totally agree with you. As I said in my post, I think a ton of people are just perpetuating our stereotype verbally and are not even noticing that many of the 'new generation' disc golfers are totally respecting the course even if they are not all that great. Hell, I am not all that great and I'm sure I come off as a chucker, but meanwhile, I have gotten people to stop littering their cig butts. Its not much but I watch old timers throw their butts on the ground all the time. In the end, I just think they just wish everybody would die so they can have the course to themselves again. Or something like that.

I know that there are people that don't respect the rules, I am not blind. But figures like '75%"' and 'everyone' are totally false. Are you the same person that used to walk uphill in the snow both ways to school every day, including Saturday?

 

[Cygnus]

Are you the same person that used to walk uphill in the snow both ways to school every day, including Saturday?

My grandpa used to that, with no shoes either.

 

[yearofrolling]

I'm a little confused about what we're surviving?
I like the vibe, just don't get the title.

 

[DSmith]

I think SuperB's mistake was setting a percentage to the "Chucker" crowd. It varies on where you live. You guys can't take that number literally.
Here in Lexington it's pretty high (no offense to the casual pot smoker crowd) due to a large college and the high school crowd looking up to the college kids.
I have actually spent a hella lot more time sitting and watching and observing human behavior on our courses(yes not playing or working but hanging out at the course) so I can claim I know what I'm talking about. I have had to do a report for the city on traffic on the courses and usage (so I could get more courses installed) so I know all about what percentages actually are serious and who are "chuckers" but I'm not gonna post up percentages cause like I said that's regionally inaccurate.

I'll just say that we, the players that give a crap and are pro active are the minority.


And yea I used to smoke weed so I know about the mentality about it so lets not turn this into a us verses them discussion. If you smoked weed and taken a break from it, you know there's no good way to be "discrete" about it.

 

[DSmith]

I'm a little confused about what we're surviving?
I like the vibe, just don't get the title.

The bad stereo types perceived by Joe Public

When the majority on disc golfers act like this in your area, it's not good for disc golf in general.

 

[RP McMurphy]

The few times I played back '99, there was alcohol and 420 around every time (Houston, Woodlands course). Didn't bother me but I don't drink the booze at all and keep the other at home.

Picked up a beer can yesterday (my first game in over decade) and someone thanked me from their apartment balcony. Felt pretty good about that.

 

[superberry]

Not everyone who smokes weed or drinks is a loud mouth, litter pig a-hole chucker, who wants unwarented attention or wishes to destroy the enviornment. If this is 75% of our players, you are in the minority and may wish to choose a different pastime!

I didn't say anything specifically to categorize smokers and drinkers in with chuckers. I drink alomst every round on the course, but I pack out my trash. If you are one who leaves beer cans and cig butts all over the course, then you are a chucker, and you are 75% of people out on all courses because our courses are dominated by casual playing chuckers.

Chuckers may drink and smoke, but to be a chucker, you have to be obnoxious, blatantly disrespectful, a vandal, litterer, etc. If you don't know when you "see" a chucker, you (not specifically 'you' thrembo) may well be a chucker. Non-chuckers know chuckers when they see it.

 

[ZBoazMobster]

(my first game in over decade)

Welcome back! And welcome to DGCR!

 

[superberry]

Being a chucker has ABSOLUTELY no correlation to how well you play. It related to how much of a d-bag you are on the course. They're the people who break trees, tear out tee signs, uproot rubber mats, litter, kick over gabage cans that are meant for the litter, try to bend or break or otherwise climb on and destroy baskets, smash glass bottles, etc, etc (I really could go on and on). Of course I may exaggerate the percentage because I'm pissed about it, have been seeing it way too much lately with the newfound popularity of the excellent course. Seeing ANY percentage of chuckers on a course is something I don't understand. Like someone else put it "why piss where you play"?! The course gets great reviews and ratings, so it gets popular and word of mouth spreads, the chuckers come and flat out disrespect it. I've always found it hard to understand how an empty beer can is so hard to crush and carry out?!?!?!? It takes up less space and weight after you're done! Why would you try to break a basket or tear out a tee sign for a disc golf course that you CHOSE TO PLAY?!

