My buddy and I went to Deerfield Park in Irvine today to check out their progress on reopening the course. To our great surprise and pleasure, we bumped into the Park Manager "Bill" and Irvine DG Club member "Doug" while we were trying to find the first tee.
They told us all about their meetings and success with the City. Here's the scoop: After a DG incident in which a child was struck by a disc on Labor Day weekend, the City initially shut down the course.
Local newspaper article: http://www.ocregister.com/articles/disc-golf-park-2320883-course-city
Prior forum thread on the park closure: www.dgcoursereview.com/forums/showthread.php?t=815&highlight=deerfield
The local DG community, partly rallied by this Forum, organized the Irvine DG Club, showed up at City meetings, and convinced the City (with Innova's help) of the attractiveness of DG as an amenity in city parks.
As a result, Irvine has made a commitment to support DG in their parks, and they are redesigning and reinstalling 9-hole courses with formal tees and baskets at both Deerfield and University Parks. Further, there is a new large regional park in Irvine called "the Great Park", being built on the location of a former Marine base, and the IDGC has had some success convincing the appropriate authorities that a DG course at the Great Park would be a big winner, though it's not committed yet.
We got to play the under-construction new course with Doug, shooting from tee boxes defined by staked up caution tape (don't trip!) to poles sunk into the ground this afternoon which will support the baskets. The new layout shoots around the edge of the park in a counterclockwise direction, and mostly avoids shooting across the park's open, grassy middle. The new course, designed by Innova for free, will have a combination of rubber and sidewalk tees and real baskets instead of target poles as before.
It's a short layout, with the longest hole #9 under 300'. The designers, however, have taken good advantage of existing trees and hills to make play here challenging and fun. Doug said the tees will be installed within the next couple of days, and then they will install the baskets a few days after that. The latest date the course will be open is April 4th, but it could be ready sometime late next week.
THE IRVINE DISC GOLF CLUB NEEDS OUR HELP.
They have set up a web site to track the progress of the new courses, and they need to show participation to make the City feel good about continued support for disc golf in Irvine (particularly at the Great Park). The more, the merrier... so if you'd like to help out, create an account at and while you're there, check out course photos and status updates.
WWW.IRVINEDISCGOLFCLUB.COM -- GO HERE, SIGN UP, HELP DG IN IRVINE
I'll be posting a review of the new course (pre-course) sometime over the weekend. In the meantime, here's a funny picture of the new first hole's caution-tape tee. I'm looking forward to playing the course, installed, next week!
- nex
They told us all about their meetings and success with the City. Here's the scoop: After a DG incident in which a child was struck by a disc on Labor Day weekend, the City initially shut down the course.
Local newspaper article: http://www.ocregister.com/articles/disc-golf-park-2320883-course-city
Prior forum thread on the park closure: www.dgcoursereview.com/forums/showthread.php?t=815&highlight=deerfield
The local DG community, partly rallied by this Forum, organized the Irvine DG Club, showed up at City meetings, and convinced the City (with Innova's help) of the attractiveness of DG as an amenity in city parks.
As a result, Irvine has made a commitment to support DG in their parks, and they are redesigning and reinstalling 9-hole courses with formal tees and baskets at both Deerfield and University Parks. Further, there is a new large regional park in Irvine called "the Great Park", being built on the location of a former Marine base, and the IDGC has had some success convincing the appropriate authorities that a DG course at the Great Park would be a big winner, though it's not committed yet.
We got to play the under-construction new course with Doug, shooting from tee boxes defined by staked up caution tape (don't trip!) to poles sunk into the ground this afternoon which will support the baskets. The new layout shoots around the edge of the park in a counterclockwise direction, and mostly avoids shooting across the park's open, grassy middle. The new course, designed by Innova for free, will have a combination of rubber and sidewalk tees and real baskets instead of target poles as before.
It's a short layout, with the longest hole #9 under 300'. The designers, however, have taken good advantage of existing trees and hills to make play here challenging and fun. Doug said the tees will be installed within the next couple of days, and then they will install the baskets a few days after that. The latest date the course will be open is April 4th, but it could be ready sometime late next week.
THE IRVINE DISC GOLF CLUB NEEDS OUR HELP.
They have set up a web site to track the progress of the new courses, and they need to show participation to make the City feel good about continued support for disc golf in Irvine (particularly at the Great Park). The more, the merrier... so if you'd like to help out, create an account at and while you're there, check out course photos and status updates.
WWW.IRVINEDISCGOLFCLUB.COM -- GO HERE, SIGN UP, HELP DG IN IRVINE
I'll be posting a review of the new course (pre-course) sometime over the weekend. In the meantime, here's a funny picture of the new first hole's caution-tape tee. I'm looking forward to playing the course, installed, next week!
- nex
