Twin Cities area course vandalized by idiots protesting new user fees

[Apothecary]

Apo, will you pay my fine if one is levied?

sure i will!

post the ticket and i SWEAR the check will be in the mail.

 

[jdggna]

The best thing about disc golf is it so inexpensive to play.

This is NOT the best thing about disc golf.

 

[scarpfish]

Food for thought. ..

Percentage of courses in the DGCR directory that are pay to play: 13%
Percentage of courses in the DGCR Top 100 that are pay to play: 41%

 

[Subicon]

Pay to Play is where the sport needs to go.

I have no issue playing a small fee for certain courses as long as they are both well-maintained and offer plenty of challenges. But suggesting that all courses should be pay to play is ridiculous. Perhaps you're one of the elitist noob haters who want to prevent the sport for growing?

My home course is well maintained and free and I would prefer to keep it that way. It has been around since 1995 and is still in great shape. I would not be happy if I had to pay to use the park when everyone else used it for free for other activities, UNLESS the course underwent major changes and upgrades.


As far as the article is concerned, vandals are idiots. If they wanted to protest the fees, then they could have found much better ways to do it than trashing the collection office.

 

[Subicon]

This is NOT the best thing about disc golf.

Sorry, I meant to say "One of the best things...".

 

[bikinjack]

I don't have a problem with pay to play in general, but it sucks hard when you volunteer time, energy, and money to build something so that you'll have a place to play, and won't have to pay every time you use it. I've been there, done that, and I'm still not happy about it. I have a bad taste in my mouth just thinking about the USNWC. This situation didn't have anything to do with disc golf, but rather mountain biking.

Still no reason to be a vandal. Vandalism sucks. Stupidity sucks. There are always better ways to get your point across.

 

[iloqutiss1]

There is nothing wrong with pay to play. Some courses need it more than others but it IS needed. It doesn't make any sense to say that you can't stand paying when you find the course in disrepair. Think about it. The present condition of the course is why its now PTP. These things take time! What do you expect! Do you think they can start collecting $ on Monday and have a perfectly manicured course with new benches, signs, teepads and garbage cans at every hole by Wednesday. That's just dumb reasoning. If you don't want to pay, go somewhere free and quit your bitchin'. Then go back another year or two from now and you'll see where the $ went. Over time the course improvements will speak for themselves as long as the morons who are doing the vandalizing take their stupidity somewhere else.

Another thing to consider is the value of clubs taking ownership of a course. Take a look at Dretzka park. Why is it so well mantained and free.. hmmm. Because the GLDGC takes pride in it. They run leagues and fundraiser tourneys, sign sponsors, volenteers, etc that help pay for improvements. There's no magic fairy fixing our courses. Parks Depts can't go over budget to deal with a more and more expensive sport. Look at how fast its growing in both new courses and new players. This growth aint free! Duh!

Bottom line.. IF YOU WANT YOUR LOCAL COURSE TO STAY FREE TO PLAY, TAKE OWNERSHIP OF IT.. pick up trash. Organize leagues and tourneys and put the $ into your course. Make signs and benches youself. Just don't act like your entitled to free DG. Your not.

 

[superberry]

Bottom line.. IF YOU WANT YOUR LOCAL COURSE TO STAY FREE TO PLAY, TAKE OWNERSHIP OF IT.. pick up trash. Organize leagues and tourneys and put the $ into your course. Make signs and benches youself. Just don't act like your entitled to free DG. Your not.

AGREED!

Take it upon yourself (working with the course officials) to make some beautification efforts, clear dead branches, pick up trash, even go a step further and "adopt a hole".

If I catch you out at Winter Park picking up trash, I'll ask for your name and put you into a drawing for free discs at the end of the season.

If I know you're out there a lot and you can be doing "beautification" things like clearing fallen limbs, laying logs along paths and fairways, raking tees, etc, I'll even incorporate your name into the next printing of a tee sign if you've "adopted" a hole.

 

[DavidSauls]

Food for thought. ..

Percentage of courses in the DGCR directory that are pay to play: 13%
Percentage of courses in the DGCR Top 100 that are pay to play: 41%

Pay-to-pay courses are usually worth the price.

Some free courses are, too.

