i want to play the 10 oldest courses. what are they?

[JTacoma03]

I was co-designer of NE Lions Park, OK, with Steady Ed in 1977. This was one of the first ten disc pole courses in the country. It was originally a 9-hole course, but it was expanded to 18 holes. The back nine was designed by Jack Wilson to go all the way around the lake. After this course was installed, 13 new pole courses were soon installed in Oklahoma over the next two years, with the second course being Will Rogers in OKC. Oklahoma had 14 courses by ~1980, all installed before Texas had a single pole course!

Clyde Fant in Shreveport is listed as one of the early courses, but it originally was a 27-hole course with concrete culverts as targets. I first played it in 1978 at 2 am, with Jim (the Texas Frisbee Beast) Bachus while returning home from the NAS disc golf event in Huntsville, AL. This course is in a wide median of the Clyde Fant Expressway. Because the median is well lit, it can be played around the clock. The pole holes replaced the culverts in the early 1980s, but after nine holes were stolen (reportedly by someone from the Dallas area, though I don't know if that rumor was ever confirmed) the course was redesigned from a 27-hole to an 18-hole course. I think the original design was by Jeff Myers, who was a left-handed, distance "freak", but it was redesigned by Brian Harrison, who spearheaded many of the early courses in the Shreveport area.

Great info...I'm stoked that Louisiana has one of the oldest courses. I played Clyde Fant without knowing the history!

There were actually 27 holes there last time I played (2010) though - the 18 in the median, then you had to cross under the highway in a little tunnel to the other side where there were 9 safari-like holes. My group had to make up the holes because we couldn't find the teepads, but there were baskets.

 

[Disc Fiend]

You definitely have to have Rutgers and Sedgley on that list.

 

[Disc Fiend]

I don't think there are all that great of records of which courses were installed in what order, maybe just look at all the courses with install dates before 1980 and work on that list?

^This.

"Sedgley was played as an object course for almost a year. Club members marked the original tees with signs made of upright 2×4′s with the hole number and layout carved into its surface. The original targets were trees. In the summer of 1978 the Pole Hole baskets and tee signs arrived from DGA. The club members and Fairmount Park staff installed them creating what is claimed to be the first permanent Pole Hole disc golf course on the East Coast, and certainly one of the first dozen in the world overall.

Ed Headrick kept no official record of the original order of the first Pole Hole courses. Part of the confusion in the record keeping stems from the fact that many disc golf courses existed with object targets, some for years, before baskets were installed. Other early courses were not permanent."

quoted from Sedgley Woods History.

 

[hummer1025]

There was another early disc pole hole course at a KOA campground near Mobile, Alabama. One of the first PDGA events (maybe "the first") was held there, but the course was yanked out after a female competitor decided to play topless in this event. Tom Monroe played in this event and so I'm sure he knows more about the details of that early course.

 

[filobedo]

I heard Leonard Park in Mt Kisco NY is one of the very early courses. Steady Ed designed 1977.
http://www.dgcoursereview.com/course.php?id=1473

I was in NYC for 5 months last year and played Leonard Park 3 times by taking the train from the city and I was told it was possibly one of the first courses east of the Mississippi. It is a really fun course and an easy commute from Grand Central in Manhattan, about an hour each way and you can walk to the course in 10 minutes. Also, the train back to the city runs about every 30 - 45 minutes and there is a Gelato stand at the platform in Mt Kisco.

 

[Columbia gorge]

Rockwood Central Park est. 1980. I believe to be Oregon's oldest park.

 

[StarFirebird]

Winged Deer's page says 1992. Warriors Path is listed as 1980.

Yeah that's right. I always get those two mixed up.

 

[GordEzo]

Winskill Park -1976 !

Pretty cool !

Just looked up Winskill Park , Tsawwassen , British Columbia , Canada and its listed as the first pole hole course in Canada , installed in 1976 by the Royal Canadian Frisbee Association !
I guess I better hit that one next time I head down to Vancouver !
I thought I remembered that it was pretty old , wish I started back then , instead of 2010 ! :doh:

 

[timj5304]

http://www.dgcoursereview.com/course.php?id=630

Hansen Park in New Brighton, MN is one of 4 "cone" courses remaining to us coneheads knowledge. 2 cone courses both built in 1979 remain in Minnesota, Moir Park I believe still has its original 9 hole layout. Hansen is 12 holes, with 5 chain baskets and 7 cones. For our weekly random dubs league one of the guys made a "mini cone" that we make a hole with a long and short aprox 100-150 ft long.


Mini Cone by timj5304, on Flickr


Here is a look at Moir Park
http://www.dgcoursereview.com/course.php?id=549&mode=ci

 

[willsfc]

I know my course isn't one of the oldest, but Veterans Park in Florence, AL was established in 1983.. and we still have the original baskets!

Not the oldest in my state, Brahan Spring holds that honor.

 

[DGRZ001]

Jeff,

Welcome to DGCR!

The first pole hole course I played was at the Peru KOA in 1978. I did not know that you helped design the course in Norman. Cool!

