Tenacious EJ
Par Member
Buzz, I watched you guys play that 3rd hole and it looked like everyone was having trouble staying in bounds. The lay of the land is such that staying in bounds of 3 is nigh impossible, at least for anyone attempting par. I watched you guys throw, I watched my dad and I throw, and I've watched people I've played with throw. Throws that land 20-30 ft in bounds repeatedly skip out or roll out, thanks to the angle of the hill. Its damn hard. And when contrasted with holes like 5 and 17, which are reachable in one with a putter, it feels like two separate courses. My problem is this: I play the blues because except for a few holes (3, 4, 8, 11, 13) on the gold tees, par is simply out of the question. However, on the rest of the golds, par is relatively in reach every time. I don't have the arm to par 11 and 13 from the golds, but 3, 4, and 8 have their own issues. 4 gold is simply not a reasonable shot and I refuse to play it. #8 from blue or gold will have to wait until cleared before most people even know if its a good hole or not. But 3, 3 has issues. Period. And trimming a few pines ain't gonna cut it. What's the point of making a huge deal about keeping those mando's on 3 to "keep people off the Bermuda Grass" when people completely ignore them in the first place?!? And once again I ask: will we ever get a drop zone? Its something you continue to ignore but something I feel is kinda necessary here. Otherwise your intended design will be ignored. I assume folks are more careful when there are softballers out there in the grass (I myself haven't played it when there are). This also reminds me- what IS OB and in bounds on 4? It can't be the grass cut, because the basket itself would be OB. I've had numerous people asking me that question.
As for the distance between 15's basket and 16's tee, I say BS. There isn't anywhere near enough traffic out there to say it would be dangerous. 3's gold tee is 25 ft away from 2's blue, and a really bad throw could slam into folks on 3 with the full force of a drive, but nobody has complained. Off the top of my head I can think of a dozen holes in the area where the basket/next tee are closer, and have drastically more foot traffic (and a higher likelihood of injury) and yet they are routinely played. You can't deny it'd make 16 a better hole. And while it is close to the street, that last section of street is rarely used. Almost never, in fact. And its certainly less likely to come into contact with a car than an errant shot on 1, 15, 18, or hell, even 4.
I say this not to make you mad, or dampen your spirits, but to make you understand why courses go into the ground baskets first with dirt tees, because courses that look great on paper often need tweaking. As New013 said, its not a championship course, its just not. But it could be a really great local course, if a few holes were tweaked. Unfortunately, you guys have stubbornly refused to consider many changes. You ignored my suggestions, even though I was intimately familiar with the foot and vehicle traffic of the park, before anything was even in the ground. You resisted the FACT that there just aren't a whole lot of professional disc golfers out there playing your course before designing a course primarily for them. You've designed a course for folks who aren't going to play it, and, quite honestly, isn't all that fun, and that's kind of the Cardinal sin for course design. Its why you don't have any high reviews, and why this currently isn't a destination course. I play it a lot because I live close enough to walk to it but when I want to go out and have fun, I go elsewhere. I have never seen a course that eats so many discs, and some of that isn't your fault, but some of it absolutely is. This could be a fun place to play, and it could be a really nice course, but when you consider that this whole course has beautiful new pads and baskets, with signs to follow, is mown and kept up on a regular basis, and yet STILL has not gotten any good reviews, you have to ask yourselves why. And here it is: 3 is a bad hole that should have been split up into two, or cut in half, take your pick. 4 gold is pretty much an impossible shot for the majority of golfers out there. The blue tee should be 25 ft north and the gold 50 ft south of the current blue tee to give the average golfers a legitimate shot at birdie. 5 blue is too short- blue and gold probably should tee off from the same pad. 8 should be cut either in half or split into two, and the entire left side of the hill cut to fairway height (even still, 8 will be the worst, most aggravating hole around due to the untamable untouchable rough on the right. 13 is too long, too narrow, and too close to playing fields and yards. It is unfixable. In years to come you can expect it to be pulled out due to complaints by the park staff, families of field users, and the residents of Gibsonville who had the misfortune of having their backyards touching your 13th hole. 16 and 17 are too short, and 17 is too close to traffic. Both have thick rough followed by OB's into another fenced-in property as their right margin and streets to their left. The blue and gold tees for 18 make no sense and either aim at thick rough OB into yet another property or creep alongside it, with a road on the left.