*

Fascinating that some here think governments can't make the rules for public property, or can't charge certain users, or can't enforce those rules. I've been paying for entry and use of various government-owned facilities all my life.

 

[craftsman]

I've never heard of a p2p public park. I don't see how that could be enforced.
I pay my $105 for p2p, but I don't like how dg'rs are singled out and made to pay extra. There's no way it cost more to maintain the courses than the bike paths. One park has a $9 entrance fee for all, due to thier water park, a water park that I have never used- they don't charge $5 for entrance and $4 for the wp.

 

[zenbot]

If there are enough players to justify it an on-site proshop would be better IMHO. The golfers get stuff they need. The city makes money to cover costs.

 

[craftsman]

Public parks.... Set up in the middle of neighborhoods. That's what were talking about right? Here, those parks would be patrolled by the city or county police- are they gonna assign a squd of them to assign and check for $2 bracelets?

Here, courses set up in public parks are free. Courses in metro, state, or basicly any park with it's own police and tolled entrance booths have at least a park entrance fee.

 

[tallpaul]

Pay to play with a pro shop is best of both worlds. Pro shop profits can pay employee to issue wrist bands or whatever form of documentation to show you have payed. Having a person actually monitoring to make sure persons have paid is a key step in the process; as Apoth has certainly pointed out! I have been thrilled for most of my disc golf playing time to have almost exclusively free courses. However, for those who are commenting on "the growth of the sport"....this sport has been growing hugely in recent years; and believe me, you have no need to worry about that. Now, the time has come to separate those who would rather have a less played course, from those who would like to have back ups on every tee, and a case of beer in their hands. As Scarp pointed out, highly rated courses are now highly pay to play; because this is needed to cover costs of good maintenance. As a person who has recently formed an organization to take over a major program that has been run for decades on tax dollars; I could post a long ramble on issues parks and rec departments are currently facing in regards to funds; but, will simply say that they are being hit just as hard as all other sectors of business at this time; and have had staff slashed by one quarter to half of total numbers of employees from what they were just a couple of years ago....

 

[buzzinb]

Here's a post that appears under the story:

"why do you people do this?
Talk about not thinking things through....Why destroy the property and cause MORE expenses such as cleaning up & boosting security? Those new, added EXTRA expenses, on top of the existing maintenance work that needs doing, guarantee fees will be needed to cover the work costs and maybe even higher fees in the longer term. I'm betting you're not from the neighborhood -- your taxes aren't going toward cleaning up the messes you've made either (or so you seem to think)....Thanks a lot for ruining the park and costing the rest of us even more of our hard-earned $$$ (fees or taxes, it's coming out of our pocket). Would you be happier if the Parks & Rec dept. closed the disc golf area entirely?"

I think it sums things up well. Vandalism is never the answer. If you want to protest, attend the city council meetings or simply don't patronize the new system. I really feel bad for the locals who now have to deal with any potential fallout from this. Can't see it making things any easier when it comes to getting approval for new courses or even keeping existing ones open. Sad.

 

[Sadjo]

Where I live the first Pay-to-Play course just opened a week ago. The owner of Chattooga Belle Farm is allowing anyone to play free until the third week in August. Then he'll be charging $3 to play or $25 for a season pass.

We've got three other 18 holes courses in the county and a dozen or so in the region. This pay to play course is out in the middle of nowhere yet most players that have played since the basket went in the ground two weeks ago and since it opened to the public one week ago said they would have no problem paying a fee to play...even with the course being a long drive from everywhere.

There are courses in my area that I would have no problem paying to play while some of the others I wouldn't play at all if I had to pay to play. Some courses are worth it.

Kaposia Park in South St. Paul, MN (the one in the article) is probably the most popular course in the Twin Cities. When I lived in Minneapolis, I would drive the hour to play Kaposia at least twice a month...in the process passing more than a dozen courses on my way.

 

[jdggna]

My home course is well maintained and free and I would prefer to keep it that way. It has been around since 1995 and is still in great shape. I would not be happy if I had to pay to use the park when everyone else used it for free for other activities, UNLESS the course underwent major changes and upgrades.