 

[hummer1025]

Hi Bill, thanks. Yep, I designed NE Lions as an undergrad at OU. I also taught college-accredited Frisbee skills classes at OU in 1978-1980, which were quite popular. I later designed the first course in Baton Rouge at Highland Road Park while in grad school at LSU and ran the first PDGA events in the city. After I moved to Tucson in 1988 I designed the long tees at the Santa Cruz River Park and started running the first PDGA events (the Tumbleweed Open) in the city. While in grad school at Iowa State I helped with the installation of the Carroll Marty course in Gateway Hills Park in Ames, though it was designed several years earlier by Jeff Harper. That course was only two blocks from the tower dorms and I think it was one of the busiest courses in the country, at least when there wasn't snow on the ground.

 

[Khao Pra]

great thread. i've played at least a dozen of those 70's installations. while not anywhere near the oldest, madeline bertrand county park in niles michigan will be having their 30th annual summer tournament next year. steady ed design from the early 80's.

i remember west park in joliet well, i shared the doubles course record there with -17 during a round with a very solid local player named shawn harmon. not sure if he's still playing or not, we shot that -17 nearly 15 years ago.

 

[jasonc]

Yeah, that could be re West. I still hope to get up to Adler sometime - it's near where I grew up, and had the first basket I ever laid eyes on.

I'm sort of surprised to hear about Adler being 9 holes - but I guess it has been for a good long while (including in the oldest DGCR review, from 2008). I wonder if the main DGCR page once had it listed as 18, and was very slow to update? I'd have been tempted to wager a small amount that it said 18 when first I joined this site.

I'll take that bet.

Adler has been a 9 hole course at least since I started playing. It has always been my home away from home course.

 

[jenb]

I played Brahen Springs at US Womens last year.

In other news, I saw that Skyline Park in Dallas was reportedly a 9 hole course established in or before 1978, but other reports show it hosting a Junior World Championships in 1981, and then supposedly being installed for the first time in 1982. So who knows when it was actually installed. But many reports say that 9 baskets were donated by Whammo, so that would seem to support the reports of the original 9 hole layout. Skyline was pulled and the baskets were relocated to BB Owen (now known as Bad Basket Owen), which is still the ONLY course in the city of Dallas. I play that one a few times a year. The baskets truly are bad.

So, basically, I think we have to consider whether any of the first 10 courses were pulled, as Skyline was pulled.

 

[hummer1025]

As I mentioned in an earlier post, one very early course was pulled, the KOA campground course in south Alabama. It was taken out because a female competitor decided to play topless in a tournament (it was the 70s, after all). I haven't heard of any other of the first 10 course being pulled, though there was consideration of that happening at Oak Grove about 20 years ago.

Skyline definitely wasn't installed in 1978, at least not with disc pole holes. I think 1982 sounds more like it, as Texas didn't have a single pole hole course until around 1982. There was a nice object courses in Dallas though, on Turtle Creek at Reverchon Park. I and a number of others from Oklahoma came down to play in the Flying Fairwell to the 70s tournament there in 1979, which was played between Christmas and New Years. The hot players in the Dallas area at that time included Tom Wingo, Moises Alfaro, and Ricky (the Texas Rocket) McCurley. I recall one particularly controversial hole at Reverchon; it played uphill through two narrow mando gates that were widely separated (and there was no drop spot, as you had to unwind back then). There were other early object courses in Texas, such as the famous Waterloo Park course in Austin and the one on the campus of the University of Houston (there was a mando that played through an opening in a metal sculpture there).

I remember Greg Hosfeld and I were traveling through the Dallas area in 1987, a month or two before he won the Worlds in Toronto, after playing in the Mid-Missouri Open in Colombia and a tourney in Tulsa. We didn't have much money and so we decided to camp at Skyline (illegally I'm sure). It wasn't bad except for the mosquitos. We were sleeping out in the open when the sprinklers came on at like 2 in the morning. We took advantage of the sprinklers by getting our soap and shampoo to take a shower. We later played some night golf on the course. Those were the days!

 

[jenb]

^^^Wow, that's some great history. If you are in Dallas sometime, and feel like playing that old object course again, and remember the layout, I'd love to learn and document that layout.

 

[hummer1025]

I would show you if I could, but I don't remember the whole layout. That was 35 years ago, so I imagine that the configuration of the trees has changed. I only played in one tournament there, which I won! I remember it being nice park and a fun course. If you check with some of the older players in the area, you might find someone who recalls that course. I heard that Ricky McCurley passed away a few years ago and I lost track of Moises and Tom many years ago.

 

[hipster]

Do all the other Steady Ed designed courses feature asphalt around the baskets? The courses he designed for the Hamilton County Oh park district all have the asphalt around the basket, it's a bit goofy.

 

[hummer1025]

No, Ed's courses don't all have asphalt, and in fact, I've never seen that in the hundreds of courses that I've played. Asphalt must be something that your park department decided to use. I've seen concrete on the surface below pole holes on some courses, but I never liked that because it can cause the disc to skip or roll away.