I live in a SMALL community and I see far too many people like this on the course - a course that I built almost completely by hand mind you, and my family maintains on regular basis (mowing ACRES of land, collecting garbage and taking it to our home to recycle, cutting up all the fallen trees, clearing up fairways of winter and storm debris, refinishing the crushed stone tee pads on a regular basis, spraying and erradicating lots of poison ivy, and just about everything and anything related to the course. When I then have to take additional time out of my personal life (married with kids and a profeesional career) to fix things that disrespectful, useless, and worthless morons have wrecked, it bugs me. And when I can find time to get out and enjoy a leisurely round, I still spend my time cleaning garbage and fixing things. This is very small town with not many local golfers. The largest cities are 30-40 miles away. This means that those who come to play here are people who have had to make a conscious decision to make a long drive out here. So, it baffles me that people who litter, disrespect, and destroy something that they chose to do, and possibly love to do. Those people are chuckers, the ones whose actions baffle the real disc golfers.

Understand my unique perspective as a course designer and one of TWO people who do ALL the maintenance and upkeep for the course with occasional help from a few great friends. Based on my experiences and my definition - I HATE CHUCKERS.

I am "disc golfer", unfortunately chuckers have forced me into a stereotype which is bad.

 

[bholy08]

^come to south mississippi! thankfully no such stereotype and has a very family friendly feel! of course litter is a problem everywhere but for the most part isn't an issue

 

[superberry]

I WELCOME hearing the individual and localized stories about how disc golfers have made a positive change on a community and where communities truly embrace disc golf.

This isn't just a social group to complain, I want to hear about successes and find solutions to the problems.

 

[thrembo]

Being a chucker has ABSOLUTELY no correlation to how well you play. It related to how much of a d-bag you are on the course. They're the people who break trees, tear out tee signs, uproot rubber mats, litter, kick over gabage cans that are meant for the litter, try to bend or break or otherwise climb on and destroy baskets, smash glass bottles, etc, etc (I really could go on and on). Of course I may exaggerate the percentage because I'm pissed about it, have been seeing it way too much lately with the newfound popularity of the excellent course. Seeing ANY percentage of chuckers on a course is something I don't understand. Like someone else put it "why piss where you play"?! The course gets great reviews and ratings, so it gets popular and word of mouth spreads, the chuckers come and flat out disrespect it. I've always found it hard to understand how an empty beer can is so hard to crush and carry out?!?!?!? It takes up less space and weight after you're done! Why would you try to break a basket or tear out a tee sign for a disc golf course that you CHOSE TO PLAY?!

I live in a SMALL community and I see far too many people like this on the course - a course that I built almost completely by hand mind you, and my family maintains on regular basis (mowing ACRES of land, collecting garbage and taking it to our home to recycle, cutting up all the fallen trees, clearing up fairways of winter and storm debris, refinishing the crushed stone tee pads on a regular basis, spraying and erradicating lots of poison ivy, and just about everything and anything related to the course. When I then have to take additional time out of my personal life (married with kids and a profeesional career) to fix things that disrespectful, useless, and worthless morons have wrecked, it bugs me. And when I can find time to get out and enjoy a leisurely round, I still spend my time cleaning garbage and fixing things. This is very small town with not many local golfers. The largest cities are 30-40 miles away. This means that those who come to play here are people who have had to make a conscious decision to make a long drive out here. So, it baffles me that people who litter, disrespect, and destroy something that they chose to do, and possibly love to do. Those people are chuckers, the ones whose actions baffle the real disc golfers.

Understand my unique perspective as a course designer and one of TWO people who do ALL the maintenance and upkeep for the course with occasional help from a few great friends. Based on my experiences and my definition - I HATE CHUCKERS.

I am "disc golfer", unfortunately chuckers have forced me into a stereotype which is bad.

Thanks for the clarifications, I don't smoke cigs, or drink on the course and would not fit into your definition of a chucker! So we are in agreement then, I just think you might want to call the losers something other than chuckers, like just d-bags, a-holes or something!

 

[DSmith]

The sad thing is that in reality the removal of courses wont effect these people. They'll just go find some other activity to muck up. :wall:

Here's some incites on their behavior;

Littering - Someone else will pick it up. That's why they pay taxes.
and of course just being drunk/ high and forgetting and or not caring about throwing out their trash. I've see empty bottles next to trash cans. I mean really?

Vandalism - Getting high / drunk and getting mad because they suck at disc golf so they smash or break the nearest thing. It's a convenience thing. Until disc golfers actually start policing each other its going to continue. Sorry I know some of you feel like a hypocrite calling the cops on someone who's drinking and smoking weed at the park and breaking stuff but it's the only way to stop it. That's what the Po Po is there for.
Writing on tee signs? Same thing it's a convenience thing and they learn that behavior from their friends. Play a round with them and if you aren't a douche yourself maybe they'll begin to respect you more than their idiot friends and stop the idiot behavior. Just a thought.