The course may be free for you, but I highly doubt it is "free" for everybody. Most people here seem to think the city pays all of the expenses that go along with a course. This may be true in some cases, but behind most courses that are well maintained and taken care of there is a club of some sort with members who pay dues to maintain and improve the course. Cities pay the bare minimum when it comes to these things. Without the funding of local clubs, many courses would become outdated and fall into disrepair. Courses that are in good shape without any additional monetary support from other organizations are still not "free" for everybody. In cases where the city is the only entity providing money, improvements and cleanups are often only done by volunteers donating a day of their time to pick up trash, debris, add/empty trash cans, water crossings, etc.

And Cydisc is far from a noob-hater.

 

[garublador]

The thing about Kaposia is it's the kind of course that you might not notice if it is maintained well, but you'll definitely notice if it isn't maintained at all. It's not just a park that would get mowed anyway with some teepads and baskets scattered around. It takes specific work to keep the course nice and because of how secluded some of the holes are it tends to see more vandalism than an open course.

I can't possibly see how pay to play would hurt the growth of the sport. How popular is ball golf? I've only played once and it was at an OK, but nothing special course and it cost me more to play once than a season pass to any of the pay to play disc golf courses I've been to. It's so popular you have to reserve a time to play ahead of time. It costs more for a game of bowling or putt-putt golf than a whole day of disc golf on a world class course. It costs me more to sit through a 2 hour movie with a half hour of commercials than it does to disc golf for a day. Somehow all of those activities don't seem to be hurting too bad for popularity.

 

[DavidSauls]

I've never heard of a p2p public park. I don't see how that could be enforced.
I pay my $105 for p2p, but I don't like how dg'rs are singled out and made to pay extra. There's no way it cost more to maintain the courses than the bike paths. One park has a $9 entrance fee for all, due to thier water park, a water park that I have never used- they don't charge $5 for entrance and $4 for the wp.

"Public park" covers a wide range of facilities. Some are "neighborhood parks" where you can walk in off the streets from any side; these would be very hard to monitor. State Parks are also public parks, and whereas they used to be free now they charge you to enter, then an additional charge for certain facilities (like disc golf). County parks on a state-park design, same thing.

Some city parks have a gated entrance, as well, may or may not charge fees.

Before my disc golf days there was a neighborhood park / sports facility near me. If you played tennis, you paid. If you used the soccer field or playground, it was free. If you wanted to use the baseball fields, you had to be part of the baseball league (no "general public"). The basketball gym was free during certain hours, but those in leagues had to pay. It cost to play billiards but not to use the weight room. Etc.

It may or may not be a good idea to charge disc golfers in a public park, especially where other users aren't charged anything, but it's not unique, either.

 

[Bubbajoe]

It simply amazing to me how many DG's sweat 5$. If there ever were a course in need of pay to play it's Kaposia. No, new benches, signage, and tee pads aren't going to appear overnight, but atleast now theres a source of funds to cover them. One major improvment that did immedeatly take effect however was a greatly curbed flow of jackasses. Worth the five bucks any day.

 

[dodgeball]

The course may be free for you, but I highly doubt it is "free" for everybody. Most people here seem to think the city pays all of the expenses that go along with a course. This may be true in some cases, but behind most courses that are well maintained and taken care of there is a club of some sort with members who pay dues to maintain and improve the course. Cities pay the bare minimum when it comes to these things. Without the funding of local clubs, many courses would become outdated and fall into disrepair. Courses that are in good shape without any additional monetary support from other organizations are still not "free" for everybody. In cases where the city is the only entity providing money, improvements and cleanups are often only done by volunteers donating a day of their time to pick up trash, debris, add/empty trash cans, water crossings, etc.

And Cydisc is far from a noob-hater.

I think this comment gets it about right. In public parks, the basic maintainence of the park is alreadycovered by the city or county. Even if there was no disc golf course, the grass would still have to be mowed and branches cleared away, etc. Any improvements (incl. concrete tee pads, new sign posts) can be done by local clubs and I don't think most members have a problem with this since they probably use the course the most. Now everybody can help by just not littering on the course and maybe helping with cleanup.

I do think that pay to play at a public facility would really cut down on the enjoyment of a lot of people who play disc golf. Also, I would say that the fact that disc golf is still largely free attracts people to the game and probably initially attracted those people who have played for a number of years and now support pay to play. And yes I would say this has a slightly anti-noobie feel to it. For me, I just don't like the obligation to have to pay every time.