-
Discover new ways to elevate your game with the updated DGCourseReview app!
It's entirely free and enhanced with features shaped by user feedback to ensure your best experience on the course. (App Store or Google Play)
Pay to play disc golf
- Thread starter stevep
- Start date
Thumber
Double Eagle Member
- Joined
- Jun 30, 2010
- Messages
- 1,712
Nothing is free. If you aren't paying for the upkeep, infrastructure and management of the course, then the tax payer likely is.
Having public DG courses available is great for growing in terms of getting new people out. The illusion those new people get that the sport is free is a detriment in my opinion and makes it difficult to establish any sort of real credibility when attempting to negotiate with either municipal authorities or private interest.
Pay to play is the future of our sport.
bhuff
Double Eagle Member
The only courses I have had to pay to play were courses you had to pay to get into the park aswell...Sucks they charge you to enter and to play but they gotta pay for maintanence some how.
NothinButChing
* Ace Member *
the times I have paid I have felt afterwards that it was totally worth it and will most likely continue to pay on such courses
There will always be free courses for noobs to take their teenie bopper girlfriends to. That way they can drink beer and burn herbs and walk real slow and vandalize stuff and hold each other up and give the sport a bad name. Then they can invite their friends to play too. In the meanwhile I will hopefully be on a pay to play course enjoying the fruits of my past free course labors. Not many around where I live though.
Yeah, as we all know, when companies started bottling water and selling it for $1/bottle, people stopped drinking water. Oh wait.
:doh:
Anyways, here's a excellent example of what free gets you...
This is what Hole 14 on my home course looked like a year ago...
This is what it looks like today...
Uploaded with ImageShack.us
And no that's not neglect. The city INTENDS to let that grass grow until it looks like a natural prairie. I can't wait to be looking for my disc for a half hour in grass that used to be mowed.
There are plenty of other stories like this all over the country, and I'm sure there will be more.
Lesson to be learned here. You get what you don't pay for.
I like the idea of pay to play for all the above reasons, and have played in the San Diego area: Morley Field, Sun Valley (on a golf course), Mission Trails (on a golf course), and Emerald Isle (on a golf course). I see the spectrum of courses like ball golf courses. There are cheap munis or Mom and Pops that beginners and kids go to hack, never fix a divot, never fix a pitch mark on a green, never rake a sand trap, and chew up the course. That's all fine and dandy for someone who doesn't give a sh!t, and the courses don't invest in maintanence. The better courses bring in better players, and the amenities, conditions, etiquete and the experience is better for all. I don't play munis anymore, and when I lived in San Diego, didn't play Morley when the other courses came in. (Now there are other courses built that are free there!!) Don't have to contend with the douchebags.
[email protected]
Par Member
NOTHING is FREE!!! Pay to play is the way, get used to it.
Drink beer, burn herbs and walk real slow. Now that's funny.
Grover
Par Member
Not sure about your state, but I've lived in Georgia and Indiana and in both of those states, "free" basketball courts, baseball/softball diamonds and tennis courts exist. They suffer from neglect, experience vandalism, have to be cleared of trash, etc., just like disc golf courses.
And some folks pay to play at private clubs, which are a little nicer.
But none of those sports fret over their future based on one kind of facility erasing the other from the face of the earth...
IMO, BOTH kinds of courses are the future of disc golf.
And some folks pay to play at private clubs, which are a little nicer.
But none of those sports fret over their future based on one kind of facility erasing the other from the face of the earth...
IMO, BOTH kinds of courses are the future of disc golf.
Last edited:
I'll never get tired of shelling out my $5 for all-day-discin' at BRP. It's worlds nicer than anything else around where I live (Although I haven't played the new 9-hole course that claims to be the longest 9 holes in MN). Plus, every 5th round is free! Assuming you pay before the pro shop closes so you get a sticker to prove your purchase. Also, I've heard of some folks turning in lost discs and getting some beers or snacks out of it. Pretty sweet incentives IMO. :hfive:
sthomas128
Par Member
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^:thmbup:ø¤º°`°º¤ø:thmbup:ø¤º°`°º¤ø :thmbup:ø¤º°`°º¤ø:thmbup:ø¤º°`°º¤ø:thmbup:^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
I'm for charging for entry into parks, but I don't like the concept of charging extra for using specific park facilities.