Its a poor, poor design, no matter how you look at it, and yet, parts of it are salvageable. There are lots of things that are forgivable in course design, but too much, and you have to accept some blame. Nobody, I mean nobody, wants to play a course that is full to the brim with mando's, OB's, and proximity to foot and road traffic, with a side of losing your discs. It is one thing to design a course near cow pastures and other properties, its quite another to have them be the margins of your fairways, because when you cross over into those properties you've lost a disc, and it encourages trespassing to retrieve them. Its unfun, and it didn't have to be. And its designed for more than the average golfer. If you have the land to do so, and want to design a great Championship course from the ground up, by all means do so. But when you have a small parcel of land in an already established multiuse park, you really don't have that option. I said this when I first heard your ideas, and I'm saying it again now. You should have designed a course for the majority of golfers, a white/blue design, with a possibility for gold tees in the future if you can figure out how to design it. But you are deluding yourself if you think this will ever be a destination course, at least in its current form. Its not too late to fix it- it won't be fun or easy, but it could certainly be changed enough that folks found it fun and playable. The question is, will you accept this. My guess is no. And its a shame, because some of the holes are really quite nice. 1 is a good starter, and it jumps right into 2, a hole I never imagined but which I think is brilliant. 4 blue is fine, but could be better if I knew a perfect throw would mean birdie is a possibility for the average golfer. 5 from the short par 2 from the blue tee isn't a terrible hole, but admittedly not much of a challenge, and the blue tee should be moved to the gold. 6/7 are nice holes, as are 9/10, though the blue for 10 is a bit simple. 11 aggravates the hell out of me and I wouldn't change a thing about it. 12 is another great idea and I like it a lot. 14 is a hole I like despite the fence and pasture full of cows as the fairway margin, and 15 is also quite nice- a hole with 3 separate identities, an OB on either side, but wide enough to overcome those issues. I've already said how 16 could be improved, and 17 is just a loss. 18 should have the blue tee moved up to the red, and the gold should be moved to the side of the road basically across the street from the tees of 10 (essentially cut out the first throws from both present tees and shave a stroke from the hole). If you had the humility to fix it, you'd find a more appreciative group of golfers who enjoy playing your course. It's a hard thing to swallow, pride, but if you want a great course, I think you've got to rethink your player base. This may be a "player's course," but at the end of the day its still a public course, and ANYONE who wants to can and will play it, and that's something you should have considered from day 1.
As for the distance between 15's basket and 16's tee, I say BS. There isn't anywhere near enough traffic out there to say it would be dangerous. 3's gold tee is 25 ft away from 2's blue, and a really bad throw could slam into folks on 3 with the full force of a drive, but nobody has complained. Off the top of my head I can think of a dozen holes in the area where the basket/next tee are closer, and have drastically more foot traffic (and a higher likelihood of injury) and yet they are routinely played. You can't deny it'd make 16 a better hole. And while it is close to the street, that last section of street is rarely used. Almost never, in fact. And its certainly less likely to come into contact with a car than an errant shot on 1, 15, 18, or hell, even 4.