Remember these are the future doctors and leaders of our culture.

I have so many stories, like the kids who think its funny to take a dump on the tee pads or benches or the couple who thought it would be cute to put their dogs paw prints into freshly poured tee pads.
But I don't want to bore you any more and I need to go out and enjoy the hot weather and play some doubles.

 

[bthoma1]

^come to south mississippi! thankfully no such stereotype and has a very family friendly feel! of course litter is a problem everywhere but for the most part isn't an issue

Litter is not a problem everywhere. I know there are a lot of people on here who have played more courses than I. Having said that of the courses I have played the majority of them are litter free.

 

[compn]

thats sad about the park guys complaining about trash/litter. you can go anywhere in the park and find trash cans knocked over and litter. its just the course probably gets 10x traffic that the jogging trail gets. and since the courses are generally well designed, the can collectors can hit a few trash cans close to the parking lot vs the jogging trails with cans spread out every mile.

its not about bad disc golfers vs good disc golfers. its just a percentage of the population will litter/vandalize. racoons will knock over cans to get to the good food. douchebag can collectors will knock over trash cans to collect refurnables.

are you guys playing free courses or pay-to-play courses? i've found that pay-to-play courses generally have less litter / vandalization than the free courses. courses next to houses / subdivisions are more trashed than courses in county/state parks.

Until disc golfers actually start policing each other its going to continue. Sorry I know some of you feel like a hypocrite calling the cops on someone who's drinking and smoking weed at the park and breaking stuff but it's the only way to stop it.

you'd call the cops on someone drinking beer?

 

[bholy08]

Litter is not a problem everywhere. I know there are a lot of people on here who have played more courses than I. Having said that of the courses I have played the majority of them are litter free.

I meant litter amongst the general public...was not referring to dg courses specifically. Unless you live in Singapore litterers will be an issue at some point

 

[sloppydisc]

I don't smoke at all and very rarely drink during a round. But I have played with smokers and drinkers at many courses. I have never seen anyone leave garbage or throw their butts on the ground. I guess we're just more polite down here. Lucky for us. Then again, I do avoid a couple local courses that I suspect have more of 'those' types. My only thought is that you aren't going to change their behavior on the course. You can't fix stupid. Especially in that setting. Just give them a dirty look, shake your fist, clean up the mess, and move on.

 

[Cygnus]

Just give them a dirty look, shake your fist, clean up the mess, and move on.

Agreed, its just a matter of the people who care taking the higher road and doing whats "right"

People are going to litter, and people are going to vandalize.

I don't know what course layout you have as far as trash receptacles go but these 2 courses I go to have trash bins on every hole and the litter is almost non-existant.

http://http://www.dgcoursereview.com/course.php?id=759

http:///www.dgcoursereview.com/course.php?id=265

This course which is my favorite, does not have a trash bin at every hole. Result is litter on holes without trash bins.

People that litter out of apathy are going to continue to do so. But im sure more preventive measures like more bins, even 5 gallon buckets would reduce litter problems by alot.

 

[Cygnus]

whoops forgot to link http://www.dgcoursereview.com/course.php?id=416 Milo mciver state park (riverbend)

 

[Menacewarf]

The sad thing is that in reality the removal of courses wont effect these people. They'll just go find some other activity to muck up. :wall:

Here's some incites on their behavior;

Littering - Someone else will pick it up. That's why they pay taxes.
and of course just being drunk/ high and forgetting and or not caring about throwing out their trash. I've see empty bottles next to trash cans. I mean really?

I don't know if this is the case in your example but I have been to courses where some people leave the cans out of the trashcan to make it easier for the gatherers who invariably will dig through the trash to get the 5c reward if it is not left out. Particularly when golfers see the needy gatherers everyday, it tends to build somewhat of a relationship just being in the same time and space each day and given this tiny but significant piece of human contact sometimes one feels compelled to make some small gesture like emptying the can completely and leaving it beside the trashcan.

Right or wrong, I don't care to argue because yes it technically counts as littering but at least it has a little head and heart involved. Sometimes it's easy to get fed up with poor behavior and begin lumping and then cast your ire a smidge too far. Like I said I don't know if this was then case and besides adding this point I agree with you.