Do they charge you to use the bathroom?
Do they charge you to use the tennis courts?
Do they charge you to use the basketball courts?
Do they charge you to use the picnic tables?
Do they charge you to sit near the lakes, or in the fields?
Charge everyone to enter the park, and ask what amenities the individuals are planning on using at the entrance. If they say Disc Golf, make a note of it and use those funds to maintain the course.
Now if the course is on private land and privately owned / maintained, then feel free to charge if that's what is necessary to continue to provide a quality course.
Public parks are already funded by...well, the public.
Disc Golf's appeal is that it is very low cost and playable by nearly anyone with an arm and the will.
Keep it rolling.
Do they charge you to use the bathroom?
Do they charge you to use the tennis courts?
Do they charge you to use the basketball courts?
Do they charge you to use the picnic tables?
Do they charge you to sit near the lakes, or in the fields?
Charge everyone to enter the park, and ask what amenities the individuals are planning on using at the entrance. If they say Disc Golf, make a note of it and use those funds to maintain the course.
Now if the course is on private land and privately owned / maintained, then feel free to charge if that's what is necessary to continue to provide a quality course.
Public parks are already funded by...well, the public.
Disc Golf's appeal is that it is very low cost and playable by nearly anyone with an arm and the will.
Keep it rolling.
All of those involve a small amount of space, and with the exception of the bathroom, not much maintenance. A DG course by comparison is a patch of 10-30 acres that needs to be mowed where upwards of 100 people a day are trampling the same grass over and over. That being said, I've seen plenty of free bathrooms (no TP and smells like piss), free tennis courts (crumbling), free basketball courts (also crumbling, and have no nets), and free picnic tables (smashed and carved by vandals, and rotted by the elements). They look exactly like free disc golf courses do.
Already done at most state parks, minus the Q & A. Many pay parks also leave the users to pay on the honor system.
Typical copout by entitlement oriented folks. Free disc golf is not a right.
And it can still be very low cost with a nominal user fee. Most courses would pay for themselves in under two years, meaning we'd have seed money for more courses. I assure you if pay courses ever became even one-third the norm, we'd never look back. But I think that's what has you people insisting it be free are worried about.
And I wouldn't worry. I don't ever see it becoming universal.
We pay taxes, the city provides us with services. How is this a copout? There is a specific city tax allotment for parks and recreation. If they don't want to spend that on things that I like, then I will rebel!
If enough tax payers demand and utilize a disc golf course, how is this any less important for the city to provide and maintain?
The parks are there...the space would be otherwise unused.
I understand that there's cost involved in starting up and maintaining these things, but many of these parks are funded by the tax payers for just this reason.
therealbigtrav
Birdie Member
Whether you pay it in taxes, or pay it in user fees, it still costs you money. If it's in fees you're more likely to see that money go directly back into the course.
discpicable
Eagle Member
This debate is settled. Pay to play for the win!
lol
Keep it cheap and accessible...don't need to duplicate ball golf. Let the sport be its own entitiy.
Keep it cheap and accessible...don't need to duplicate ball golf. Let the sport be its own entitiy.
jimbosprint
Double Eagle Member
- Joined
- Mar 23, 2010
- Messages
- 1,820
public courses - should be free and well maintained with our tax dollars
private courses - should be excellent or only cost a few dollars to play (both is good)
private courses - should be excellent or only cost a few dollars to play (both is good)
Thumber
Double Eagle Member
- Joined
- Jun 30, 2010
- Messages
- 1,712
i don't understand how any of the "free" advocates can expect someone else to pay for their hobby. DG requires huge spaces and in a City, open space has value to many different special interest groups. P2P and stop having to deal with all those other special interest groups infringing on your "fairway".
Similar threads