I say this not to make you mad, or dampen your spirits, but to make you understand why courses go into the ground baskets first with dirt tees, because courses that look great on paper often need tweaking. As New013 said, its not a championship course, its just not. But it could be a really great local course, if a few holes were tweaked. Unfortunately, you guys have stubbornly refused to consider many changes. You ignored my suggestions, even though I was intimately familiar with the foot and vehicle traffic of the park, before anything was even in the ground. You resisted the FACT that there just aren't a whole lot of professional disc golfers out there playing your course before designing a course primarily for them. You've designed a course for folks who aren't going to play it, and, quite honestly, isn't all that fun, and that's kind of the Cardinal sin for course design. Its why you don't have any high reviews, and why this currently isn't a destination course. I play it a lot because I live close enough to walk to it but when I want to go out and have fun, I go elsewhere. I have never seen a course that eats so many discs, and some of that isn't your fault, but some of it absolutely is. This could be a fun place to play, and it could be a really nice course, but when you consider that this whole course has beautiful new pads and baskets, with signs to follow, is mown and kept up on a regular basis, and yet STILL has not gotten any good reviews, you have to ask yourselves why. And here it is: 3 is a bad hole that should have been split up into two, or cut in half, take your pick. 4 gold is pretty much an impossible shot for the majority of golfers out there. The blue tee should be 25 ft north and the gold 50 ft south of the current blue tee to give the average golfers a legitimate shot at birdie. 5 blue is too short- blue and gold probably should tee off from the same pad. 8 should be cut either in half or split into two, and the entire left side of the hill cut to fairway height (even still, 8 will be the worst, most aggravating hole around due to the untamable untouchable rough on the right. 13 is too long, too narrow, and too close to playing fields and yards. It is unfixable. In years to come you can expect it to be pulled out due to complaints by the park staff, families of field users, and the residents of Gibsonville who had the misfortune of having their backyards touching your 13th hole. 16 and 17 are too short, and 17 is too close to traffic. Both have thick rough followed by OB's into another fenced-in property as their right margin and streets to their left. The blue and gold tees for 18 make no sense and either aim at thick rough OB into yet another property or creep alongside it, with a road on the left.
Its a poor, poor design, no matter how you look at it, and yet, parts of it are salvageable. There are lots of things that are forgivable in course design, but too much, and you have to accept some blame. Nobody, I mean nobody, wants to play a course that is full to the brim with mando's, OB's, and proximity to foot and road traffic, with a side of losing your discs. It is one thing to design a course near cow pastures and other properties, its quite another to have them be the margins of your fairways, because when you cross over into those properties you've lost a disc, and it encourages trespassing to retrieve them. Its unfun, and it didn't have to be. And its designed for more than the average golfer. If you have the land to do so, and want to design a great Championship course from the ground up, by all means do so. But when you have a small parcel of land in an already established multiuse park, you really don't have that option. I said this when I first heard your ideas, and I'm saying it again now. You should have designed a course for the majority of golfers, a white/blue design, with a possibility for gold tees in the future if you can figure out how to design it. But you are deluding yourself if you think this will ever be a destination course, at least in its current form. Its not too late to fix it- it won't be fun or easy, but it could certainly be changed enough that folks found it fun and playable. The question is, will you accept this. My guess is no. And its a shame, because some of the holes are really quite nice. 1 is a good starter, and it jumps right into 2, a hole I never imagined but which I think is brilliant. 4 blue is fine, but could be better if I knew a perfect throw would mean birdie is a possibility for the average golfer. 5 from the short par 2 from the blue tee isn't a terrible hole, but admittedly not much of a challenge, and the blue tee should be moved to the gold. 6/7 are nice holes, as are 9/10, though the blue for 10 is a bit simple. 11 aggravates the hell out of me and I wouldn't change a thing about it. 12 is another great idea and I like it a lot. 14 is a hole I like despite the fence and pasture full of cows as the fairway margin, and 15 is also quite nice- a hole with 3 separate identities, an OB on either side, but wide enough to overcome those issues. I've already said how 16 could be improved, and 17 is just a loss. 18 should have the blue tee moved up to the red, and the gold should be moved to the side of the road basically across the street from the tees of 10 (essentially cut out the first throws from both present tees and shave a stroke from the hole). If you had the humility to fix it, you'd find a more appreciative group of golfers who enjoy playing your course. It's a hard thing to swallow, pride, but if you want a great course, I think you've got to rethink your player base. This may be a "player's course," but at the end of the day its still a public course, and ANYONE who wants to can and will play it, and that's something you should have considered from day 1.
opcorn:
